The ULTIMATE Secret to Great Spaghetti

a reply to: rickymouse

I've made egg noodles for things like beef and noodles but isn't that different than spaghetti noodles?

I thought those were just water and flour.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: rickymouse

I've made egg noodles for things like beef and noodles but isn't that different than spaghetti noodles?

I thought those were just water and flour.

For spaghetti we might just use egg white instead of the yolk some times, but usually we just use the whole egg for spaghetti too. I never made pasta without eggs at all, but it would seem you would need some sort of binder or maybe you would have to use all semolina or something.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Yeah, the fad started there too twenty to thirty years ago.

No it didn't. My father's side came here in the 1800's and they were already cooking their pasta al dente, it's more of a Southern Italian thing.

Also, undercooked pasta has a lower hypoglycemic level than over cooked pasta so I'm not sure why you're thinking it's any better or any worse than the mush Northern Italians like to eat.

a reply to: rickymouse

I just looked at a box of generic spaghetti and it contained 2 flours and no egg.

I assume homemade is different though.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
I just looked at a box of generic spaghetti and it contained 2 flours and no egg.

I assume homemade is different though.

Italian hard pasta, Durum wheat semolina, doesn't contain eggs. Soft pasta does.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Ma quante cazzate vero?

Sembra che tu sei l'unico che sa mangiare qua.

Pure io se si vuole.

a reply to: Trueman

I was thinking of you.

Someone needs to educate the barbarians.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

The Italians I know all came from Northern Italy I think. I did not realize that the area of Italy made a difference.

Anytime you dehydrate something it changes the chemistry. That change in chemistry is what preserves the food, restoring it back to detoxify the food is necessary. Some people are more sensitive to anhydrate chemistry than others, that is an ancestral trait. My mason Tino and his brother came from Italy in the thirties. They ate a lot of homemade Italian meats, and their choice of preservative was salt peter.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Lascio a te questo lavoro. Dopo ti faciamo santo.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I was reading of where noodles and spaghetti originated from

The inner park of tree branches. Maple and poplar mostly were utilized, but other kinds were used. They skinned the bark off of trees and boiled them till tender, they looked like noodles, but some people tore them into shreds...spaghetti.

Talk about a useless piece of knowledge I found. But I am someday going to try maple bark noodles just to see how they taste. That practice originated around egypt and Italy from what the article said, but it also could have originated much earlier, but nobody wrote about it.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: Trueman

I was thinking of you.

Someone needs to educate the barbarians.

originally posted by: rickymouse
The Italians I know all came from Northern Italy I think. I did not realize that the area of Italy made a difference.

Italy is micro-regional, you could get punched in the face for adding an ingredient to a dish made in one village a certain way and not in yours the same way if that person came for dinner.

originally posted by: Trueman
Lascio a te questo lavoro. Dopo ti faciamo santo.

LOL. Thanks.

originally posted by: NightVision
My mom's side is from central-eastern Italy. I actually did not know the aforementioned information in above said video.

Here's a little cinema trivia for you, the origins of that scene were from Quentin's mother's boyfriend who was black. He used to tell that to young Quentin so he put it into the film in a nod to him.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I can appreciate that information, and the scene, without alluding to any racism on Quentin's part. It's only a matter of time until this scene is pulled from all versions aired on cable.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Absolutely!


And here's some more pasta info for the non-Italians that will really bake their noodles!

Apart from what we call just pasta, the regular dried variety you find in grocery stores, we have quite a few fresh pasta variants.

Pasta all'uovo - made with flour and eggs (all'uovo is the egg bit);

Gnocchi di patate - little thumb-sized dumplings made with flour, egg and potatoes (patate being the spuds bit);

Gnocchi di ricotta - same as above but we substitute potatoes with 'fresh' ricotta cheese;

Gnocchi alla Romana (Mostly in the Lazio region) - Slighty larger, ufo-shaped (Tic-Tacs if you're so inclined), made with flour, milk and butter;

Sagne (found in the word Lasagne) - A loose, dialect term for simple short flat strips made from just flour and water. Usually used for hearty soups.

In the north of Italy many don't even eat pasta. Up there, polenta is all the rage. Simply maize flour (cornmeal) boiled, stirred until your arm falls off and eaten either a bit runny on a flat plate (wooden board in the old days) or left to solidify, cut into thick slices and fried in butter. Can be either a pasta replacement or instead of bread with your main meal.

This is just the tip of the dough iceberg, but hopefully it helps cover some naming misconceptions associated with the generic term "pasta".

For me the right texture is neither al-dente (resistance when biting) or scotto - over cooked (restistance is futile)... Just right is an exact point between the two.

Ciao for now

a reply to: NightVision

The oil and butter on the pasta can have the effect of not letting the pasta sauce cling to it. If you are serving the pasta right away there's no need for oil and butter. However if you are setting the pasta aside for a little while then oil and butter is great so that the pasta doesn't stick.

a reply to: Encia22

You left out one of my favorite gnocchi-style pastas from your very extensive list, malloreddus, the Sardinian gnocchi. I do a dish with those, tomato confit and bottarga which is amazing.

Go ahead and cook that pasta, cook it tills it’s done, then cook it some more!

over cook your scramble eggs too

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~ I’m dying over here! ~