16.4 Pasta and noodles: shapes and kinds

Pasta recipes → Noodles recipes →

What pasta is

Pasta is a dough with no leavening, made of flour and a liquid, usually egg, water or both. The flour can come from wheat, buckwheat, rice or a blend. Vegetable purées, herbs and other ingredients can color and flavor the dough, and it can be cut or pushed through a die into countless shapes. It is cooked fresh, while still soft and bendable, or dried hard first.

Pasta is eaten across Asia, North America and Europe. In Italy a pasta dish usually makes up its own course, sometimes called the minestre. Elsewhere it may be an appetizer, a main course or a side. It can be filled or sauced, or used in soups, salads, casseroles and even desserts.

Italian-style pasta

The best-known pastas follow the Italian way: wheat flour worked with water and eggs into a smooth, springy dough, rolled very thin and cut, then boiled or dried for keeping.

Most dried pasta for sale is made from semolina, a flour ground from hard durum wheat. It is cream-colored and gives a dough that is very smooth and holds up well, but it takes a lot of kneading. For fresh pasta made by hand, bread flour is a fair substitute.

How to judge dried pasta:

• Pure semolina gives the best pasta, with a rich yellow color. Gray or streaky pasta probably has softer flour in it.
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• Snap a piece: it should be very hard and break cleanly.
• The surface should look dull or lightly pitted. A smooth, shiny surface does not grip or soak up sauce as well.
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Beside plain pasta come green (spinach) and red (tomato), and newer flavors such as carrot-ginger, lemon-peppercorn and whole wheat-basil, often with flecks of herb showing. Hundreds of shapes exist, but only two or three dozen are easy to buy in the United States. Before using an unusual one, think about how the finished dish will look and taste once the sauce and garnish are on.

Ribbons and strands, tubes and shapes

Italian-style pasta falls into three groups by shape. English has no settled names for them, so the Italian names are used nearly everywhere.

• Ribbons and strands are cut from dough rolled very thin, in strips of many widths. Every ribbon suits tomato, fish and shellfish sauces. The thicker ones, such as spaghetti and fettuccine, are the choice for cream and cheese sauces. Pasta machines cut fresh dough into fettuccine, spaghetti and capellini.
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• Tubes are made by pushing dough through a die (extrusion). They can be straight or curved, ridged or smooth. Meat sauces and vegetable sauces suit tubes best, and tubes are often baked in casseroles. Large tubes such as manicotti can be filled.
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• Shapes are extruded too. Their curves and ridges leave pockets that hold sauce. Shells (conchiglie), farfalle and fusilli go best with meat sauces and with oil-based sauces such as pesto. Bigger shapes can be cooked, stuffed with meat or cheese and baked.
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Filled pasta and lasagna sheets

Sheets of fresh dough can be filled and folded into many shapes. Filled pasta usually gets a light cream or tomato sauce that sets off the filling.

• Ravioli: squares.
• Tortellini: rounds shaped like a hat with a brim.
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• Agnolotti: squares folded into rectangles.
• Lunettes: circles folded into half-moons.
• Cappelletti: squares folded and shaped into rings.

Cannelloni are made differently: a large square of cooked dough is rolled around a filling of meat or cheese and then baked. Lasagna sheets are wide and flat; they are cooked, then layered with tomato sauce, cheese, and meat or vegetables, baked, and cut into portions. Large shells (conchiglioni) and manicotti can be part-cooked, then filled, sauced and baked.

Asian noodles

Asian pasta is usually called noodles. The flour may be wheat, rice, bean or buckwheat, and the noodles are sold fresh or dried.

Noodles do not come in the endless shapes of Italian pasta, and they are not colored or flavored with purées or herbs. Nearly all are ribbons, thin or thick, folded into bundles; what sets them apart is the flour. Most dried noodles do better after a few minutes' soak in hot water, which softens the strands and loosens the bundle so it cooks evenly.

• Wheat noodles, also called egg noodles, are the most popular and the easiest to find. They are thin, flat and springy, sold fresh or dried. Boiled and then deep-fried, dried egg noodles become crisp golden chow mein, used mostly as a garnish.
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• Somen and udon are Japanese wheat noodles: somen are thin, udon thick. Either can be round, square or flat. Serve them in a broth, or with a sauce for dipping.
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• Rice noodles are thin dried noodles of rice flour. Soak them in hot water before cooking, and after boiling rinse them under cool running water to wash off starch so they do not stick. They go into soups or are sautéed.
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• Rice vermicelli has very fine strands that can go straight into hot oil without soaking. In seconds they turn white, puff and go crunchy. A mound of them makes a base for a sauté or for hors d'oeuvre.
• Glass and starch noodles are the bean starch noodles, also sold as cellophane noodles, bean threads, bean noodles or spring rain noodles. They are thin and clear and made from mung beans. Fry them dry like rice vermicelli, or soak them in hot water before they go into soups, stir-fries or braises.
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• Soba and buckwheat noodles are made with buckwheat flour in northern Japan and around Tokyo. They come fresh or dried and need no soaking. Traditionally they come in broth or with a sauce for dipping, and they can stand in for Italian pasta.
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Deep-frying is taught with the other dry-heat methods. see chapter 8: How much fat

Dumplings, gnocchi and spaetzle

Dumplings are small mounds of dough, steamed or simmered in a well-flavored liquid. They may be plain or filled, sweet or savory. Spaetzle are made by pressing a batter through a special tool.

Many cuisines have one:

• gnocchi in Italy;
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• spaetzle in Germany;
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• wontons in China;
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• pierogi in Poland;
• pelmeni in Belarus;
• matzo balls in Jewish cooking.
• Plain or drop dumplings use a bread-like dough, often raised with yeast or a chemical leavener. They should be light and tender yet firm enough to keep their shape. Serve them in stews and broths, or with butter or a sauce as a starter or side.
• Filled dumplings wrap noodle dough around meat, vegetables, cheese or fruit, and are then steamed, fried or baked. Asian doughs make dumplings, wontons, egg rolls from egg noodle dough, and spring rolls from rice paper.
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