85
Dried vs fresh
This book was born from the meditative practice of making pasta
by hand; however, I certainly don’t discriminate between dried
and fresh. I want to be realistic and inclusive, which is why I’ve
included both options in my recipes, but I do want to address
the dried vs fresh debate here rst. You should not judge fresh as
better than dried; they are merely dierent, and just like choosing
a pasta shape, sometimes one or the other is better suited to
a sauce. For me, dried pasta is the better choice for spaghetti
vongole, as the nished texture gives a stronger bite against the
oily sauce. Fresh pasta absorbs sauce more readily, so it’s more
suited to wet dishes, such as ragù or a tomato-based sauce.
Italians have always been experts at creating pasta shapes at
home, but for those who are not an Italian nonna or skilled in
nger acrobatics, dried pasta can give us many dierent shapes
that we humble cooks wouldn’t be able to achieve at home.
Plus, I’m pretty sure when dried pasta came onto the shelves,
Italian housewives were thrilled with their newfound freedom
and time-saving packets of pasta.
When it comes to dried pasta, I always keep both a long, thin
pasta and a chunkier, shorter one in the pantry at all times so I can
ensure my shape enhances my sauce. My favourites include angel
hair (or Capelli d’Angelo), which is the thinnest long pasta on the
supermarket shelves (and a good replacement for fresh tagliolini),
spaghetti, bucatini (a thicker, tube-like spaghetti) and linguine
(for anything thicker than linguine I prefer to make it fresh). For
shorter pasta, I love rigatoni, penne, fusilli and conchiglie (shells).
Small pasta such as ditalini, risoni or fregola are also great to have
on hand, especially when you’ve had a bad day (see my recipe
on page 171). For my dried pasta suggestions in the recipes, I’ve
chosen ones that are readily available; however, there is a whole
universe of dried shapes that I encourage you to explore.
One thing to note is that you’ll sometimes see ‘peasant shapes’–
those irregular pastas that are all made by hand, such as
orecchiette and troe – on some Italian delicatessen shelves.
I recommend avoiding these, as they don’t seem to cook very
well– the outside gets too soft while the inside stays hard.
Another point worth keeping in mind when you are making your
sauce is that dried pasta absorbs less than fresh. Because of this,
it means that dried pasta might require less oil, butter or pasta
cooking water when tossing through your sauce.
Having said all this, I am obviously recommending that you give
fresh pasta a go – the benets were enough for me to write a
book about it – but have you ever listened carefully to the sound
of dried pasta being poured into a saucepan of boiling water
after a long day? The Italians describe it as resembling a ‘schiao’
or slap with an open hand and I nd it very satisfying indeed.