My nephews ate us out of macaroni, spaghetti, and capellini over winter break
Very cute! I’m going to guess they are young, because I try hard not to watch the teen boys eat pasta nowadays — it’s really not pretty when it disappears so fast
I like the cauli cheese — even more so with roasted cauliflower added / on the side. I saw that burrata one and have to pick it up for my mom. I like the corn one a lot too when it’s around, and the porcini which is always there. The other seasonal ones I probably wouldn’t miss if they never came back.
Angel hair
Macaroni elbows
Whole wheat elbows or rotini
Egg pappardelle
Trofie
Gnocchi
No-boil lasagna
Medium brown rice noodles (pho or pad thai size)
Linguini or fettuccine
Rigatoni
Chinese wheat noodles (there are lots of varieties and I am no connoisseur, I usually just grab something that looks interesting after googling fruitlessly for a while)
Korean sweet potato noodles
Ditalini
Spaghetti chittara
Old-fashioned egg noodles
I make stovetop mac n cheese and angel hair with raw tomato, basil, garlic, oo, and Parm Regg on the regular for our kiddo. I also cook a lot of soups and stews served with pasta or gnocchi.
Least favorite: farfalle, penne, regular spaghetti. Cooks unevenly, breaks, boring. Also not big on tricolor pasta except in Italian pasta salad.
Funny. I’ve always preferred thicker pasta like fettuccine or linguini. Then a few months ago we got takeout from an Italian place. Shrimp and chicken scampi in wine cream sauce over angel hair. Loved the way it soaked up the sauce. Then again, I’ve never cared for Al dente.
Agree with you, angel hair soaks up flavors beautifully — I don’t even think it’s about al dente or not, I think the shape just lends itself to being delicate and tender in the way fresh pasta is.
It’s lovely with a fresh summer tomato sauce too — perfectly soaks up the garlicky tomato juices and olive oil.
Thin spaghetti for dishes like sesame noodles.
Elbows, twists, or rigatoni (I rarely have all 3) for chunky sauces or macaroni and cheese.
TJ’s ravioli and gnocchi in the fridge or freezer.
It’s scary reading all the other lists above.
When there’s a family to feed and you can store a shelf stable product until it’s needed, it just makes sense to have it in the house. It’s much easier than having to go out every time you need an ingredient. My cupboards today look a lot different than when I was just beginning to cook. The more cultures you’re exposed to, the more kinds of pantry items you’ll have on hand when a formerly exotic dish becomes a family staple. A wide variety of pasta in the house is a result of that.
5 Likes
BarneyGrubble
(Beethoven and Latina singer fan in Ottawa)
29
Me neither. I can’t believe the cooking time on some packages. I recently tried a new brand (Rummo) spaghettini. The cooking time was 7 minutes, at which I tested it; to me it was RAW! (Insert Ramsay emoji here). It was still raw at 10 minutes. I had to go for 12 minutes before it was acceptable to me.
Consider me a Philistine, but I HATE al dente pasta.
I’ve simplified our pasta supply over the last 4 years, as I’ve been cooking 95 percent of our meals and my pantry has become much more streamlined.
I used to keep more types on hand.
We don’t eat much long pasta because it splatters on clothing. I am cooking for a few people with different food likes, and one of the people doesn’t like penne or thick pasta.
I don’t like cooking pasta that takes much longer than 11 minutes to cook, and 90 percent of the shapes I cook cook in 8 minutes or less.
The only 17 minute pasta I prepare is spaetzle. I did prepare some pici that I brought back from Italy in 2017, another 17 minute noodle, but I haven’t bought any since.
I like thicker noodles myself but I go with the flow of what goes over better here.
I don’t experiment much with glass noodles, sweet potato noodles or long bean noodles these days, so I haven’t been buying them.
I also stopped making lasagna, to have less dense foods as mains, so I don’t buy lasagna noodles anymore.
I like al dente, but I’ve really begun to question what qualifies as al dente for a lot of brands. The brand you mentioned in particular seems to have this issue. I’ve had to cook certain shapes quite a bit more to get something that was pleasant to eat.
I don’t honestly eat that much pasta, but I try to keep at least one long shape and one short.
Asian noodles I care more about having a stock, but even there it’s mostly rice sticks, rice vermicelli, bean thread noodles, and some type of wheat noodle. Those I can get here most times, too. Other types I have to make fresh since I can’t buy them here.
Rummo pasta is really popular as a posh dry pasta in Ontario right now, isn’t it?
I cook pasta until it’s done. Those minutes are guide, I usually tack on a few more. Who knows how sea level and other stuff affects the boiling time.
I remembered this guide while staring at noodles in the Chinese store earlier this week (it doesn’t have everything because there’s way too much to cover, but it did help me find what I needed):
I would really like someone to explain why spaghetti ends up on my clothes, but capellini does not. Bucatini is in the middle. I can slurp ramen mostly without incident, but spaghetti and tomato sauce? Fuhgedaboutit.
My dad originally hated pasta of any type, but when he finally conceded he would only eat macaroni.
For me, capellini twirls better. It has less of a mind of its own. Same with vermicelli and spaghettini.
I think it does have something to do with thickness, as pappardelle and fettuccine, as flatter but wider pastas also behave better than spaghetti or pici with respect to splatter.
There is a narrower bucatini, and a cut bucatini, in addition to standard bucatini.
I like bucatini but I don’t buy it too often.
2 Likes
BarneyGrubble
(Beethoven and Latina singer fan in Ottawa)
40
Yeah, I saw it a few times around town, and thought I’d give it a try. Not worth the expense; I’ll stick with my Barilla spaghettini, which is what I always have….and is cheap.
I also bought a Rummo that looked like short (3”) irregular tubes, somewhat open. Disliked it and tossed it out.
My favorite has to be angel hair pasta from the German company (sacrilege, yes I know) Bechtle. Ready in a flash, and always good. The Mrs does not care for it, so I rarely make it.
The pasta I make is whatever is in the pantry, without any concern for the sauce. To me pasta is not the main event; it just provides a supporting role.
