In this installment
Rustichella Spaghetti
Il Mongetto Original Tomato Sauce
Pamigiano Reggiano Cheese
Rustichella Spaghetti
Before we talk about Rustichella, we need to ask the age old question: what’s better…fresh or dried pasta?
Almost always folks assume fresh pasta is better.
They assume if you had the time you should use fresh pasta over dried 100% of the time. Maybe that’s because it’s more work to make (if you make the pasta at home). Maybe it’s because fresh pasta is more fragile, more perishable. Maybe it’s because dried seems more industrial, more like a commodity, and it can sell for so much less.
Fresh pasta is not better than dried. It’s just different.
There are many times when dried pasta is preferable. Probably the most concise way to think of the tradeoff is this: use dried pasta when you want to enjoy noodles with a lot of texture and flavor; use fresh when you want a softer, subtler dish.
Dried and fresh pasta are made very differently.
Hence the different results and different uses in the kitchen. Traditional dried pasta is made by extruding durum semolina dough through bronze dies. It’s dried at relatively low temperatures for a couple days. The bronze die extrusion leaves the pasta with a rough hewn texture. You can feel it in your mouth and the sauce really grips to it. The slow drying ferments the flour a bit. It transforms the dough from tasting like raw flour to something more like bread.
In contrast, fresh pasta is usually rolled and cut and there is no fermentation. The texture is much softer, smoother, and the flavor is much less intense, much more like flour.
Not all dried pasta is equal.
It’s important to note when I talk about dried pasta I’m not talking about any old dried pastas. Most dried pasta is industrially made with exasperating shortcuts that leave it tasting unexceptional. In particular, they employ hot, short drying times so there is no transformation of the dough’s flavor. It tastes like flour. Worse, it’s flour with a burnt edge to the flavor. The extra hot ovens singe the surface in a way the slow, low drying methods do not.
To see what I mean, taste a piece of uncooked commercially made DeCecco pasta (one of the better industrial companies, dried at 80° Celsius for 10 hours) and a piece of Rustichella pasta (dried at 45° Celsius for about 40 hours) next to each other. The flavor is remarkably different. The DeCecco is bland the Rustichella is nutty, toothsome, and even a little bready in its way. That’s why we love (and share) this pasta with you.
Il Mongetto Original Tomato Sauce
For years Il Mongetto has been the top contender for my favorite bottled pasta sauce. They have a clean, fresh flavor that I love, with the sweetness of fresh summer tomatoes. Conjured up by the serenely insightful Santopietro family in the shadows of the Italian Alps, these sauces are filled with tomatoes, shallots, celery, carrots, olive oil from Umbrian maker Alfredo Mancianti and salt—and complex, compelling flavors that other sauces only aspire to. Keep some around for that night you don’t want to cook. Pasta with Il Mongetto sauce is the best fast food I know.
The original “plain” tomato sauce is made with vine ripened tomatoes, carrot, celery, onion, herbs and a generous amount of great Umbrian extra virgin olive oil. With a fresh vegetal sweetness, it’s my favorite starting sauce. You can jazz it up any way you’d like (my favorite: add a tin of Ortiz tuna).
Pamigiano Reggiano Cheese
Giorgio Cravero’s fifth-generation firm in Bra, Italy, has been selecting and aging Parmigiano Reggiano since 1855. They focus on aging wheels that are sweet and light, with a cherry-like lusciousness that prompts you to reach for another piece just about the time you finish the first.
In America, many cheese shops buy extra-aged, drier Parmigiano, pre-cut and wrap it and then tell customers to grate it on pasta. Don’t get me wrong. It’s usually good that way. But if it’s all you’ve ever tried then you’ve been missing out.
This is Parmigiano as an exemplary eating cheese. We cut each piece to order. Enjoy it at the table before or after dinner before you try it on dinner.