the old dude's a pasta snob

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11575751

Oh my.

mysuzuki2 (1,810 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

a question about pasta for all the cooks out there.

do any of you find any consistent differences between any of the commercial brands of pasta. I have been told I should buy the premium brands but I really can't taste any real differences between them and the store/generic brands. What about making your own pasta? Does it really taste better? Is it worth the effort?

Arkansas Granny (12,325 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

1. I have found some of the store brands have kind of a slick, almost slimy, feel to them after cooking so I always go with a well known brand. As far as making my own, the only thing I make is egg noodles for my chicken noodle soup. In that case, they really do taste better and they are worth the effort.

Whisp (11,582 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

2. I don't have a pasta maker and not sure if I really need one to make certain kinds - I will look into that.

but my sister does have one and we made some a while back and I swear I should never have gone back to store bought. It's just amazingly differently delicious.

ok, I'm on a project now, thanks for the reminder.

Stinky The Clown (44,915 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

3. Pasta . . . . a subject near and dear to my heart

Last first: dry vs fresh

They are two different products. Dry has a coarser, more grainy texture where the fresh is silky smooth. Generally, dry is made from semolina, water and, maybe, salt. Fresh, generally, is made from semolina, eggs and water. Often it is made from softer flour, softer giving a silkier texture. Fresh made without eggs, and dry made with eggs are also possible, but far less common.

Don't confuse silky with mushy. Both can and should be cooked al dente.

They taste similar, but not the same.

So why two and when are they used? Again speaking broadly, they are interchangeable. That said, some gravies and sauces go far better with one and not so well at all with the other. A heavy ragu is far better on dry that fresh, for example. A pesto sauce on fresh is very nice. There is a whole sensibility on this aspect of pasta,a nd books have been written about it.

Williams Sonoma has a book on pasta that is actually very good and deals with both types.

Now about "premium" vs store brand pastas.

I find there is a difference and I prefer what some might call "premium" brands. But before we go further, please note there is also a super premium grade - at least if cost is an indicator.

At the low end, we have store brand pasta. All is acceptable, but not as reliable. They seem to me easier to overcook and often wind up with a lot of broken pieces after cooking. It has to do with the underlying quality of the raw ingredients - mainly the semolina.

What I think most people consider "premium" pasta are the well known brands. Barilla, DeCecco, Ronzoni, Prince, San Georgio, etc. I may be a pasta snob, but I think only the first three are clearly better than store brands. Barilla is the most forgiving in staying al dente when cooking. DeCecco has better shapes and textures. I think that comes from using heated bronze dies when the macaroni is formed. The resulting pasta has a sort of "toothed" texture that holds sauce better. Ronzoni seems to be the best balance of taste and texture, although the taste is less than Barilla and the texture less than DeCecco.

Ronzoni is an American brand and always has been.

Barilla is an Italian brand ("The Best Selling Pasta in Italy") but is now meade here of all American ingredients.

DeCecco is all Italian.

By the way, Safeway now markets a brand of their own pasta that is imported from Italy and costs more than the other three!

The Super Premium pastas are a whole new game. They're "artisinal" and "small batch" and "hand crafted".

What they really are, in my view, is grossly overpriced. If one of the three top brands I cited above is $1.25 a pound, on sale, there is no way on the goddess's green Earth any "artisinal" pasta is worth $6 a pound. It simply is not. Period. Hard stop.

There is one special category with only one brand. Dreamfields. If you are watching carbs, take a look at this stuff. It is double the price of the top brands but yields only 5 net grams of carbs (compared to 36 to 38 for regular pasta). It tastes nearly indistinguishable from the top brands, but is a slightly more prone to overcooking. For diabetics or others with carb issues, it is pretty amazing stuff.

At Casa di Stinky, we use Barilla and DeCecco, but favor Barilla. Maybe once every month or two we make fresh.

And then there is the whole group of "healthy" pastas. Whole grain, whole wheat, this, that, and the other. We use that, too, but the taste and texture are waaaaaay down there in a lot of applications, but just fine in others. You have to experiment to see what your family's pallet [sic] favors.

grasswire (32,831 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

8. Stinky, have you taste-tested Trader Joe's various dry pastas?

I'd be interested in your opinion, if you have done so.

Stinky The Clown (44,915 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

10. We haven't, actually.

I'm kinda hot and cold on TJ's. I honesty never thought to try their pasta.

Lugnut (7,421 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

12. I use Barilla and DeCecco.

Barilla is my favorite. Wegman's has its own brand of dry pastas that are also very good but a little pricy. My favorite variety is the orecchiette. I think it's very similar to home made.

The defrocked warped primitive, she with the face like Hindenberg's:

Warpy (62,219 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

4. Making your own pasta makes a huge difference

My granny's pasta machine consisted of an old rolling pin and a sharp knife. It was labor intensive and I've never tasted any better and if I got a chance to eat it again, I'd suffer the consequences of itching, wheezing, and worse. When I was a kid, she'd give me the odd shaped scraps to eat raw and even they were delicious.

Pasta machines just take a lot of the grunt work out of working the dough enough to have it hold together in boiling water.

Most commercial pastas are close in quality because most are made by the same type of machinery. However, there are differences in formula and the discerning person can tell one from the other mostly by differences in texture and mouth feel. Oddly enough, one of my yuck! brands was one with an advertising budget.

The best bet for anyone is to try the various ones available to see if they can tell a difference and stick with the one they like.

The empressof all (27,003 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

5. Fresh pasta is very different than dry

Try some fresh pasta from your grocer and you'll see the difference. For me it depends on the dish. I will use or make fresh pasta for lighter dishes like pasta primaverra or for sea food dishes. I also like to make my own ravioli on occasion.

Dry Pasta brands do taste different to me. I use the Garafolo (sp?) Brand of whole wheat spaghetti from Costco. It has an excellent bite and it tastes great...not all whole wheatie like some of the other "healthy" brands. I also use the Barilla Gold box shapes of other pasta. I also use Barilla for heavy red lasagnas but use fresh lasagna noodles for white lasagnas

eridani (33,582 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

13. I like fresh for just about everything except lasagna

The dry pasta seems to hold up better for that.

Oh wow.

The chronically-helpless primitive's another one of the Italianate-derived:

Paper Roses (4,364 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

6. From someone who grew up in an Italian family, It is my opinion that any dish requiring pasta will be good no matter what brand you use.

I have made pasta at home, bought it at the grocery store and at Italian markets.

As long as you do not overcook the pasta, It is all good to me.

I do not like the texture of homemade pasta. I prefer Barilla or another brand available around here called Anna's.
I do think it is a matter of personal preference.

There is, in my mind, not enough difference between homemade and top brand store bought to compensate for the time involved in making your own.

I have friends who swear by their pasta makers.

I appreciate their opinions but prefer to open a bag or box. Cook as directed and enjoy your recipe. Just don't overcook.

Stinky The Clown (44,915 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

9. We've tried the Anna's.

That's the one made in Canada, isn't it? We thought it was pretty good.

pinto (92,031 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

7. The best pasta I ever had was homemade. And simple, save for the basic work.

My brother's first wife was one in a line of Sicilian cooks. The men and women in her family routinely made dishes from scratch. They were locavores before locavores were a trend.

Picture the volcano from "Close Encounters". That was the flour start on a big table top. Eggs beaten and dropped in the middle. All kneaded, kneaded, kneaded. Then rolled out into strips.

A quick boil made for a great pasta, with whatever else was going on.

Major Nikon (2,183 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

11. I used to make homemade pasta all the time

I haven't done so in years. The biggest reason why I stopped was because it was hard to find semolina flour. This was back before the days of being able to find anything on the internet. I found fresh homemade to be very much superior to anything store bought.

I experimented with many different recipes, but finally resolved myself to a very simple one that worked great. I simply put semolina flour in a stand mixer and added enough water so that the flour just starts to come together into one mass. Then I would form the dough into cylinders to feed into my extruder. The cylinders would get rolled in olive oil immediately before going into the extruder to lubricate them (I had the Kitchen Aid extruder which really wasn't the best). Then I would just cook them immediately or hang them up while I was getting everything else ready.

franksolich uses Martha Gooch.

[Chris_]

Give me a ****ing break.  If you blindfolded half of these assholes , they couldn't tell the difference between Chef Boyardee and Olive Garden.

[Carl]

The slum lord always wants his fellow primitives to know he is part of the 1%.

[franksolich]

The slum lord always wants his fellow primitives to know he is part of the 1%.

Allegedly the old dude's in the "restaurant consulting business."

Actually, he's in the "restaurant protection racket."

[Chris_]

"restaurant consulting business"

You know what that is?  That's someone that comes in and tells the people that work there what they already know.  "You should upgrade your cooktops."  "You need a new oven."

Restaurant equipment takes a beating.  Hiring a consultant is an unnecessary expense and a waste. 

[GOBUCKS]

What bullshit.

But remember, DUmpmonkeys pay a huge premium for misshapen, bug-eaten "organic" produce, and think it's better.

They spend their Obama stamps on bottled water and "free range" chicken.

It stands to reason they'd spend double the price for a box of spaghetti when the only difference is the printing on the box.

DUmmies may be stupid, but at least they're consistently stupid.

[FreeBorn]

Give me a ****ing break.  If you blindfolded half of these assholes , they couldn't tell the difference between Chef Boyardee and Olive Garden.

As usual Carl is dead on. ^5!

I did machine maintenance for one of the companies named above for a few years and got to know all the dirty little secrets of the pasta business. Truth be told there is very little difference between pasta brands. It's all about the flour, semolina being the best for pasta.

No difference between spaghetti, penne, rotini, etc. etc. etc. It's all the same stuff. Just comes in different shapes, very same dough for all.

If the public knew of and saw with their own eyes the mold problem which persists with commercial pasta production there would be a sudden crash in the market. It. Is. Nasty.  

[Chris_]

The DUmmies' knowledge of pasta is only rivaled by a kindergarten student with a two-year-old Play-Doh set.

[BEG]

Arkansas Granny (12,325 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore

1. I have found some of the store brands have kind of a slick, almost slimy, feel to them after cooking so I always go with a well known brand. As far as making my own, the only thing I make is egg noodles for my chicken noodle soup. In that case, they really do taste better and they are worth the effort.

This is true. Nothing like fresh homemade egg noodles.

[Freeper]

As usual Carl is dead on. ^5!

I did machine maintenance for one of the companies named above for a few years and got to know all the dirty little secrets of the pasta business. Truth be told there is very little difference between pasta brands. It's all about the flour, semolina being the best for pasta.

No difference between spaghetti, penne, rotini, etc. etc. etc. It's all the same stuff. Just comes in different shapes, very same dough for all.

If the public knew of and saw with their own eyes the mold problem which persists with commercial pasta production there would be a sudden crash in the market. It. Is. Nasty.  

Free penicillin. 

[Ballygrl]

Being part eyetalian I've had both homemade and store brand pasta, to me pasta is pasta. Oh and I absolutely love pesto sauce yum yum yum, I don't make homemade pesto sauce so I buy the knorr brand, fry up some sausages and add them to the pesto sauce, let it cook for a bit and use it over cavatelli.

[BlueStateSaint]

The DUmmies' knowledge of pasta is only rivaled by a kindergarten student with a two-year-old Play-Doh set.

 

H5!

[formerlurker]

Mario Batali sells dry pasta, sauce etc. at his restaurants.   My sister bought me some when she was there last.  

I am not going to lie, the pasta was the best thing I ever tasted.   I could have ate a plate of it without sauce it was that good.  

[Ballygrl]

Mario Batali sells dry pasta, sauce etc. at his restaurants.   My sister bought me some when she was there last.  
I am not going to lie, the pasta was the best thing I ever tasted.   I could have ate a plate of it without sauce it was that good.

To me, the main star or the headliner of the dish is always the sauce, or as we eyetalians say, the gravy.

Oh my! I just went to Amazon and Mario's Sauce is sold there and it's almost $10 for the jar.

[franksolich]

"restaurant consulting business"

You know what that is?  That's someone that comes in and tells the people that work there what they already know.  "You should upgrade your cooktops."  "You need a new oven."

Restaurant equipment takes a beating.  Hiring a consultant is an unnecessary expense and a waste.

You know, this is sort of right up your alley.

Is it really possible to get rich in the restaurant consulting business?

Or might the old dude just have married Money?

The old dude was in the U.S. Navy 1965-1967, off Charleston, South Carolina, defending America against an invasion by Senegal, where he learned to cook.

And then later he went to some sort of culinary school.

But given the people the old dude hangs with--such as Bela Pelosi's husband--we know what he really does.