Recommend some pasta resources

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been experimenting at home with pasta, and having fun doing it. However, I feel I’m getting into a rut, since everything I’ve been trying has used the relatively meager number of pasta dishes I’ve learned to make at various restaurants over the years as starting points (I’ve never cooked in an actual pasta place; there have just been the occasional pasta dishes on the menus where I have worked).

Most of what I’ve done has involved sauteing meats and vegetables and adding them to the pasta and sauce, with the sauces being different variations on alfredo and marinara. I’ve been using store-bought sauces, with a preference for the Classico brand, but I’d like to start making my own alfredo. I’m also trying out different pasta shapes.

So what I’m looking for:

Suggestions for good alfredo sauce recipes

Reference sites that describe the “intended” uses for the various pasta shapes. I know that some shapes are meant for use with thick, creamy sauces, some for use with thinner sauces, some with chunky sauces, etc., but I’m not clear on which is which in every case.

Good pasta dish recipes! I can already make a good lasagna, and obviously I’ve been fooling with sauteed dishes, but I’d like to see what else sounds good.

2

And now for something different, I present Carbonara. I have gotten rave reviews with this one.

I’ll share my recipe for chicken and sausage meat sauce if you want something like that.

3

Ha! I was about to remark that “experimenting with pasta” using store-bought sauces and store-bought noodles sounds exactly like the kind of thing a college junior who’s never cooked a damn thing in his life would say. "Hey guys, check out this awesome meal I prepared! I boiled a box of pasta in water, then added a jar of sauce. AMAZING! I’m Mario Freaking Batali!

…Then I clicked on your “drunken gourmet” thread and saw that you’re experimenting is slightly more advanced, that you’re a professional cook that usually doesn’t like to cook at home, etc. As someone who regularly prepares recipes from Julia Child while black-out drunk at 3 am, I am familiar with the joy of intoxicated cooking and the disappointment that comes the next morning when I realize that every single pot and pan I own is coated in some sort of flour-butter-swiss cheese glue. I get where you’re coming from, is what I’m saying.

I love pesto. Just get as much fresh basil as you can (ask around, people with herb gardens ALWAYS have too much basil), some pine nuts, garlic, and olive oil. Pine nuts are ridiculously expensive and sometimes hard to find, but you can substitute almonds or other nuts without really loosing anything. You can adjust the proportions to your taste, but I use 3-4 handfuls of basil leaves, 1 handful of nuts, and 1/2 a head (HEAD, not clove) of garlic. If you have time to kill you can manually chop them for about 15 minutes, or if you’re like me put them in the food processor for about 4 seconds. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil, some shredded parmesan, salt and pepper and let rest for an hour or so. It’s delicious!

If you really want to step it up to the next level, or super impress someonel, or whatever, I suggest making your own pasta. No need to own a pasta machine, just use a rolling pin (or better yet, an old rum bottle). It’s actually pretty easy, somewhat time consuming but you can make a shit-ton at a time, dry it on hangers and store it for a while. Google a recipe and give it a try, even if it’s just an academic exercise.

4

It’s a book rather than a site, but you might find The Geometry of Pasta interesting and/ or helpful.

5

Alfredo is easy - so easy that I always wonder why people would buy the not-very-good jarred version.

For 1# dried pasta:

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup grated Parmesan
2 T. butter
salt/white pepper/nutmeg

Boil the pasta. When it’s close to done, put the butter & cream in a large skillet, big enough to hold the pasta, and bring to a medium boil. Let it reduce for a minute or two. When the pasta is al dente, drain it and put it in the skillet with the cream & butter. Add the Parmesan, salt, pepper, nutmeg, toss until pasta is coated and Parmesan is melted. Serve with more Parmesan.

Yum Yum!

I can also highly recommend Giuliano Hazan’s Classic Pasta Cookbook. It’s out of print, but looks like it’s available used for cheap. He goes over the “intended” pasta shapes you mention, and also includes really good recipes for all the classic pasta recipes (Carbonara, Alfredo, Pesto, Marinara, etc) as well as a whole pile of other recipes. I’ve had this book for over 20 years and have yet to find another pasta book that comes close. It’s just a a really good basic reference.

6

^^^ That. If you like alfredo, it’s pretty much that simple. You can even skip the cream and use equal parts by weight butter and Parmesan, about a half pound of each for a pound of pasta (which is what the original Roman alfredo recipe is.) Use the best ingredients you can, as this is a straightforward recipe.

As for tomato-based sauces, unless you have access to wonderfully ripe in-season tomatoes, whether through your garden or farmer’s market, use high quality canned tomatoes. San Marzanos are the traditional choice (although many sold as “San Marzano” are not true San Marzanos from the Sarno Valley in Italy), but I personally like Muir Glenn’s whole or diced tomatoes, as well as Red Gold, and even Hunt’s whole plum tomatoes. Start with those. I normally drain them for sauces, but in a long-simmered sauce, I might dump them with their liquid.

And you don’t need to get too fancy for a great sauce. One of my favorite sauces is a simple arrabiata. Heat a pan over medium heat, add a teaspoon or two of extra virgin olive oil, add a couple cloves of finely chopped garlic, heat for about two or three minutes or so, add some red pepper flakes (to taste) and/or freshly chopped chile pepper, fry another minute or two, add your drained tomatoes, cook uncovered for about 15 minutes. Garnish with chopped parsley or basil, parmesan, and there ya go! If you want some meatiness, add a slice or two of chopped bacon to it in the beginning. If you want to go a step further and get puttanesca sauce, add a tablespoon of finely minced anchovies to the garlic in the beginning, then add a half cup of chopped black olives and a tablespoon of capers when you add the tomatoes. Stuff is fantastic. If you like your sauces thicker, add a tablespoon of tomato paste to the tomatoes while they’re cooking. And, as always, salt to taste, and don’t be afraid to use it.

That’s the basics. Most Italian pasta sauces are very simple affairs and their success depends on quality ingredients, especially tomatoes. When I first started cooking in college, I always struggled with homemade tomato-based sauces, as I was buying fresh tomatoes from the supermarket, thinking they must be better than the canned variety. Well, most supermarket tomatoes are waterlogged pinkish sacks of cellulose, with no flavor. Good quality canned tomatoes are far superior to what you will find in your average supermarket for saucing.

7

And as I mentioned, pasta just isn’t something I’ve cooked much at all, professionally. I’ve actually been a breakfast cook for most of my career (about 15 of my 29 years), and my dinner cooking experience has been a steakhouse and a 24-hour “family” chain restaurant. Not a lot of pasta in there :stuck_out_tongue: For the last 3 years I’ve cooked in a catering/banquet/convention kitchen. We do have some pasta on the menu, but it’s all in the “make in mass quantities to serve 50 to 500 people on a buffet line” variety (usually penne pasta in pesto cream sauce, with or without chicken, or lasagna). Not much variety, and nothing in the single-serving vein.

As for cooking at home, one of the biggest aggravations for me is the downgrade from professional restaurant kitchen equipment (usually gas) to my home stove (electric). Trying to correlate the smooth gradation of heat I can get with a gas burner to this “low-medium-high” nonsense with electric burners has been an adventure.

Hah! I’m actually mad about being organized, and even drunk I try to wash my pots and pans as soon as I’m finished with them. But that’s carryover from the professional kitchen - clutter slows things down, and there are few things more aggravating than needing a particular pan right now and discovering that it’s still dirty from the last time I used it.

Sounds good!

That’s something I’ve given some thought to, but that I’ll save for later. My current kitchen is rather cramped and I’m not sure where in my little apartment I’d do all the drying. For the moment I’m trying out Garofalo brand pasta from Italy, which I found at Costco. Seems better than the off-the-shelf stuff at Safeway.

EDIT: I have been trying to find a place to buy fresh pasta in my town, but haven’t had any luck so far.*

Wow, that’s it? Piece of cake!

I own a copy of the latest edition of The Joy of Cooking, and was astonished to find that it doesn’t have an alfredo recipe.

Thanks, I’ll look into that!

8

So the OP is a professional cook and he/she is asking a bunch of people in other occupations to provide suggestions on cooking the simplest of dishes? Could you post where you cook professionally. I, uh, I want to put a check mark by the name.

Find a recipe for puttanesco. That’s good and not as common as other popular styles.

I second carbonara as a very tasty alternative to Alfredo.

9

Heh. I just moved into an apartment with a gas stove after literally a lifetime of using electric stovetops. I would gladly trade you.

10

There are plenty of good cooks who don’t do it for a living. And doing something for a living doesn’t make one an expert on every possible sub-category within the profession (go on, ask your gastroenterologist about your bad knees). As I pointed out, my years of experience have not included much pasta cooking, and at work I don’t really get the opportunity to experiment with stuff that isn’t on the menu — for one thing, if it’s not on the menu then we don’t have the ingredients on-hand.

Basically, what I’m looking for is a starting point - fighting my own ignorance, if you will. For example, I admit that outside of the most commonly-known-in-America pasta dishes, I don’t even know the names of other good pasta dishes, or what would go into them. But put a recipe in front of me, and my years of experience will probably let me produce a good first attempt, and then I can go from there, tweaking things to my own taste.

Unless you’re attending a convention in my town, you’re unlikely to have to worry about it. Though truthfully, I find this mass-production cooking extremely unsatisfying.

11

If you want to expand a bit to Italian cuisine in general, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is to Italian cuisine as Julia Child’s *Mastering the Art of French Cooking is to French cuisine.

There’s over 100 pages on pasta in that book, plus everything else you want to know about Italian food. This is the best place to start in English, although you might want something more focused, if pasta is all you’re interested in. (But there is plenty of pasta info here. Plenty.)

12

I have that book, and the book I mentioned above (written by her son, btw). For Pasta alone, I suggest his book over hers - the recipes are almost identical, but his book has a lot of pictures, and goes into the various pasta shapes with more detail, and in general is just more pasta-focused (as you mentioned).

But both are great references. The Hazans know their pasta.

13

When I lived in Italy for awhile, I was close to a great little shop that I’d stop in pretty frequently. It sold fantastic olive oils, sauces, meats, cheeses… you know, all you need. She also sold fresh pasta. Now, I don’t really eat pasta. Like bread, like potatoes… carbs aren’t really my favourite. Anyway, enough about me. At one point I had invited some people over, people who hadn’t been in Italy very long, people who I wanted to impress with goods from my lovely local store. I went in and asked for a certain type of filled pasta and a certain type of store-made sauce, can’t recall which at this point. The woman’s face turned stormy.

“To serve together?!”
“Ummm… yes? Please?”
“No! Non è possibile. Mai!*”
“Okay… well I think my friends would like them and…”
“I won’t sell you these!”

And yeah, she absolutely refused to sell me the pasta and the sauce. Finally we came to an agreement about what I could buy - a pasta of the same shape, in a different size. So yeah, some people are pretty specific about it.

Have ever read Chow’s Pasta and Sauce article? Not very in depth but a good outline that you can pursue further.
*It’s not possible! Never!

14

I like Progresso’s whole tomatoes. Always go for the whole tomatoes because they’re better quality. My secret: Chicken broth. Except for bay leaf and dried rosemary I don’t add the softer herbs until the last half hour. ANother trick I used is throwing in green olives for that olive oil taste; unless you can afford that 40 bucks a bottle stuff.

Oh and adding oil to water your pasta is boiling in–it’s not a myth. (I use the cheaper oil for that.)

DO NOT RINSE YOUR PASTA. Strain and dump directly into hot sauce.

The Kid thinks I should open a restaurant. Sure, kiddo, I want to work 18 hours a day–not.

15

Perfect, just what I was looking for!

I prefer cooking my pasta without oil in the water, but I do know the “don’t rinse it” bit. OTOH, I don’t do the “Strain and dump directly into hot sauce” part - since one of my objectives is quick preparation, I’ve taken to cooking the entire package of pasta at once, cooling it, portioning it into Zip-loc bags, and freezing the portions. Then I just thaw the portions in the refrigerator* ahead of time and they’re ready to go when I need them.

  • I discovered it’s best to not thaw it in the microwave - that just cooks it more and ruins the texture.
16

Progresso tomatoes are good, too. Agreed on softer herbs. I put them on at the very, very end, when serving. No point in cooking them. Not sure what kind of olive oils you’re buying for 40 bucks a bottle, unless you’re talking about the gigantic bottles. Believe it or not Costco’s Kirland Signature Extra Virgin Olive Oil is great, especially for the price. Here’s a two-year old article that states:

In my experience, all this helps with is preventing boil-overs. I have not noticed any other difference, and I don’t bother, as I have a big enough pot where this is not a problem.

Yes, and it is often recommended to save a little pasta cooking water (like a tablespoon or two) to put into your sauce. It helps thicken it up a bit and stick to the pasta.

17

ETA: I linked to the regular olive oil, which is the one I always buy at Costco, but apparently the organic one is even better, although I don’t ever remember seeing it at Costco.

18

Glad I could help! Like I said, perfect when you need just a bit of guidance and don’t feel like pulling out the cookbooks.

I’ll give you a recipe I love because it’s not cream sauce. I make it for my husband and then steal little non-pasta bites for myself. It’s fantastic with wide egg noodles. You can throw some chicken in, I suppose. Grill some, slice it, serve on top? Or go meatless here. Because you’re a cook I haven’t spelled out every little detail.

Poppyseed Pasta with Mushroom and Pepper Ragout:

  • Saute 1 diced onion and salt in a mix of butter and olive oil until onion is soft. Or skip this step, we don’t eat onions very often.
  • Add minced garlic, (between 2 and 6 cloves depending on your taste), chili flakes if you have them, a small spoon of dried dill, and one or two big spoons of paprika, saute until garlic has lost sharp raw taste
  • Add sliced mushrooms. About a kilo, maybe? Add some more salt, stir. Bump up the heat to get the mushrooms to release their liquid.
  • One the mushrooms have released nearly all their water, add two or three red peppers (diced) and a little less than a pint of red wine. A cup and a half or so. Turn back down the heat.
  • Let reduce, then add soy sauce to taste and balsamic vinegar to taste. Start with two small spoons of each, and build on that.
  • Rest a pot lid not quite on the pot so some steam can escape. Stir every now and then. Cook til everything is the texture you like - sauce is the right thickness, peppers are how you like 'em, etc. Mix in some fresh, chopped parsley and/or dill, if you want it. Add a few tablespoons of butter to enrich the sauce.

This is about enough for 1/2 a kilo of pasta, though I cook less so as to err on the side of lots of sauce and veg, less pasta. The sauce can be made ahead of time, as the pasta’s cooked separately.

Stir in some poppyseeds and sour cream/creme fraiche last minute for crunch and smoothness.

19

Okay, I tried this out and it was quite good (though I did modify it a bit with some garlic and pesto). Alas, it has one downfall, for my purposes. I need a sauce that I can make in a large-ish batch and store in the refrigerator of freezer, to be used as needed. I’m cooking only for myself, and I can get 15-20 meals out of a pound of dry pasta (I cook the whole package at once, cool it, and then portion it into Zip-loc bags, 3-5 ounces each depending on the type of pasta). I discovered that this sauce recipe, when put in the fridge, solidifies and doesn’t reheat well (it breaks). I think I may be better off with a basic, seasoned cream sauce that will stay liquid when refrigerated. It would be easy enough to reheat the sauce and melt the parmesan into it at that time.

20

Oh yeah, I could have told you that. Didn’t realize you were looking for something you could freeze. Not sure it would be possible - you risk the cream separating if you freeze it. It would probably stay good in the fridge for a long time, though. I’ve found that cream last for a long, long time in the refrigerator.

That said, that recipe is so simple that I don’t really see the advantage of making large quantities. It’s only cream and butter, even if you added pesto or garlic we’re only talking 2-4 ingredients that are easy to throw in a pan. Are you really saving that much time having them pre-mixed?

Also - 15-20 dinners out of ONE POUND of pasta? That’s less than an ounce per serving. I’m hip to small servings, but that seems like you’d end up with about 10 noodles on your plate.