How many kinds of pasta are there?
There are certainly more types of individual pastas than you or I could name. Some of them are familiar and some I have never heard of. They can be divided into the following broad categories.
Long strands
- Round- thin to wide – angel hair
- Flat or ribbon pasta -thin to wide – linguine, lasagne
Short
- Tubular – small to large, smooth or ridged, straight cut or diagonal-rigatoni, penne, mannicoti
- Shaped – farfalle, wagon wheels
- Stuffed – ravioli, tortellini
Long Pasta
Long pasta is best used with sauces made with olive oil or butter. Frequently, these sauces incorporate seafood such as clams or shrimp. Light tomato sauces are fine too. The light sauces allow you to twirl the pasta around your fork. Please don’t cut with a knife. Oh, horror of horrors! If you are adding vegetables to your sauce, be sure to cut them into small pieces or in strips so they blend in with the long pasta as in pasta primavera.
Short Pasta
The short pastas that are tubular or shaped, because of their uneven surfaces, hold the sauce better. Heavier tomato and cream sauces are paired with these pastas. Stuffed pastas such as ravioli or tortellini are also good with heavy tomato and cream based sauces.
I’m going to talk about the long strand pastas today. I will cover the other types in another post.
Long Strand Round Pasta
The most familiar type of long strand round pasta is spaghetti. Sometimes this is used as a catch all phrase to cover all kinds of long pasta. Spaghetti is the oldest known type of long pasta and literally means “lengths of cords”. Spaghetti is good with oil or tomato based sauces.
Angel hair is a thinner version of spaghetti. It is often used with thin oil or butter sauces or broths. It is frequently paired with vegetables or shrimp. Any additions should be chopped very thin.
Long Strand Flat Pasta
In the world of long strand flat or ribbon pastas, linguine and lasagne are probably the most familiar ones.
When I think of linguine, I always pair it with red or white clam sauce. They just go together. Yum..a nice big serving of clams and linguine in a beautiful pasta bowl…that’s my comfort food!
Lasagne noodles are long, wide and flat. Sometimes they are ruffled, sometimes not. Lasagne also refers to the delicious baked dish made with layered lasagne noodles, and a filling of cheese, meat and/or vegetables.
Fettucine is also a flat, ribbon pasta which is a little wider than linguine. Fettucine is typically used in rich, creamy sauces…think fettucine alfredo.
Whatever kind of pasta you choose, try to present it in a beautiful, hand painted pasta bowl. And for dessert, enjoy some delicious gelato made in your very own gelato maker.
Ciao,
Stephanie
Italian Nonna
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