Pasta has been an important part of Italian cuisine for centuries; it is now used frequently across the world. Combining pasta with a variety of other ingredients provides a quick, tasty and nutritious dish.
The word pasta literally means dough and the best fresh pasta is made from pasta flour, eggs, salt and sometimes a little olive oil. Dried pasta is made from Durum wheat, a hard high-protein wheat, eggs and sometimes other things like spinach, saffron or tomato purée to provide colour.
These days there is a wide range of pasta, both fresh and dried, in varying shapes, sizes and colours. The long pasta is usually spaghetti, tagliatelle and linguine. The shorter variety are macaroni, penne and fusilli and unusual shapes can be found with conchiglie, radiatori or lumcahe.
There is also pasta for soups or stuffed pastas such as tortellini or ravioli and sheets of pasta called lasagne and cannelloni which are usually oven-baked rather than boiled.
How to Cook Pasta
Pasta needs cooking in a large saucepan with plenty of water and a little salt. Bring the water to a vigorous boil and stir in the pasta, the water will go off the boil, so get it boiling again as quickly as possible, but don´t cover the pan with a lid.
The water should be boiling all the time the pasta is cooking and will need stirring occasionally to make sure the pieces don´t stick together.
Pasta al dente is often asked for in cookery books, this means that it should be tender but still needs biting. If it´s cooked for longer it´ll be softer with no need to use your teeth to bite it.
Pasta Salad with Chargrilled Peppers
Ingredients
- 1 red pepper
- 1orange pepper
- 280g dried conchiglie, or any preferred pasta variety
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp pesto
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 3 tbsp basil leaves, shredded
- salt and pepper
Method
Place the whole peppers on a baking sheet and put under a preheated grill, turn them over frequently for 15 minutes until browned all over.
Remove peppers with tongs and put into a bowl, covering with a piece of kitchen roll and leave to cool.
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil, add the pasta and bring back to the boil and cook for 8-10 minutes until al dente.
Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, pesto and garlic in a bowl. Drain the pasta and add to the pesto mixture while still hot.
Rachel L. Webb - Rachel L Webb lives in and writes mainly about Andalucia. She enjoys exploring the region and shares her explorations through her website ...
