THE NIBBLE Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
Read all of our content on TheNibble.com, the online magazine about specialty food.
Archive for Pasta
|
April 11, 2008 at 1:33 pm
· Filed under Gluten-Free, Pasta
|
| Nothing makes us happier than a good lasagna—and this one will make people on gluten-free diets extremely happy. Made by Food Matters, a company that makes frozen prepared foods catering to dietary needs, we’d be happy to fill our freezer with these. Then, when we have a lasagna jones—often—we’d have a Food Matters lasagna piping hot in 20 minutes, rather than the alternative (spend three hours making our own, or take a long cab ride downtown to the one place in town that makes better lasagna than we do). The meatballs (not shown) also rock. Food Matters will deliver overnight to anywhere in the U.S. If you have friends with gluten allergies, they’ll love this gift! Read our full review in the Pasta Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
|
So good, so gluten-free. No one will realize it, though: It tastes like any really good lasagna.
|
| |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
March 18, 2008 at 6:16 pm
· Filed under Top Pick Of The Week, Entertaining, Pasta
|
| Ravioli lovers, dinner-party givers, and foodies of all inclinations: It doesn’t get more exciting than this. The word “ravioli” typically conjures up the image of pleasant pasta pillows stuffed with some vague meat or cheese. Not any more! Be prepared to be blasted to a higher level of ravioli consciousness by the artisans at Nuovo Pasta. For years we have lusted after Nuovo Pasta’s visually stunning, palate-tantalizing ravioli. We have longed to introduce them to you, dear NIBBLE reader. Heck, we have longed to get our own hands on them, but have been limited to tasting them at trade shows. The unmovable obstacle has been that Nuovo sells its gorgeous products only to restaurants, caterers and distributors. But now, we all can buy the same amazing ravioli that the professionals do, and wow our families and guests in the way that diners are wowed at top restaurants. Our good fortune is thanks to Marx Foods, a distributor of gourmet products to fine food establishments. They’ve made their wares available to consumers nationwide, through their online store. |
|
A trio of gourmet raviolis: from the top, a regular round ravioli, a girasole (sunflower) and a pansotti (trainagle). |
| As we sit here eating giant ravioli (a.k.a. ravioloni—a single piece is an entire first course), one stuffed with osso bucco and one with Point Reyes blue cheese (a prior NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week), we are eternally grateful. There are plenty of regular-sized ravioli, too, but there is nothing “regular” about these beautiful pastas—triangular, round and rectangular, flecked, striped and marbled. They are stuffed with veal Bolognese, crawfish and andouille sausage, Grand Marnier roast duck, portabella mushrooms and Asiago cheese and dozens of other wonders. They’re irresistible, and will make your dinner parties the talk of the town. Read more and see all the photos in the full review. Pick your favorite and order a memorable first course for Easter dinner. And find more of our favorite pastas and sauces in the Pasta Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. Want to know the difference between ravioli, ravioloni, girasoles, pansotti, sacchette and a hundred other types of pasta? See our Pasta Glossary. |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
March 11, 2008 at 8:41 am
· Filed under Recipes, Pasta, St. Patrick's Day
|
| You don’t have to hunt for green bagels for St. Patrick’s Day breakfast. Start your day with a nutritious green breakfast by adding pesto sauce to the eggs beaten for scrambled eggs, omelets, a frittata or quiche. Mix in one teaspoon per egg. Decorate the plate with fresh basil or spinach leaves, and you’ll start the day in a holiday mood. You’d think pesto would be a pretty simple proposition: basil (or other green, like spinach or arugula), oil (usually olive, sometimes walnut or other oil), Parmesan and nuts (usually pine, nuts, but walnut pestos and other recipes are pretty fine). Yet, we tasted more than 100 pesto sauces from around the world and found only six brands to recommend to you, two of which were from recent Top Pick Of The Week sauce maker, Sauces ‘n Love. Read about our favorite pestos, the history of pesto and a recipe for making great pesto at home. When you realize how easy it is, you’ll become a pesto-making maverick. |
|
Use pesto sauce to make green eggs on St. Patrick’s Day. Ham is optional with your green eggs, but you can enter our Gourmet Giveaway to win a great one this week. Photo by Val Lyashov | SXC. |
| Read about more of our favorite sauces in the Pasta & Sauces Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
March 1, 2008 at 8:09 am
· Filed under Tip Of The Day, Pasta, Daily Food Holidays
|
| March is National Sauce Month, so share the love. If you make a favorite pasta sauce—or if you’ve been thinking of trying a new recipe—all of that work can make many more people happy. Just make double or triple the amount you usually would. You can freeze the extra sauce in pint containers, not just for your own use but as gifts. Birthday celebrants, sick friends, new parents and new neighbors are just a few people who would appreciate something easy-to-make for dinner. Sending guests home from a dinner party with a pint of your homemade sauce is a nice party favor—something they’ll re-thank you for when they enjoy a second delicious dinner. Read about our favorite ready-to-eat sauces in the Pasta & Sauces Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
|
 Red sauces are not just for Italian food: Try them on roasted potatoes. |
| |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
February 13, 2008 at 1:29 pm
· Filed under Recipes, Pasta, Daily Food Holidays
|
 Heavenly Porcini Mushroom Tortelloni from Bertagni. |
|
We don’t have to twist arms to get people to celebrate National Tortellini Day at THE NIBBLE. In fact, we’re lunching on several flavors of the wonderful tortellini from Bertagni (the topic of a prior post). Tortellini (tor-teh-LEE-nee) are small pastas stuffed with a variety of fillings, and a favorite pasta dish worldwide (wontons are cousins). They are served in soups—as in the classic dish, tortellini in brodo—or with sauce. We also serve them as hors d’oeuvres and snacks—with dipping sauces, on skewers with complementary meats, cheeses and veggies. Tortellini originated in Bologna and are accompanied by a legend: When the goddess Venus stayed in a tavern on the outskirts of the city, the innkeeper spied on her through the keyhole of her room, but could catch only a glimpse of her navel. Spellbound, he went to the kitchen and, to capture this vision, shaped fresh egg pasta into the bite-sized, navel-shaped tortellini. Larger bites, called tortelloni, are also made. |
| Tortellini and tortelloni are made by adding a filling to a circle of dough, then folding it in half, making a semicircle of the half and pinching the ends together to form the shape. By the way, the word for navel is not tortellini but ombelico; torte is the past participle of the verb torcere, meaning filled. |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
February 11, 2008 at 12:36 pm
· Filed under Pasta
|
An 8-ounce package, that feeds 4 people as a side, is $5.99 (suggested retail price). |
|
Want a quick, delicious lunch or dinner? Look for the all-natural filled pastas—ravioli and tortellini—from Bertagni (pronounced burr-TOHN-yee), the oldest filled pasta producer in Italy. They’re found in your grocer’s refrigerator case, and at fine food stores nationwide. The company also does a vigorous private label business, so even if you don’t see the name “Bertagni” on the package, if it has the your store’s name on it and “Product Of Italy” on the package back, it may well be theirs. You’re in for a treat—the products are so good, we enjoyed them with just a dab of butter or olive oil (filled pastas are meant to be enjoyed simply dressed, because the filling is the center of attention). The pastas cook in four minutes or less, after the water boils—a benefit of fresh pasta. Feast on flavors like Basil Ravioli With Char-Grilled Vegetables; Fire-Roasted Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil Ravioli; Arugula and Cheese Tortelloni; Porcini Mushroom Tortelloni; and perhaps our favorite (though it’s tough to pick just one), Ricotta and Parmigiano Reggiano Tortelloni. |
Do these pastas taste so good just because they’re made in Italy (a country that has some of the best food in the world, because they use the finest, freshest ingredients)?
- Read our full review of Bertagni pasta.
- If your ravioli sticks together when cooking, read how to cook fresh pasta.
- There’s more in the Pasta Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
February 10, 2008 at 11:37 am
· Filed under Entertaining, Freebies, Pasta
|
 Fettuccine With Pumpkin and Bread Crumbs will be a hit at your table. |
|
Last year, Barilla created a free downloadable cookbook featuring Italian recipes from celebrities and prominent chefs. For every cookbook downloaded, Barilla donated $1.00 to America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network, which helps the needy. This year, five celebrities—Chris Daughtry, Debra Messing, Natalie Portman, Marisa Tomei and Stanley Tucci—contributed their favorite recipes, which were further developed by Mario Batali into this year’s cookbook. Party planner David Tutera contributed table setting concepts. The cookbook is available through the end of this month at CelebrityItalianTable.com. So download your free copy and feast on Eggplant Involti With Ricotta and Scallions, Farfalle with Pancetta, Rucola and Truffle Paste, Penne Alla Vodka, Penne In Spicy Sauce With Capers and Olives, Rigatoni with Basil and Gorgonzola, Sicilian Chickpea Fritters, Spaghetti al Tonno and Steamed Cockles in a Habañero Chive Broth. |
| Follow the main course with desserts like Cherry Jam Tart, Chocolate Hazelnut Fritters and Torta di Cioccolato Abruzzese. |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
February 9, 2008 at 1:30 pm
· Filed under Pasta, Daily Food Holidays
|
 Our favorite frozen gourmet pizzas, from Pizza Romana. |
|
While National Pizza Week is celebrated the second week of January, today is Pizza Pie Day. Most of us aren’t old enough to remember that pizzas were formerly called pizza—you can catch the reference in movies from the 1950s. The history of pizza is relatively recent, given how ancient flat breads and cheese are in man’s cuisine. The key element that turned them into what we know today as pizza is the tomato, which was brought to Europe from the Americas in the 16th century. This was the yellow cherry tomato, and as a member of the Nightshade family of plants, it was believed by many Europeans to be poisonous. The tomato was enjoyed as a houseplant. However, famine in the 18th century caused the fruit to be eaten by the poor, and no one died. The poor in the area around Naples then add tomato to their flat bread, often serving as their main meal with melted cheese and/or anchovies, and so the pizza was born. (So was tomato sauce for pasta and other dishes.) |
Pizza gained in popularity, sold from open-air stands by street vendors, and soon became a tourist attraction. Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples is regarded as the world’s first pizzeria. It began as a pizza bakery in 1738, providing street vendors with pizzas, but in 1830 expanded to include a pizza restaurant with chairs and tables. It remains in business today. Pizza arrived in the U.S. with the first wave of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century.
- See our favorite line of frozen gourmet pizzas, Pizza Romana—imported from Italy.
- Try something different: An apple, cheddar and bacon pizza recipe. |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
February 7, 2008 at 10:17 am
· Filed under Recipes, Pasta, Daily Food Holidays
|
| Fettuccine Alfredo is rich comfort food, made from fettuccine, ribbon-shape strands of pasta (fettucce means “small ribbons in Italian). Wider than the other popular flat shape, linguine, fettuccine provide a better surface for catching rich and creamy sauces. (Fettuccine is similar to tagliatelle, the flat pasta from the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, but is narrower. See our Pasta Glossary for more shapes.) To make Fettuccine Alfredo, the pasta is tossed with cream, butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese; the cheese melts when tossed with the hot pasta, cream and butter, creating a sauce (at home, the ingredients are simply stirred on the stovetop; in a restaurant, tossing at tableside is part of the experience. The original recipe was created in 1914 by Alfredo Di Lelio, owner of Alfredo alla Scrofa, a restaurant in Rome. It is simply a variation of the traditional dishes, fettuccine al burro (fettuccine with butter) and fettuccini al burro e panna (with butter and cream)—both served, of course, with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. |
|
 Fettuccine Alfredo. Photo courtesy of National Pasta Association. |
Alfredo tweaked the traditional recipe slightly. When butter is added both before and after fettuccine is put in the serving bowl for tossing, it is known as doppio burro, double butter. Di Lelio doubled the amount of butter in the bowl before the fettuccine was added, creating a triplo burro, triple butter, recipe: more butter made more of a sauce. The chef created the dish to entice his pregnant wife, who had lost her appetite. He served it with egg fettuccine, hoping that the “nutritious dish” would do the trick. Today, we know that a typical serving of the “nutritious dish” has 455 calories, 38g of fat, 291mg of sodium and 143g of cholesterol. But for people who love rich, creamy food, it hits the spot! By the way, in Italy, fettuccine Alfredo and Alfredo sauce are not common terms—ask for the fettuccine al burro e panna—triplo burro. For something different, try these recipes for:
- Fettuccine Alfredo with Goat’s Milk and Goat Cheese—if you like goat cheese, you’ll like this variation
- Blue Cheese Alfredo (a recipe for traditional Alfredo sauce is included)
- Dessert Fettuccine Alfredo, with crème anglaise instead of cheese sauce |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
January 7, 2008 at 10:53 am
· Filed under Tip Of The Day, Pasta
|
 Delight the family with a theme pasta of the month—above, snowflakes and snowmen.
|
|
Use specialty shaped pastas to have a monthly celebration dinner: snowmen in January, hearts in February, stars for Independence Day, pumpkins in October, turkeys in November, Santas in December and so forth. With this new monthly dinner tradition, select a family member to research interesting facts about the holiday or season to share at the table. Read our review of Pasta Shoppe novelty-shape pastas, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week. Visit the Pasta Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine for a world of great pasta articles and reviews. |
| |
|
|
Permalink
|
|
