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With National Pasta Day on October 17th, our Top Pick Of The Week is Sfoglini Pasta, a brand of fine artisan pasta that’s Italian in heritage but all-American, made in the Hudson Valley of New York State with the finest organic golden semolina* and three specialty grains from North American farms: einkorn, hemp, and rye.
The current lineup of beautiful pasta shapes is below.
Sfoglini works with local flour mills to source organic, non-GMO, whole-grain flour.
If you love pasta enough to want the best, take a look at Sfoglini† (sfo-LEE-nee), a line made in the Hudson Valley of New York State.
Like the finest artisan pastas from Italy, the flour is mixed into a dough. The dough is then extruded through bronze dies and slow-dried. Watch pasta being extruded in the video below.
Traditional bronze dies provide a beautiful, rough texture (it’s very subtle) that gives the sauce more texture to cling to.
The pasta is slow-dry at a low temperature, which preserves both flavor and nutrients.
As a comparison, mass-produced pasta uses Teflon® dies, which make a smooth-surface pasta.
The result, per Sfoglini (and we agree):
Sauceability: The sauce readily adheres to the pasta.
Forkability: The shape is easy to spear and it stays on your fork.
Toothsinkability: It is satisfying to sink your teeth into each piece.
Everything is done to enhance the overall eating experience. Sfoglini says that “it’s quality you can taste from the field to the bowl.”
We agree. Try some for yourself, and give them as gifts.
While an individual box of this exciting-looking pasta is a nice little gift, there’s a Pasta of The Month Club that gives the joy of great pasta every month.
> Check out all of the Sfoglini shapes in the next section.
> Get your Sfoglini pasta.
> The history of pasta.
> The different types of pasta: a glossary.
SFOGLINI SHAPES
Sfoglini specializes in short-cut pasta or short shapes, as opposed to the long form, ribbon, or strand pasta that includes everything you can twirl around your fork—from the most narrow, angel hair to the widest, pappardelle (plus lasagna sheets).
Sfoglini shapes are works of art. Not your basic elbows and butterflies.
Check up this lineup, which lets you make creative and interesting pasta dishes, and visit the website to see each shape.
Organic Wheat Pasta
Cavatelli
Cuttlefish Ink Spaccatelli
Saffron Malloreddus
Small Shells
Radiators
Reginetti
Sun-Dried Tomato Ziti
Tumeric Reginetti
Rigatoni
Trumpets
Whole Grain Organic Wheat Pasta
Whole-Grain Wheat
Whole Grain Radiators
Whole Grain Reginetti
Whole Grain Trumpets
Organic Einkorn Pasta
Macaroni
Organic Hemp Pasta
Hemp Radiators
Organic Rye Flour Pasta
Trumpets
Sfoglini pasta is a premium product and is priced higher than mass-produced supermarket brands.
However, if you appreciate fine food, the quality and taste are well worth the cost.
GET YOUR SFOGLINI PASTA
The line is carried at specialty food stores, gourmet food markets, and online.
For the full line, head to the Sfoglini website.
Scroll down to watch pasta being extruded.
Note #1: The video shows different shapes of pasta. While it may appear that one bronze plate makes all of the shapes, this is a composite video: Each is made with its own specially-shaped bronze die.
Note #2: The video has a lively soundtrack, so turn it down in advance if you wish.
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[1] Cascatelli pasta. flat strip and a pair of ruffles parallel to each other. The name derives from the Italian cascate, which means waterfall (photos #1, #2, and #3 © Farm To People).
[2] Cavatelli pasta. The name means corkscrew.
[3] Reginetti pasta is also called mafaldine pasta. The name means “little queens” in Italian. It was named in honor of Princess Mafalda of Savoy, who met a tragic end‡ in World War II.
[4] Zucca, meaning pumpkin in Italian, are pumpkin-shape hollow pasta with openings at the top and bottom for sauce to nestle (photo © Sfoglini).
[5] A plate of cascatelli pasta, a short pasta shape with a flat strip and a ruffle on each side. The name comes from Italian cascate meaning waterfalls. Cascatelle means little waterfalls (photo © Quinciple).
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*Semolina is the coarsely ground and granular endosperm of durum wheat. These round golden kernels are the base of most American, and all Italian, dry pasta. Semolina is granular like sugar, not powdery like most other flours. Homemade fresh pasta is generally not made from semolina, but from general-purpose flour that is lower in gluten. Preparing semolina dough requires industrial mixers or several hours of kneading the granular mass. As a result, homemade pasta cooks much more quickly, often in half the time, and can overcook easily if the pot is not watched. In general, properly cooked, top-quality commercial artisan pasta is as good or better than what most people can make at home.
†A sfoglina (feminine form, plural sfogline) or sfoglino (masculine form, plural sfoglini) is someone who makes sfoglia, sheets of fresh pasta. A sfoglina is historically seen as a middle-aged woman who rolls and stretches out the dough with a rolling pin (mattarello) on a large wooden pastry board (taglieri). Here’s more about it. At Sfoglini, two men, the sfoglini, carry on the tradition: Sfoglini chef Steve Gonzalez and creative director Scott Ketchum.
‡Princess Mafalda of Savoy, a daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, married Prince Philipp of Hesse, a grandson of German Emperor Frederick III. Prince Philipp was a member the Nazi Party. In 1935 she was present at an informal diplomatic dinner given by Adolf Hitler in the Reich President’s House in Berlin (she sat next to Britain’s Prime Minister Anthony Eden). Hitler disliked her, and during World War II, Hitler chose to believe that was working against the war effort. She was arrested and transported to Buchenwald concentration camp where she died. Here’s more about it.
‡‡The cascatelli shape was developed by Dan Pashman, who switched the “e” at the end the word for waterfalls, cascatelle, to “i” to conform with the endings of other pasta shapes. Here’s more about it.
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