Dry pasta and fresh pasta are completely different animals. Both are good if made and used correctly. Fresh pasta is softer and more delicate than the more common dried pasta we usually eat. Consequently it should be reserved for lighter, more delicate sauces of vegitables and meats. Heavy sauces, like rich meat sauces, need dry pasta to stand in contrast. This note will cover choosing using dry Pasta. Click on the link to find out about fresh pasta.
DRY PASTA. You can dry your own pasta, but if you are going to through all the work to make pasta yourself. Eat it fresh. There is terrific dry pasta available in stores. Use it and enjoy it.
There is a great deal of variability in dry pasta. The best ones are artesian made, rather than mass produced. These usually use a large amount of semolina flour (a rougher, less sticky flour than our all-purpose flours). Semolina, made from duram wheat, is yellowish and looks like fine sand. It can make pasta with rough texture that is resistant at the bite. The texture allows us to get pastas with rough surfaces that hold hearty sauces well. The resistance offer a wonderful mouth feel, rather than the soggy pasty bite that many low-quality pastas have. The highest-grade dry pasta is extruded through rough, often very old dies that give it a rough surface and almost dusty coating. It is dried slowly. Mass produced pasta is typically very smooth and much cleaner looking. Wine Spectator rated readily available dry pastas. I have tried most of them and have been satisfied. Below is a list of their favorites:
Benedetto Cavalieri--I have found this one at Williams Sonoma and other places.
Latini-- get it at www.agferrari.com . I use this one most of the time. It comes in orange boxes and is available also at many fine Italian delis and high-end grocery stores. They have a riserva version made from special wheat from a particular farm. It is designated Senatore Capelli. I have also tried and enjoyed Rustichella d'Abruzzo. Finally they list Castellana, which I not tried. Besides A.G. Ferrari, you can also look at www.dibruno.com for fine pastas. Most American grocery stores now carry de Cecco in the light blue box. It is adequate in an pinch and a better price than the others. All of these pastas use some or all semolina flour.
COOKING IT. Lots of rapidly boiling water with salt in it. Do not put olive oil in it or it will coat the rough pasta and prevent the sauce from sticking. You can also slice very thinly one medium peeled potato. It will disolve during the boiling process (if sliced very thinly) and will add a layer of starch to smoother pastas to help the sauce stick. You don't want uncoated pasta sitting in a soup of pasta-free sauce. And I don't care what you see in the cooking shows, Don't use the oil.
The sauce should be ready ahead of the pasta. If it is a hot sauce, cook the pasta until it is about one minute from being ready, drain it and finish it by putting it into the hot sauce, letting it absorp some of the flavor. Do not over-sauce your pasta. In Italy, you are supposed to taste the pasta (assuming you used good pasta) through the sauce. Finally if the sauce is not hot (like say a fresh pesto, or butter+garlic+cheese), then cook the pasta al dente (slight resistance to the bite), drain it and add it to the sauce in a bowl, using the hot pasta to warm the sauce.
