PASTA PERFECT
Italian
restaurants across the country are celebrating regional, artisanal pastas
giving the pedestrian penne and mundane macaroni a miss
Quick
question: What’s common between a cap, a shell, a small ear and a handkerchief?
And no, I’m not alluding to a fevered dream. Those who’ve guessed ‘shapes of
pasta’ — take 10 points! Interestingly, chefs across the country are now
pulling out all the stops to ensure that diners order pastas that are more
exotic and obscure than the rather ubiquitous and pedestrian penne pomodoro.
Take for example the tiny ear-like orecchiette, which is a regional Italian pasta variety from Puglia that thanks to its concave centre and ridges is the perfect receptacle for thick sauces and meat ragouts. While it is served in a rustic styled sautéed vegetables and herbed sauce at Two One Two Bar & Grill in Mumbai, Italia in New Delhi sends out its orecchiette in a hearty pecorino-laced sauce with a hint of chilli. The giant shell-shaped pasta conchiglie is another great sauce holder. Café Mangii in Mumbai has conchiglie on its menu where it is tossed in a pepper-cream sauce, Italian sausage, smoked ham and crispy bacon.
“Demand for more authentic Italian cuisine is rising in India as Indians are well-travelled and bring back with them important gourmet memories,” explains Mickey Bhoite, Chef de Cuisine, Le Cirque at The Leela Palace, New Delhi, on the rise of the artisanal pasta. “In Italy, almost every type of pasta has its own sauce and it is blasphemous to get them mixed up.”
Le Cirque, for its part has the short, thin, twisted pasta from Genoa called trofie that is served with a seafood marinara sauce with prawns, calamari, vongole and mussels. One more such sauce-specific pasta is the pesto ‘platefellow’ — fazzoletti. The dried square handkerchief-like pasta — not dissimilar to
rectangular lasagna sheets — occupies primo position on the menu of Casa Toscana in Kolkata’s Southern Avenue where it is served with a pesto Genovese sauce with basil, pine nuts and a liberal splash of garlic-infused olive oil.
These days, fresh pastas with fillings too seem to be veering away from good old ravioli. Cappellacci di prete or ‘cap’-shaped pasta is stuffed with minced chicken, basil, black pepper and tossed in luridly red coloured cranberry sauce at Mumbai’s Otto Infinito. But the number one challenge according to Chef Azad Taslim Arif Executive Chef of Otto Infinito is the short shelf life of the relatively temperamental cappellacci di prete. “Keeping this type of pasta pliable and fresh given that it is stuffed and can easily lose its flavours while poaching is a great challenge,” he says. Another stuffed pasta with artisanal underpinnings is the mezzaluna, that is, as its name suggests, a half-moon shaped pasta that may have fillings like meat, spinach or herbs. The mezzaluna del fattore at Italia In Cucina in Kolkata is a cheese-mushroom-olive stuffed mezzaluna in a cream based sauce.
It was while sitting at a tiny café tucked away off the Fontana de Trevi in Rome that Chef Manu Chandra, executive chef and partner Olive Beach, Bangalore had a ‘eureka’ pasta moment. “The pici with duck that I ate there made me wonder why such things were not made in India where pasta was such a rage,” he says. So, he introduced pici to his diners, which is a fat hand-rolled pasta (like a spaghetti strand on steroids!) that comes from the town of Siena in Tuscany. His version is served with sage and parmesan-flavoured chicken meatballs. The Sicilian cavatelli that resembles small hot-dog buns too finds a place on Olive, Bangalore’s prix fixe lunch menu, enrobed in a saffron sauce along with crumbled pork sausages, spinach and basil.
While not relying on the erratic supply of such artisanal, previously-imported pastas, most chefs insist on making their own pastas from scratch, all done in house. “The machine that I use to make my cavatelli is so cute that I dub it the R2D2 of my kitchen. For the other pastas, I use an Imperia 220 to roll out and then cut through the sheets of pasta,” says Chandra, who also does the very uncommon (even in Italy!) pasta alla chitarra or ‘guitar’ pasta that comes from the Abruzzo region in central Italy. It gets its moniker from the fact that it is cut into ribbons by a set of wire strings that resemble guitar strings.
But flavoured pastas are in demand too. The squid ink flavoured pasta nere or black pasta served with calamari, garlic and chilli peppers is one of the highest selling pasta dishes at Tonino in New Delhi’s Mehrauli enclave. Another classic flavoured pasta combinations is paglia e fieno. This literally means ‘straw and hay’ and is a duet of straw yellow fettuccine-like pasta — made from flour and fresh egg yolks — and brilliant green pasta made by adding blended spinach to the pasta dough. While Tuscana Pizzeria in Chennai dishes out its version of paglia e fieno with a riggalie of chicken heart, liver and gizzards simmered in a crème fraîche, mushroom and wine vinegar sauce, Mumbai’s Serafina does a vegetarian dish with it in a light tomato sauce with basil, pannigiano cheese and a touch of cream.
Shaped, stuffed or flavoured, this new wave of pasta is slowly changing the way we in India look at something we once rather philistinely referred to as, well… macaroni!
•
SIMILAR, BUT DIFFERENT…
Bigoli: Similar to pici, bigoli too is a hand-rolled pasta. But unlike the whole pici, the knitting needle-thick bigoli has a hollowed out centre. Served at Tonino, New Delhi.
Tagliolini: Just like a tagliatelle, a tagliolini is long and cylindrical in shape, but not flat and ribbon-like as a tagliatelle is. Served at Olive Beach, Bangalore
Gnocchetti Sardi: The southern Italian version of gnocchi, gnocchetti Sardi are smaller in shape than gnocchi and are made from durum wheat instead of potato flour. Served at Two One Two Bar & Grill, Mumbai
Garganelli: This Bologna specialty might look just like a piece of cylindrical penne, but it differs in that an envelopelike horizontal flap is easily visible. Served at La Tagliatella, New Delhi.
Capellino D'Angleo: Also known as ‘Angel Hair’ pasta, this pasta has a diameter between 0.78 and 0.8mm and is a size exactly in-between vermicelli and spaghetti. Served at Tuscana Pizzeria, Chennai
Take for example the tiny ear-like orecchiette, which is a regional Italian pasta variety from Puglia that thanks to its concave centre and ridges is the perfect receptacle for thick sauces and meat ragouts. While it is served in a rustic styled sautéed vegetables and herbed sauce at Two One Two Bar & Grill in Mumbai, Italia in New Delhi sends out its orecchiette in a hearty pecorino-laced sauce with a hint of chilli. The giant shell-shaped pasta conchiglie is another great sauce holder. Café Mangii in Mumbai has conchiglie on its menu where it is tossed in a pepper-cream sauce, Italian sausage, smoked ham and crispy bacon.
“Demand for more authentic Italian cuisine is rising in India as Indians are well-travelled and bring back with them important gourmet memories,” explains Mickey Bhoite, Chef de Cuisine, Le Cirque at The Leela Palace, New Delhi, on the rise of the artisanal pasta. “In Italy, almost every type of pasta has its own sauce and it is blasphemous to get them mixed up.”
Le Cirque, for its part has the short, thin, twisted pasta from Genoa called trofie that is served with a seafood marinara sauce with prawns, calamari, vongole and mussels. One more such sauce-specific pasta is the pesto ‘platefellow’ — fazzoletti. The dried square handkerchief-like pasta — not dissimilar to
rectangular lasagna sheets — occupies primo position on the menu of Casa Toscana in Kolkata’s Southern Avenue where it is served with a pesto Genovese sauce with basil, pine nuts and a liberal splash of garlic-infused olive oil.
These days, fresh pastas with fillings too seem to be veering away from good old ravioli. Cappellacci di prete or ‘cap’-shaped pasta is stuffed with minced chicken, basil, black pepper and tossed in luridly red coloured cranberry sauce at Mumbai’s Otto Infinito. But the number one challenge according to Chef Azad Taslim Arif Executive Chef of Otto Infinito is the short shelf life of the relatively temperamental cappellacci di prete. “Keeping this type of pasta pliable and fresh given that it is stuffed and can easily lose its flavours while poaching is a great challenge,” he says. Another stuffed pasta with artisanal underpinnings is the mezzaluna, that is, as its name suggests, a half-moon shaped pasta that may have fillings like meat, spinach or herbs. The mezzaluna del fattore at Italia In Cucina in Kolkata is a cheese-mushroom-olive stuffed mezzaluna in a cream based sauce.
It was while sitting at a tiny café tucked away off the Fontana de Trevi in Rome that Chef Manu Chandra, executive chef and partner Olive Beach, Bangalore had a ‘eureka’ pasta moment. “The pici with duck that I ate there made me wonder why such things were not made in India where pasta was such a rage,” he says. So, he introduced pici to his diners, which is a fat hand-rolled pasta (like a spaghetti strand on steroids!) that comes from the town of Siena in Tuscany. His version is served with sage and parmesan-flavoured chicken meatballs. The Sicilian cavatelli that resembles small hot-dog buns too finds a place on Olive, Bangalore’s prix fixe lunch menu, enrobed in a saffron sauce along with crumbled pork sausages, spinach and basil.
While not relying on the erratic supply of such artisanal, previously-imported pastas, most chefs insist on making their own pastas from scratch, all done in house. “The machine that I use to make my cavatelli is so cute that I dub it the R2D2 of my kitchen. For the other pastas, I use an Imperia 220 to roll out and then cut through the sheets of pasta,” says Chandra, who also does the very uncommon (even in Italy!) pasta alla chitarra or ‘guitar’ pasta that comes from the Abruzzo region in central Italy. It gets its moniker from the fact that it is cut into ribbons by a set of wire strings that resemble guitar strings.
But flavoured pastas are in demand too. The squid ink flavoured pasta nere or black pasta served with calamari, garlic and chilli peppers is one of the highest selling pasta dishes at Tonino in New Delhi’s Mehrauli enclave. Another classic flavoured pasta combinations is paglia e fieno. This literally means ‘straw and hay’ and is a duet of straw yellow fettuccine-like pasta — made from flour and fresh egg yolks — and brilliant green pasta made by adding blended spinach to the pasta dough. While Tuscana Pizzeria in Chennai dishes out its version of paglia e fieno with a riggalie of chicken heart, liver and gizzards simmered in a crème fraîche, mushroom and wine vinegar sauce, Mumbai’s Serafina does a vegetarian dish with it in a light tomato sauce with basil, pannigiano cheese and a touch of cream.
Shaped, stuffed or flavoured, this new wave of pasta is slowly changing the way we in India look at something we once rather philistinely referred to as, well… macaroni!
•
SIMILAR, BUT DIFFERENT…
Bigoli: Similar to pici, bigoli too is a hand-rolled pasta. But unlike the whole pici, the knitting needle-thick bigoli has a hollowed out centre. Served at Tonino, New Delhi.
Tagliolini: Just like a tagliatelle, a tagliolini is long and cylindrical in shape, but not flat and ribbon-like as a tagliatelle is. Served at Olive Beach, Bangalore
Gnocchetti Sardi: The southern Italian version of gnocchi, gnocchetti Sardi are smaller in shape than gnocchi and are made from durum wheat instead of potato flour. Served at Two One Two Bar & Grill, Mumbai
Garganelli: This Bologna specialty might look just like a piece of cylindrical penne, but it differs in that an envelopelike horizontal flap is easily visible. Served at La Tagliatella, New Delhi.
Capellino D'Angleo: Also known as ‘Angel Hair’ pasta, this pasta has a diameter between 0.78 and 0.8mm and is a size exactly in-between vermicelli and spaghetti. Served at Tuscana Pizzeria, Chennai
RAUL
DIAS TCR130727
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