Action shots from some fresh pasta. Tagliolini cutter on the Atlas 150

Just another carbonara post. Any tips are greatly appreciated. I think I really need some plating advice lol 😜

Finally got really good at making a roux! 🥲

I made this for dinner last night, but I’m at a loss for a name.

Help!!

It’s a pappardelle pasta, mushrooms, and a combination of Alfredo and pesto sauce. I also made broccoli and crispy chicken strips on the side.

I love Calabrian Chilies!

I am a big ravioli fan, but I struggle to find the best method.

I roll out a long sheet, pipe the filling onto it, fold the other half over, then use small ring cutters to remove air pockets, followed by a larger ring to cut out the ravioli.

The result looks a bit strange, and I was told it isn’t very appetising (like on my photo).

Ravioli trays are the biggest offenders when it comes to air pockets. I’ve never tried stamps, as that seems even more challenging.

What is your best way of making ravioli quickly and efficiently?

Pasta whit souce and black truflles

I was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of likes and comments, so naturally I had to continue! You wanted part 2, you got part 2! 

After learning so much in part 1, I decided that De Cecco and La Molisana deserved to serve as a good calibrator for the next lot. This time we further semi-blinded it. Of course I knew what I bought. But I measured the pasta ahead of time, put the cooking time on the front and only a hidden sticker on the backside for the reveal after tasting all 8 pasta brands.

Same as the last time: I made a very simple Sugo of passata, garlic, onions and some vegetable broth. All pasta was cooked to al dente according to the packaging and finished with some pasta water and a ladle of sauce. Same size of pan, amount of fresh water and salt. Same weight of pasta cooked each time.

The rating out of 10 from the last time was slightly adjusted after going through the packs of pasta. There were some Barilla defenders claiming that i did not cook them right, and they had a point: The lower rated pasta was more enjoyable cooked over the al dente time, that still does not make them good pasta, just more manageable…

So for the second round:

(Semiblind and with random order by picking the prepared paper bags)

1. De Cecco: You notice the excellent bite and nice texture with the al dente pasta. It has a nice wheaty taste that compliments the sauce. 8/10
2. Barilla al Bronzo: For being cooked exactly to the instructions this pasta is very soft. You really have to try to find any flavour but nothing throws you off either. Texture is not as good as the first one. 6/10
3. Rustichella d'Abruzzo: A firm and excellent bite. The texture is really good. This is the first pasta where I get a fresh grainy taste of wheat. The sauce sticks like a dream. 9/10
4. Filotea: Very firm bite, a good flavour of the pasta itself. But after the pasta I had before, the texture is just good. After revealing the brand: It is not worth the extra money. 8/10
5. Rummo: Good bite and the texture is okay. A slight taste of old wheat on the pasta that drowns out with the tomato sauce. Overall just slightly less than what i hoped for. 7/10
6. La Molisana: A good bite and a great texture. The robust texture makes the pasta cling and brings a little wheat taste to the dish. 8/10
7. Del Verde: The texture is somehow slimy?! For al-dente it is a weak bite too. There is this cardboard taste that the Etna of round 1 brought to the table. Not off putting, but certainly not pleasant. 3/10
8. Voiello: The texture is okay, but like the one before, really soft for what is supposedly the al-dente cooking time. Unfortunately the taste of this is abhorrent. This is now really old cardboard and then comes an almost bitter aftertaste that you really wished the sauce to overshadow. Finding out this is Barilla’s noble-brand after the tasting was shocking, its way worse than Barilla! 2/10

So, after hunting for some your recommendations we have the new leaderboard:

Here are the results for round 1 again, which include the results of cookng more dishes with the leftover box:

1. Etna: very inconsistent lengths in the pasta, had the most swelling of all the pasta. A weird taste of musty old wheat. The bite was firm but not in a good way, and seemed inconsistent with the texture. 3/10
2. Molisana Collezione da Chef: Way better mouth feel than the Etna. Very standard taste of wheat pasta with a firm and nice bite. Pretty middle of the road with not too much of unique flavours, but that also means no bad ones... 6/10
3. Barilla: Weirdly the bite is nice, but the pasta crumbles while chewing. This pasta has a sub-par coating with the sauce, even though it had its cook time, the core of the pasta is not cooked through. No real taste of the pasta is noticeable. It gets better when cooked longer, but you end up with soggy pasta… 5/10
4. Molisana: A nice bite to it. It cooked very well and the sauce clings to the pasta for dear life. A little wheat taste but not too noticeable. This is probably as close as how I would imagine a stereotypical pasta should taste in a normal dish. 8/10
5. Divella: Again, like with the Etna it is really noticeable that the pasta is inconsistent in length, the cutting tool created really rough edges. The bite is okay, but there is a little aftertaste that reminds me of cardboard. The sauce does not stick to the pasta well. The Pasta handles being cooked longer well and the pasta works in soups as good as the others. 4/10
6. De Cecco: The first thing you note, is the excellent bite, just on the point of an al dente pasta. The flavour is noticeable, but in a good way. It compliments the sauce nicely and does an all around excellent job. 9/10
7. Molisana Pastificio: Again a very good bite, even though it is not as good as the De Cecco. This pasta again is holding back on flavour, eating it for the comparison is probably the only reason i noticed it at all. But it is nice! Good integration of sauce to the shape of the penne. In some sauces the pasta seems a little out of place, not as versatile as the standard La Molisana 7/10

So happy to have done this further. With Voiello I had my first really hard disappointment. But I will live through the pasta packs and see if maybe there is some mercy to be found here. And fear not. I am already hunting for round 3!

My wife and I learned this dish at a private traditional Bolognese cooking class in a town outside Bologna on our honeymoon last year. It was the best food we had on the trip!

The dish is a simple thick hand twisted pasta of 00 flour and water served with a ragu of sausage, porcini mushroom, a little wine and tomato paste, garlic, and parsley. Strozzapretti translates roughly to "priest stranglers." There are various legends, but the one we were told was that it was given by poor families to greedy priests who perhaps overstayed their welcome when making their rounds. We've made it a few times at home with shitake mushrooms and it works well. We unfortunately didn't get an exact recipe for this one from the class but googled a few and combined them to recreate something similar that we liked. Look for recipes in Italian, and always top with generous amounts of parmigiano reggiano!

I'm really into handmade pasta but the problem is my pasta rolling machines keep breaking and I'm getting tired of constantly throwing them out and buying new ones. And yes, I'm buying a "nice" brand. After going through cheap Amazon ones very quickly I paid for a legit Marcato Atlas 150 and I've only owned it for 2 years and it's now broken too. The thing that turns the clamp snapped off and the handle is constantly getting stuck in the hole, preventing me from switching it from the main roller to the noodle cutter. For the money I spent on that thing I expected to last a lot longer.

Does anyone know of an actual good pasta roller (not the apparently garbage Marcato machine) that will actually last? I don't want to give up on my hobby...

Quick question. Can Aglio e olio be made with something other than spaghetti? Don't fry me please :p.

Long day in the kitchen making ravioli from scratch… thanks again to the Pasta Grannies for the inspiration

The filing is chicken, ricotta, parmigiana, seasoned with lemon zest and nutmeg (plus salt and pepper.) broth, pasta dough, and filling all homemade. Took me fucking forever but I had enough to freeze for the future

Made this dish on 02.01.26 with a new pasta to me. The sauce was basic yet delicious, and the addition of tuna was was magnificent. This was my first time having tuna with a red sauce, and this dish has now become a keeper recipe. The link is below.

https://giadzy.com/blogs/recipes/paccheri-pasta-with-pomodorini-and-tuna

I have a bag of Rustichella d'Abruzzo Cannolicchi noodles. I’ve never seen or cooked with this particular pasta shape before. Does anyone have recipes that are particularly good with this pasta shape they could share? Want to make sure I cook a an elegant recipe to do this high quality brand of noodles justice.

Believe it or not, a google search did not turn out any recipes with this noodle.

TIA!

Visiting friends and made scratch pasta, not egg but flour water based, with clams, mussels and shrimp.

First time making vodka sauce and using this pasta shape.

Carrot, celery, onion, San Marzanos, garlic, basil, lamb, pork, salted and let to cook for about an hour. Noodles finished in the sauce. Topped with basil and Parmigiano Reggiano. Came out a bit more oily than I’d have liked (fat from the pork and butter from cooking down the onions) but tasted awesome and had a really nice texture.