Is fresh pasta better than boxed?

[GagHalfrunt]

Not worth the time and effort. I actually prefer the al dente texture that's easier to achieve with boxed. I also prefer heavier, thicker sauces, so a firmer pasta is a better match anyway.

Damn it, now I want pasta for dinner. Linguini with clam sauce sounds really good.

 

[z1ggy]

Absolutely 100% better. In Italy, almost all the restaurants/stores make it fresh. Using boxed pasta would probably get you shanked.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Absolutely 100% better. In Italy, almost all the restaurants/stores make it fresh. Using boxed pasta would probably get you shanked.

Lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/17/d...ow-that-less-more-call-for-return-basics.html

 

[ControlD]

Good luck making ravioli with dried pasta. :whiste:

We've got that one covered already:

 

[z1ggy]

Lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/17/d...ow-that-less-more-call-for-return-basics.html

The places I know of, they made it themselves. Not like that lady has gone to every single place to eat in Italy.

I can def. see regular people in homes using boxed though, that's just cheaper and easier.

 

[Eug]

Lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/17/d...ow-that-less-more-call-for-return-basics.html

From the article:

The most important factor in producing good, flavorful pasta secca is the drying. Traditionally, pasta is dried at low temperatures, around 104 degrees, for a long time -- as long as 30 hours for spaghetti and longer for more complicated shapes. Industrial pasta may be dried very quickly at temperatures ranging from 140 to 194 degrees, or even higher.

At 140 degrees, Carlo Latini says, the starch molecules in wheat open, and a Maillard reaction, a chemical term for toasting, begins. The dark yellow color that this toasting produces in conventionally made pasta is an easy way to distinguish the product from traditionally made pasta, which has a pale creamy hue.

---

Yeah, while we still eat the cheap industrial dried pasta often, we prefer the low temperature dried stuff. It's tastes like the stuff you get from simple air drying. (My mom used to make Asian noodles with an Italian pasta maker and then air dry it. The texture of air dried pasta after cooking is very similar to fresh pasta.) Unfortunately, the low temperature dried stuff is also expensive, about three times the price IIRC. But then again, cheap pasta is dirt cheap so expensive pasta is still not that bad.

The article mentions that Barilla is #1 in Italy. That may be true, but most Barilla pasta still isn't great. (We buy Barilla sometimes here, if it's on sale, but it's pretty much the same as other cheap brands like Catelli.) People don't eat it because they love it. They eat it because it's cheap and convenient.

BTW, there are a lot of crappy restaurants in Italy too. When we were in Italy we discovered a lot of them, even when we thought we got off the main tourist drags. Apparently we didn't venture far enough. When my wife's relatives came to meet us days later, they showed us what proper Italian restaurants were. Big difference.

And no, I'm definitely not a pasta expert. But once you get used to fresh pasta or at least air dried pasta, you really start to crave it if all you've been eating is cheap industrial dried pasta. Mind you my toddler kids don't give a chit. They'll eat any kind of pasta and it's all the same to them.

 

[NetWareHead]

Absolutely 100% better. In Italy, almost all the restaurants/stores make it fresh. Using boxed pasta would probably get you shanked.

Not true. Italians eat both versions. As pointed out in this thread, dried and fresh pastas both have their culinary places. When we go visit my family back in Italy, there is a famous pasta factory near us. The company operates a store on factory grounds where the locals can come and buy their pasta. Both varieties can be purchased.

Note that you can make pasta at home and then dry it, making "boxed" pasta at home.

 

[blakeatwork]

I didn't realize pasta snobbery was a thing.. I wonder the term for pasta hipster is?

 

[Eug]

Not true. Italians eat both versions. As pointed out in this thread, dried and fresh pastas both have their culinary places. When we go visit my family back in Italy, there is a famous pasta factory near us. The company operates a store on factory grounds where the locals can come and buy their pasta. Both varieties can be purchased.

Note that you can make pasta at home and then dry it, making "boxed" pasta at home.

As mentioned, home dried pasta is generally much better than the mass produced industrial dried stuff. Texture is completely different.

Well, maybe "better" is not the right word. Definitely very different though.

I didn't realize pasta snobbery was a thing.. I wonder the term for pasta hipster is?

I guess it'd have to be a term that would include people like this:

 

[NikolaeVarius]

From the article:

The most important factor in producing good, flavorful pasta secca is the drying. Traditionally, pasta is dried at low temperatures, around 104 degrees, for a long time -- as long as 30 hours for spaghetti and longer for more complicated shapes. Industrial pasta may be dried very quickly at temperatures ranging from 140 to 194 degrees, or even higher.

At 140 degrees, Carlo Latini says, the starch molecules in wheat open, and a Maillard reaction, a chemical term for toasting, begins. The dark yellow color that this toasting produces in conventionally made pasta is an easy way to distinguish the product from traditionally made pasta, which has a pale creamy hue.

---

Yeah, while we still eat the cheap industrial dried pasta often, we prefer the low temperature dried stuff. It's tastes like the stuff you get from simple air drying. (My mom used to make Asian noodles with an Italian pasta maker and then air dry it. The texture of air dried pasta after cooking is very similar to fresh pasta.) Unfortunately, the low temperature dried stuff is also expensive, about three times the price IIRC. But then again, cheap pasta is dirt cheap so expensive pasta is still not that bad.

The article mentions that Barilla is #1 in Italy. That may be true, but most Barilla pasta still isn't great. (We buy Barilla sometimes here, if it's on sale, but it's pretty much the same as other cheap brands like Catelli.) People don't eat it because they love it. They eat it because it's cheap and convenient.

BTW, there are a lot of crappy restaurants in Italy too. When we were in Italy we discovered a lot of them, even when we thought we got off the main tourist drags. Apparently we didn't venture far enough. When my wife's relatives came to meet us days later, they showed us what proper Italian restaurants were. Big difference.

And no, I'm definitely not a pasta expert. But once you get used to fresh pasta or at least air dried pasta, you really start to crave it if all you've been eating is cheap industrial dried pasta. Mind you my toddler kids don't give a chit. They'll eat any kind of pasta and it's all the same to them.

That wasn't the point. The point is that not even Itlians are snobbish to the point where they will make fresh pasta for every day meals. They are still human and will still use large quantities of boxed pasta like the rest of us mortals.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I didn't realize pasta snobbery was a thing.. I wonder the term for pasta hipster is?

Italians are very particular of their food. Any deviation from the set standard is usually blasphemy.

Anyways my favorite dried pasta is Garofalo hands down. I used to buy that from the Italian market all the time in whole wheat. Costco has it in the regular white wheat.

http://www.pastagarofalo.it/us_en/

 

[Eug]

That wasn't the point. The point is that not even Itlians are snobbish to the point where they will make fresh pasta for every day meals. They are still human and will still use large quantities of boxed pasta like the rest of us mortals.

Well, my point before is some Italians are like that. Like I said, my wife's relatives never eat cheap dried pasta. They make it themselves and save the cheap dried pasta just for the dog. And they're not wealthy either. They grew up in a poor area, which ironically might be why they're like that. The people there probably have more time to do this sort of thing, and it's a traditional lifestyle. Young hipsters in Rome ironically might be more likely to eat cheap dried pasta.

Similarly, a couple of Italian friends here never use store bought sauce for their pasta. They make and can all of their own sauce at home, enough for months at a time. It seems like way too much work IMO, but that's what they do. However, they have their parents and grandparents help them to do all the work.

Just as importantly, if you go to Italy to a restaurant, you are much, much, much more likely to get freshly made pasta when you order it, because the standards there for pasta are simply much higher.

Similarly if you go to China, there are truly terrible restaurants everywhere. However, it's hard to find Peking Duck anywhere in North America that compares to the Peking Duck you'll get at many restaurants in Beijing.

 

[Eug]

P.S. This is what we do:

1) We buy mostly the cheap mass produced pasta, cuz it's cheap and convenient.
2) We also buy air-dried pasta, and sometimes fresh pasta. This is much preferred, but much more expensive and less convenient, and our kids don't appreciate it any more than cheap stuff, so we don't do it as often.
3) If we're buying pasta sauce we usually buy non-sugared pasta sauce. For some stupid reason, lots of brands of pasta sauce in North America add copious amounts of sugar, and we hate the taste. Maybe they're using shitty tomatoes or something.
4) Sometimes I will drive across town to get fresh pasta sauce (and fresh pasta and fresh lasagna) from an Italian shop. Expensive and doesn't keep well though.
5) One Italian shop introduced me to a canned pasta sauce from Italy that I really like. It's not too expensive and obviously it keeps forever, but the shop is quite far away so I don't go there very often. Maybe a few times a year... cuz I have to go there anyway as it's next to the furnace filter shop I prefer.
6) We sometimes make pasta sauce ourselves, starting from a mixture of tinned tomatoes and fresh tomatoes.

 

[NetWareHead]

P.S. This is what we do:
3) If we're buying pasta sauce we usually buy non-sugared pasta sauce. For some stupid reason, lots of brands of pasta sauce in North America add copious amounts of sugar, and we hate the taste. Maybe they're using shitty tomatoes or something.

Because many commercial food companies buy cheap tomatoes that are not fully ripe and the tomatoes have too much acid in them. Sun riped tomatoes picked at the right time have the right amount of tart, but not too much. Adding sugar is a shortcut to cover the acidity.

I make tomato puree every year from fresh local tomatoes. There is a farm around me that lets you go on to their fields and pick what you like. Youy pay by the bushel. I pick the ripest reddest tomatoes and in about an hour's time have what I need. I made 2 bushels of puree last year. I scald the tomatos in boiling water and then run them through a food mill that peels and removes the seeds while reducing the meat into a puree. The puree gets canned (ball canning jars) in a water bath and I have enough tomatoes to last at least a year, sometimes 2. This puree is the base for various recipes including the best smoothest marinara sauce (no seeds/skins). When I want a more rustic sauce, I add chopped tomatoes for more body. I also use this puree on pizza (add some tomato paste to it for thickness)

I have been thoroughly spoiled with this. I cant even bring myself to buy canned tomatoes or puree at the supermarket. The puree color from ripe fresh tomatoes is so vividly red, you would swear I use red food coloring. Its still relatively cheap to do this other than time. 2 bushels of tomatoes cost about 20 somethign dollars. It is almost an all day process, I was on my feet from 8 AM picking them to 8 PM when the last jar came out of the boiling water.

Here are some pics: https://plus.google.com/115736731636406090285/posts/bjUchfjZDHd

 

[nageov3t]

Because many commercial food companies buy cheap tomatoes that are not fully ripe and the tomatoes have too much acid in them. Sun riped tomatoes picked at the right time have the right amount of tart, but not too much. Adding sugar is a shortcut to cover the acidity.

I make tomato puree every year from fresh local tomatoes. There is a farm around me that lets you go on to their fields and pick what you like. Youy pay by the bushel. I pick the ripest reddest tomatoes and in about an hour's time have what I need. I made 2 bushels of puree last year. I scald the tomatos in boiling water and then run them through a food mill that peels and removes the seeds while reducing the meat into a puree. The puree gets canned (ball canning jars) in a water bath and I have enough tomatoes to last at least a year, sometimes 2. This puree is the base for various recipes including the best smoothest marinara sauce (no seeds/skins). When I want a more rustic sauce, I add chopped tomatoes for more body. I also use this puree on pizza (add some tomato paste to it for thickness)

I have been thoroughly spoiled with this. I cant even bring myself to buy canned tomatoes or puree at the supermarket. The puree color from ripe fresh tomatoes is so vividly red, you would swear I use red food coloring. Its still relatively cheap to do this other than time. 2 bushels of tomatoes cost about 20 somethign dollars. It is almost an all day process, I was on my feet from 8 AM picking them to 8 PM when the last jar came out of the boiling water.

Here are some pics: https://plus.google.com/115736731636406090285/posts/bjUchfjZDHd

in-season, fresh tomatoes > canned tomatoes > off-season tomatoes

imo

 

[NetWareHead]

in-season, fresh tomatoes > canned tomatoes > off-season tomatoes

imo

With enough sugar, even green tomatoes can taste "ripe" Fact is most sugared tomato sauce is still not up to par and lacks the authentic taste. I grew up with Italian born parents who cooked like back home and have been thoroughly spoiled so if I sound snobbish about my sauce/tomatoes, this is why. Its a labor of love really, yet still practical. One day's work and I have one less item I have to buy at the grocery store plus these jars make great gifts to those that appreciate this sort of thing. And the quality is better too.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

in-season, fresh tomatoes > canned tomatoes > off-season tomatoes

imo

Canned tomatoes are picked and canned when they are ripe. That's why it's good.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[Fritzo]

I just made some and posted it here recently

It's time consuming to make and doesn't blow you away with flavor, but it's definitely a better base for sauces than semolina pasta.

 

[piasabird]

In South Korea they have a lot of shops and restaurants that make fresh products like TOFU and noodles extruded rice products and fresh dumplings made from scratch. I sometimes get some soft fairly fresh noodles at the Korean store to make into chicken noodle soup. It tastes great with fresh noodles.

I have an Italian noodle machine at home but you have to knead the dough for like an hour to get it to the right consistency to make noodles. I think having a dough making machine might be a big help. You can just keep feeding the dough through the plain rollers and that helps to make the dough more elastic and stretch out thinner.

Unfortunately kneading the dough is key to the process of making noodles as well as bread the right consistency.

 

[rga]

oops

I mean to make my own thread.
:$

 

[piasabird]

There is something to be said about fresh things if made from flour or wheat. Bread is always best when made from freshly ground wheat. Once you grind the wheat it starts losing all of its nutritional value within hours. Even wheat in the supermarket has a significantly lower nutritional value.

Some of my Mormon Friends have their own grinder and buy wheat like red fescue and can it and then open one can at a time and freshly grind the wheat into flour right before they make bread.

 

[NetWareHead]

Canned tomatoes are picked and canned when they are ripe. That's why it's good.

Not usually. Tomatoes contine to "ripen" even if picked when green. They are almost never picked at their ripest moment because of reduced shelf life and need to be handled more delicately. I'd venture to say that most tomatoes are picked prematurely and then ripened off the vine with ethylene. Tomatoes ripened this way are not as flavorful as vine-ripened tomatoes.

 

[Eug]

Fresh pasta contains egg and dried somehow doesn't. I have a family member with an egg allergy so I've only ever eaten dried pasta.

You don't have to put egg in fresh pasta.

Chinese noodles for example often do not contain eggs, and there are lots of recipes for no-egg fresh Italian pasta.

In South Korea they have a lot of shops and restaurants that make fresh products like TOFU and noodles extruded rice products and fresh dumplings made from scratch. I sometimes get some soft fairly fresh noodles at the Korean store to make into chicken noodle soup. It tastes great with fresh noodles.

I have an Italian noodle machine at home but you have to knead the dough for like an hour to get it to the right consistency to make noodles. I think having a dough making machine might be a big help. You can just keep feeding the dough through the plain rollers and that helps to make the dough more elastic and stretch out thinner.

Unfortunately kneading the dough is key to the process of making noodles as well as bread the right consistency.

We don't make our own pasta but yeah, if you want to without having to knead it, a bread machine works.

Making fresh pasta is a heluvalot easier than canning your own pasta sauce though. But like I said, I just buy it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I hate cooking enough as is, I'm not going to make my own ingredients too. Boxed is good enough for me.

Though I have a juicer, apparently it can make pasta with the right attachment. I'd have to try it one day just for fun.