I pride myself on my Italian cooking. It's absolutely 'lip smackin' - don't want to put the fork down, pass the garlic bread to soak up the juice' GOOD... but - I don't have a clue about why there are so many different shapes to pasta. Can anyone enlighten me? Andiamo.
2007-01-28 23:56:11 · 9 answers · asked by wonderful1 4 in Food & Drink ➔ Cooking & Recipes
Some pastas are made to hold stuffing in them, like macaroni, rigatoni, and the like. I LOVE it when the cheese melts inside my a macaroni! They all have a different textures as well. That is what it comes down to. The flavors of each pasta is due to their shape. Have you noticed, spaghetti, and linguine do not taste the same, even though they are both long noodles? Linguine is flat, while spaghetti is round. It is good to have many varieties in one thing, don't you think? I love pasta, too.
2007-01-29 00:25:54 · answer #1 · answered by xenypoo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Pasta is shaped differently to suit the sauce that is cooked with it. For example, Penne is great for saucy dishes so that the sauce can get "trapped" inside the "tunnel" of the pasta.
Fettuccini is good for thick sauces like Carbonara because the creamy sauce easily stays on the flat pasta, which makes each bite complete.
that's all i've learned from watching cooking shows - but some pastas look the way they do just to make your dish look more presentable :)
2007-01-29 08:04:20 · answer #2 · answered by curious_cat 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Each pasta serves a different purpose, you have some for filling, some for casserole and some for spaghetti. The best place to get this answer would be to try and catch Alton Brown's show Good Eats on food network called Pantry Raid (Part I): Use Your Noodle. It is not scheduled to be aired in the near future, but that is the best source to answer this question. I know that this was not helpful as I was hoping. But good luck anyway.
2007-01-29 08:21:37 · answer #3 · answered by Toni B 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well I think the basic spaghetti shape is just what everyone's used to . The ones with holes or that appear ribbed are great for sauces to cling on to. I use rigatoni noodles and mix it together with ricotta, mozzarella, and sauce and throw it in the oven. and the goodies always wind up inside the noodle somehow...More or less, however it's just for mouthfeel (texture). Farfalle feels different than angel hair, Cavatappi feels different in the mouth than say, ziti...P.S.- if you want your sauces to stick to the pasta, don't added oil to the pasta water!
2007-01-29 08:12:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
To coincide with different dishes...they look more "elegant" if you use a capalini for example than an elbow!!!!
Also, some soak up sauces better than others, fit the dish better, look better, etc. etc.
2007-01-29 08:06:22 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
my only guess would be differnet pasta shapes for different cooking methods/sauces/recipes
2007-01-29 15:03:21 · answer #6 · answered by ♥ cat furrever ♥ 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
different pasta is for the way it absorbs the sauce
2007-01-30 11:58:54 · answer #7 · answered by brown_suga002 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
people thought that it would better not 2 c the same kind of noodles over n over again
2007-01-29 09:03:20 · answer #8 · answered by bby [tearz] 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Style / appearance, that's part of cooking too!
2007-01-29 08:03:35 · answer #9 · answered by gareth_bancroft 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋