All About Pasta

by Emma Wu from 5D

Pasta is a type of Italian noodle made from an unleavened dough of durum wheat, water, and sometimes eggs, typically boiled and served with sauces. It's a staple food that provides energy, particularly in the form of complex carbohydrates. Whole grain options offer higher fibre content. It is generally sold as dried (pasta secca) or fresh (pasta fresca) and formed into hundreds of shapes, designed to hold all kinds of sauces. Pasta should be cooked until firm to the bite, making it a bit hard. This texture is usually preferred by Italian people, but that doesn't mean that you must eat it this way. For instance, Chinese people like it soft. 

There are more than 600 types of pasta from Italy, including tortelloni (ring-shaped), busiate (helix-shaped), orecchiette (dome-shaped), orzo (rice-shaped), and many more. Let’s start with the top three most popular types.

#3 Gnocchi

Gnocchi are small, tender dumpling pasta, traditionally made from a mixture of flour and eggs. It looked like potatoes when I first looked at it, and it is loved by a lot of people because of its melt-in-your-mouth pillowy taste. It is also a kind of pure comfort food, and it is usually served with good sauces like pesto or sage butter as well as tomato, so it deserves to be in the top three.

#2 Penne

Another popular shape, penne has a round, tube-like structure with diagonal, quill-like cuts at either end. That’s why it’s best served in dishes that have a relatively thick, creamy sauce, as it penetrates the tube and holds the sauce well, such as Penne Arrabbiata. This is also the best type of pasta to use in pasta bake dishes.

#1 Spaghetti 

Of course, spaghetti takes the top spot! It is nutrient-rich and globally popular. Also, this type of noodle is the most recognised pasta shape in the world and is especially beloved in Southern Italy. And honestly, this is the pasta I could eat every single day. It is also a bit like ramen, which is from Japan. Of course, my favourite food is pasta, and I like it more than Chinese noodles. The reason I like it so much is because pasta has a big variety of sauces and shapes for me to choose from. Unlike Chinese noodles, its texture is more chewy and has a non-mushy bite.

This is the end of my article. I hope you will understand more about pasta and the Italian world of food.