GOURMET FILES
Pasta pastiche
VASUNDHARA CHOUHAN
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As the pasta craze intensifies in India, it will probably go the same way as pizzas. So we can we look out for Spaghetti Butter Chicken or Linguine Matar Paneer.
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Pasta is the new chow mien. For years of birthday parties I schlepped over sandwiches and cake, only to be told by the ingrates that Sonika’s mother made chow mien. And now I’m told that pasta is it. Even homes with otherwise conservative menus pander to the kids with pasta.
A young girl told me laughingly how, in the home she worked in earlier, they only made dal-sabzi for every meal; tori-tinda and tinda-tori. Naturally I asked whether the children ate it happily and she said no, for them she made chow mien or pasta.
Background
This either/or option is not surprising, given that pasta came to Italy from China. The Chinese were eating noodles as far back as 2000 B.C. Archaeologists have even dug up a well-preserved bowl of 4000-year-old noodles. Legend has it that when Marco Polo returned to Italy from his travels he brought back this food. Pasta in Italian means, simply, “dough”.
By law, Italian pasta must be made of Durum wheat flour or semolina. This particular variety was introduced by the Arabs during the conquest of Sicily in the 8th century. Durum, also spelt Durhum, means hard, and its strength and high protein and gluten content make it right for pasta, which should be cooked al dente, not too soft (literally, “to the tooth”). Outside Italy dry pasta is made of flour from other varieties of wheat but that is too soft to be cooked al dente.
But it’s not just kids — the abundance of Live Pasta Stations at parties bears witness to the adult craze. What is it about pasta, where is the appeal in an indifferently made sauce mixed with maida in some form? One can understand the popularity of “Chinese” food, especially the strongly spiced Szechwan style, but pasta?
At more dinners than I care to remember there is a pasta table, presided over by a chef, complete with toque. I’ve stopped now, but I used to ask what kind of pasta he was going to serve, and every time the reply was that they had eight different kinds. The next step was obviously to ask which. Pityingly he would point to eight steel bowls of boiled pasta, in different shapes: penne, macaroni, farfalle, fusilli, rigatoni, conchiglie… And the sauce? Two: one red and one white.
Predictable
While he was answering these unnecessary questions the chef would be efficiently preparing a serving for the dinner guest next in line behind me. Gloved in plastic, he would pick up a fistful of each kind, add red or white sauce and heat the lot in a frying pan. The sauces, already to hand, are always tomato-garlic-onion with too much dried oregano, and the white is, predictably, thick white sauce: butter-flour-milk and cheap processed cheese.
So if you assemble two basic Indo-Italian sauces with eight different shapes of pasta you have 16 kinds of pasta? I’m waiting for more innovation, for pasta to go the same route as pizzas and complete the pastiche with Spaghetti Butter Chicken or Linguine Matar Paneer.
Varieties
There are approximately 350 different shapes of pasta, and matching the shape with the sauce depends on cooking time, consistency and the ability to hold sauce. Fusilli, for instance, with its screw-like twists and ridges, is good for a delicate sauce like basil pesto, which attaches itself to the nooks and crannies of the pasta. A robust sauce like Bolognese, of tomatoes and ragù, is tried, tested and successful with long slithery spaghetti. In Italy, different sauces are popular in different regions. Central Italy has some simple ones like tomato sauce, amatriciana — of pork cheek and pecorino cheese — and carbonara, with bacon, eggs and cream. In the South sauces are spicier and include tomato, garlic, and olive oil. Varieties include puttanesca, pasta alla norma — of tomatoes, eggplant and cheese, pasta con le sarde with fresh sardines, pine nuts, fennel and olive oil, spaghetti aglioi and olio e peperoncino: just garlic, olive oil and hot chili peppers. Perhaps to soften the heat of the spices, fresh vegetables or seafood are served as accompaniments because we once dared to order it, and, even for an Indian with a high threshold of tolerance for chillies, it was too hot.
The sauce for pasta is, of course, crucial; but first the pasta should be cooked just so. If it’s perfect a sauce isn’t even necessary; good olive oil and garlic or even just butter will do.
BASIL PESTO SAUCE
Makes 1 cup
Ingredients:
10 cloves garlic
2 cups fresh basil leaves
6 walnut halves
2 tsp pine nuts, shelled
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp parmesan cheese, grated
Method: In a mortar and pestle, pound garlic till smooth, then add basil leaves. Grind to a chutney. Add nuts, olive oil and pound till nuts are coarsely ground. Stir in cheese, season to taste and stir into hot pasta. A food processor or mixer-grinder can be used instead of doing it manually.
* To make pasta, half fill a large pot with water and boil at high heat. Add a spoonful of salt, cover and prepare the sauce while you wait. When the water comes to a full, rolling boil, slide the pasta slowly into the pot.
* Cover the pot and wait for the water to return to a full boil. When the water is boiling again, remove the cover, lower the heat to medium and stir gently a few times.
* Cooking time depends on the type of pasta so follow instructions on the package. When your pasta is nearing the end of its cooking time, fish out a piece and taste it to see whether it’s done. It should offer a slight resistance at its centre.
* When the pasta is ready, hold a large colander over a sink and pour the contents of the pot into it. Strain out all but a couple of tablespoons, which you should catch in a small saucepan and reserve in case the sauce needs to be thinned.
* Rinsing the pasta is useless and, in fact, it binds better with the sauce while it’s still hot.
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