Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [64]
Draining The instant pasta is done, and not a second later, you must drain it, pouring it out of the pot and into the colander. Give the colander a few vigorous sideways and up-and-down shakes to drain all the water away.
Saucing and tossing Have the sauce ready when the pasta is done. Do not let drained pasta sit in the colander waiting for the sauce to be finished or reheated. Transfer cooked, drained pasta without a moment’s delay to a warm serving bowl. The instant it’s in the bowl, start tossing it with the sauce. If grated cheese is called for, add some of it immediately, and toss the pasta with it. The heat will melt the cheese, which can then fuse creamily with the sauce.
In the sequence of steps that lead to producing a dish of pasta and getting it to the table, none is more important than tossing. Up to the time you toss, pasta and sauce are two separate entities. Tossing bridges the separation and makes them one. The oil or butter must coat every strand thoroughly and evenly, reach into every crevice, and with it carry the flavors of the components of the sauce. However marvelous a sauce may be, it cannot merely sit on top of or at the bottom of the bowl. If it is not broadly and uniformly distributed, the pasta for which it is intended will have little flavor.
When you add the sauce, toss rapidly, using a fork and spoon or two forks, bringing the pasta up from the bottom of the bowl, separating it, lifting it, dropping it, turning it over, swirling it around and around. If the sauce clings thickly together, separate it with the fork and spoon so that it can be spread evenly.
When the sauce is butter-based, add a dollop of fresh butter and give the pasta one or two last tosses. If the sauce has an olive oil base, follow the same procedure, using fresh olive oil instead of butter.
Note Fresh pasta is more absorbent than factory-made pasta, and more butter or oil is usually required.
Serving Once the pasta is sauced, serve it promptly, inviting your guests and family to put off talking and start eating. The point to remember is that from the moment the pasta is done, there should be no pauses in the sequence of draining, saucing, serving, and eating. Cooked, hot pasta must not be allowed to sit, or it will turn into a clammy, gluey mass.
Factory-Made Pasta
THE BOXED, dry pasta one refers to as factory-made includes such familiar shapes as spaghetti, penne, and fusilli. These cannot be made as successfully at home as they are in commercial pasta plants with industrial equipment. Dry pasta from factories is not necessarily less fine than the fresh pasta one can make at home. On the contrary, for many dishes, factory-made pasta is the better choice, although for some others, one may want the particular attributes of homemade pasta. The differences between the two categories of pasta and their general applications are discussed in the 'Pasta' section of the introduction.
How to Make Fresh Pasta at Home
The Machine Method and the Rolling-Pin Method
UNLESS you happen to live in Emilia-Romagna, in whose towns and cities there are still a few shops selling pasta made by hand, you can make far better fresh pasta, either by the rolling-pin method or the machine method, than you can buy or eat anywhere.
It needs to be said, however, that the two methods are not merely separate ways of reaching the same objective. Pasta rolled by hand is quite unlike the fresh pasta made with a machine. In hand-rolled pasta, the dough is thinned by stretching it, with a rapid succession of hand motions, over the length of a yard-long wooden dowel. In the machine method, the dough is squeezed between two cylinders until it reaches the desired thinness.
The color of hand-stretched