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How to Choose and Buy Italian Pasta 

posted by Chris Valentine

Pasta is a food famous all over the world, and its many variations also indicate its versatility as a healthy, staple dish. Buying Italian pasta online, or even to buy bucatini pasta online, one needs to keep in mind the recipe and flavours that will bring the pasta together. 

Tagliatelle Pasta Online

One may wonder where Tagliatelle originates from. This broad Italian pasta is favoured for many dishes and is ribbon-like all over the world. However, Italian food has a lot of diversity, even in terms of pasta. While long, ribbon-like pasta varieties like Tagliatelle, Fettucine, and Linguine are pretty similar, a true Italian can tell the difference at once. Tagliatelle pasta in its look is a broad, flat strip of durum wheat pasta. Traditionally, this past may also have an egg put into the dough. This pasta variety gets its name from the Italian verb “tagliare” which is to ‘cut.’ It is almost the same length as Spaghetti, and maybe wider. 

This pasta comes from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, which is in North Italy. It has a long history and dates back to the 15th century. According to historical sources, it was originally created during the Italian Renaissance, when a chef got inspired by the beautiful, ribbon-like hair of Princess Lucrezia Borgia on her wedding day. To mark the princesses’ wedding to Alfonso d’Este, the chef in his inspiration twisted the long, wide strips of pasta dough into wavy pasta nests. This pasta was therefore initially eaten by the rich classes, but it soon spread all over the land.

Also Read: How to Make (and Buy) the Best Italian Pasta

Some other ribbon pastas from the other regions of Italy include the all-time famous spaghetti and the Fettucine. These two come from the central-eastern Italian region of Abruzzo. From Tuscany comes the long Pappardelle pasta with its wavy edges. This variety may even be four centimeters in its width. 

Another variant is the Bucatini pasta, which is a thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole in the center. It is made of hard durum wheat flour and water and is 25–30 cm long. It takes over 10 minutes to cook due to its density and is traditionally eaten with buttery sauces, vegetables, cheese, eggs, or certain varieties of fish like sardines. 

Angel hair is another type of pasta with very long, very thin, strands of delicate pasta. This works best with a thin creamy sauce since heavier sauces cannot cling on to this. It is also eaten as a light dish when prepared with just butter and herbs. 

Cannelloni, on the other hand, is a large tube-shaped pasta. Its size makes it ideal for fillings and stuffings like sauce or cheese. It is also popularly baked in Italian casseroles. 

Conchiglie is a type of shell-like pasta that is available in different sizes. It is best eaten with sauces that can be trapped in the shell-like center, like dense cream-based sauces, cheeses, or heavy tomato sauces. It is also a great addition to a hearty Italian soup. 

Porcini Mushroom Pasta 

Porcini mushrooms, also known by their scientific name of Boletus edulis, are famous as the “king of mushrooms” in Italy. These mushrooms meaty and large, and offer a unique taste. They are known by other names in other countries. In France, they are known as cèpes and in Germany, they are known as steinpil. These are commonly used to make a sauce for the different varieties of pastas. The fact that different kinds of pasta are thick and have a large surface area means that a thick sauce has more room to stick to the pasta and enhance the flavour. Vegetable sauces also go well with porcini mushroom pasta and similar ones.

Whether you are a fan of porcini, tagliatelle, or other types – you can easily buy Italian pasta online from a reputed store at a fair rate as compared to physical stores.

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