Endless Pasta-bilities

[Ellyn]

Okay, maybe not endless. There are many varieties of pasta, however, and what I've been thinking about lately is how well a type of pasta matches to a sauce.

When I was a child, one of my favorite pasta was angel hair, because I was very small and thought of it as "just my size". When I grew up a little, I was happy to find that angel hair pasta could still be eaten by older people, because I thought that it went great with everything.

Now that I think about it, though, it can just turn into a clump if the sauce is too thick and heavy. Everyone has their own preference, though, but nowadays I only have angel hair with oil-based sauces, pesto or very light tomato sauces. Thicker cream and tomato and such, especially with meatball chunks, I leave to the ever-reliable spaghetti.

In a similar vein, there's something about macaroni and cheese that sounds kind of gross to me if we replace macaroni to make spaghetti and cheese. Maybe it's the fork-twirling part, like spinning a block in your arteries. Macaroni or ravioli, though, in a cheese sauce just comes off to me as more appropriate (even though I might still actually be eating enough to make an artery-blocker eventually. I do love cheese, and pasta.)

So, how about you? Does the type of pasta matter when pairing it with a sauce? How does texture influence, suggest, or meld with flavor in a meal in your opinion?

 

[skywatcher]

For me, the type of pasta really matters when pairing it with a kind of sauce - sometimes, it can simply make or break the recipe in question.

Though I'm not a pasta freak, I've been kind of used to spaghetti and macaroni all the time - this is why I could easily identify whether or not replacing one thing with the other is effective. The only thing I've noticed is that using spaghetti on a carbonara (at least our own version of carbonara) made everything a bit bland. Probably because the spaghetti takes too much space for the flavors to blend in. When we use macaroni, on the other hand, everything turns into heaven.

In terms of actual spaghetti (as in, with the tomato sauce and all), macaroni also makes everything more delectable. I'm not sure if I hate the spaghetti pasta in general, but when it comes between the two, macaroni and spaghetti really makes a lot of difference.

 

[Food4thought]

I sometimes cook spagetti, but more often I use penne pasta. Other types I use are pasta twirls and pasta shells.

It does depend on what type of sauce I use. I think spagetti needs to be served with a meaty or chunky veg based sauce. Others are better with a pesto or cream based sauce, because the sauce will stick to the pasta shape. I also use rich tomato based sauces with any shaped pasta.

 

[Ellyn]

Another thing I've learned to consider is whether it really tastes better al dente. Some sauces tastes really much better with slightly overcooked pasta. With other sauces, I'm sure, overcooked pasta makes it taste too mushy and worse.

Hrmm... I'm wondering if lasagna with carbonara sauce is already a thing that exists...

 

[firelily99]

I prefer linguini to spaghetti and angel hair to spaghetti as well. I generally only eat the whole wheat now and it does change the taste of the dish at times. The type of pasta is a big determiner of what type of sauce to use.