Ellyn
Veteran
My favorite thing about pasta is how versatile it is.
A pasta salad can have crunchy vegetable chunks and vinaigrette or oil-and-vinaigrette "sauce".
It can also be served al olio with just oil and herbs, such as with a pesto (olive oil, garlic and basil leaves) or salsa mongha (olive oil, breadcrumbs for body, olives, garlic, capers, bay leaf, salt and pepper).
If you really want to be decadent, of course, there are cheese sauces... with a roux base, I would think, to keep it liquid, but if you're something like a university student living away from home for the first time, on a budget, likes cheese, and don't know how to cook then sometimes it'll just be microwaved melted cheese with cheese spread (eww! But at the time it's perfect.)
Then there's red and white sauces.
For red sauces, there's pasta puttanesca (tomato sauce and olives), which I had regularly for years without knowing that it was called. In the Series of Unfortunate Events film with Jim Carrey, the character he plays is served with a dish, told its name, and goes, "What did you call me?!" Because apparently this sauce used to be popular among prostitutes (hence the "puttanesca" part).
A marinara sauce is tomato-based with onions and garlic.
There's also various kinds of ragù, which Wikipedia tells me is a meat sauce flavored with tomatoes, not to be confused with a tomato sauce flavored with meat.
...uh...okay... (doesn't it taste the same in your mouth and look the same in your stomach anyway though???)
Bolognese is one such meat-and-tomato ragù, Neapolitan has chunks of meat whereas bolognese meat is usually ground and includes diced onions, garlic, celery and carrots.
I haven't tried other types of ragù, there are about 14. ragù alla Barese is supposed to be another popular one.
For white sauces, there's carbonara sauce, which is traditionally prepared using eggs and not cream (with bacon bits and mushrooms), and I'm sure that there are also some cream sauces out there. I love carbonara sauce to its little bacon bits, but I'm just not as familiar with white sauces.
Any other pasta sauces that I missed? Please do share!
A pasta salad can have crunchy vegetable chunks and vinaigrette or oil-and-vinaigrette "sauce".
It can also be served al olio with just oil and herbs, such as with a pesto (olive oil, garlic and basil leaves) or salsa mongha (olive oil, breadcrumbs for body, olives, garlic, capers, bay leaf, salt and pepper).
If you really want to be decadent, of course, there are cheese sauces... with a roux base, I would think, to keep it liquid, but if you're something like a university student living away from home for the first time, on a budget, likes cheese, and don't know how to cook then sometimes it'll just be microwaved melted cheese with cheese spread (eww! But at the time it's perfect.)
Then there's red and white sauces.
For red sauces, there's pasta puttanesca (tomato sauce and olives), which I had regularly for years without knowing that it was called. In the Series of Unfortunate Events film with Jim Carrey, the character he plays is served with a dish, told its name, and goes, "What did you call me?!" Because apparently this sauce used to be popular among prostitutes (hence the "puttanesca" part).
A marinara sauce is tomato-based with onions and garlic.
There's also various kinds of ragù, which Wikipedia tells me is a meat sauce flavored with tomatoes, not to be confused with a tomato sauce flavored with meat.
...uh...okay... (doesn't it taste the same in your mouth and look the same in your stomach anyway though???)
Bolognese is one such meat-and-tomato ragù, Neapolitan has chunks of meat whereas bolognese meat is usually ground and includes diced onions, garlic, celery and carrots.
I haven't tried other types of ragù, there are about 14. ragù alla Barese is supposed to be another popular one.
For white sauces, there's carbonara sauce, which is traditionally prepared using eggs and not cream (with bacon bits and mushrooms), and I'm sure that there are also some cream sauces out there. I love carbonara sauce to its little bacon bits, but I'm just not as familiar with white sauces.
Any other pasta sauces that I missed? Please do share!
