Mother's day is near and Italy too

Thinking about a special present for your mum this year? If she has always been in love with Italy, you could think about offer her an holiday in Italy.

What if you can find Italy at your doorstep? 

Easy with one of our great MAXI CUBE Pastificio dei Campi: there is the one "To Taste" (50 euro) with a selection of pasta shapes already made for you; Then there is the "Customed Cube"(40 euro), if you already know your mum's favourite shapes of pasta and finally the  "Maxi Cube Selection Pastificio dei Campi"(65 euro), that is composed by pasta, Extra virgin Olive Oil L'arcangelo and a special kind of tomatoes, Miracolo di San Gennaro... so the best from the Campagna region. 

If you are interested in one of the 3 just let me know via Facebook and I will organize to send you one of the cubes.

If the present is not enough, why don't follow one of my recipe and invite your mum to a real italian pasta dinner all prepared by you? Here some of them.

And finally your italian day couldn't be easier than this: The Italian Cultural Institute in London has just started the new italian movie nights appointment from this friday: lot's of nice movies are in schedule in these days, all with subtitles and in a really beautiful environment.

Have a look here to chose the one your mum will be happy to watch and get ready for your Special italian Mother's day.

Comment (0)

Are you more for the Smooth or the Ridged pasta?

Inspired by a post written in the italian blog by Mafaldina dei Campi, about the smooth pasta or the one with ridges, I decided to write this post, because i just realized that here this division is actually not so noticed .

Here I have the impression that the majority of people divide the pasta in long pasta (spaghetti and linguine mainly), fresh pasta filled or not (ravioli and tagliatelle) and then all the short pasta (penne, maccheroni, etc).

I don’t really think anyone really cares about the difference between smooth and ridged pasta or  why we have these two different types of pasta and when to use them.

Anyway if asked the general answer is always: "Ridged pasta maintains better the sauce".

This is basically what we also say when we explain the bronze dying process that make the pasta (smooth or not) rough and so, better to keep the sauce anyway.

What in reality the ridges bring to pasta is just consistency and it’s an easier way to maintain the pasta al dente: if ridged the pasta will be of course thicker and the cooking time between ridges will be different so easier to don’t overcook it.

It will be a surprise for all the people from abroad to discover that the original pasta in Italy is smooth and that the ridged one was created for the norther market, where was missing the good quality of grain and they needed a shape that could help maintaining the form and the cooking time.

So at the present,  in the south, are mainly used the smooth types of pasta, generally long. The short pasta initially was in fact created from the long one, cutting it by hands. The short and ridged pasta instead is mainly used in the oven, for some baked dishes. This in fact will help the sauce to get thick if too liquid and to help the union with the pasta.

But of course I love both of the types and you can see in my recipes  I use both… but of course I will remember this  when cooking in the oven or when I have a sauce not particulary thick.

And what do you prefer?

Rigatoni, millerighe, conchiglioni or ziti tagliati, calle, and paccheri ?

Comment (0)

3 days of food, music and fun for a unique festival.

As the majority of you, this year I could not attend this beautiful event, La festa della Pasta, the Pasta Festival that took place in the Campagnia region last weekend. In these days I was craving and just waiting for some pictures from the event. I was curious to see  what happened in Gragnano during the celebration.

If I was thinking that the last Festival could have been hard to overcome, these pictures from this year just told me the contrary: there was food, there was an enormous amount of people, there was music, special shows, magic in the air and of course the best pasta in the world with its never ending tradition.

With the help of the government of the region and with the participation of the Slow Food organization, the party was at its best! It's always nice to see people working in the production of this precious food, their family and friends, sharing all this with the people in love with the good food and who appreciate this fundamental element of our culture.

Here some pictures that from the italian blogger Giovanna Esposito and from Alessandro Savarese for E-comunica. Thanks to both of you for your beautiful images that catch the real vibe of this great party.

Comment (0)

A quiz and some tips to know a bit more about pasta.

Following the recent Oxfam survey that shows the pasta be the favorite food ever, we decided to play a bit with you.

Do you think to be a real pasta lover or an expert of italian pasta dishes? Here there is a little quiz (from the International Pasta Organization) for you and some interesting information: do you know the country that eat and produce more pasta? can you name all these shapes of pasta?

If you didn't guess all the name, don't worry. Here for you are some tips to help you a bit. As The National was reporting today: "The suffix often provides an indication of size: "oni" suggests large (as in conchiglioni - large shells or spaghettoni - thick spaghetti); "ette" or "etti" denote something small (as in spaghetti or cappelletti - small hats) and "ine"or "ini" suggest tiny (hence spaghettini )." Being italian I never thought about this, but now i can see this could bee a good start for you all.

This could be another easy tip to get the right pasta with the right sauce: "Slim, fine pasta (for example spaghetti, spaghettini, angel hair, linguine, linguettine) is best served with a smooth, quite thin sauce. This allows the sauce to coat the delicate strands, without overpowering the flavour of the pasta completely. Thicker ribbons of pasta (fettuccine, pappardelle, fettuce, perciatelli) can stand up to heavier, more substantial sauces, such as ragus or rich, creamy dressings. Shaped pasta (conchiglie, conchiglioni, orecchiette) or types with holes or ridges (fusilli, rigatoni, penne) work well when the sauce is chunky or if the there is a lot of it, as the pasta then holds the sauce"

And finally some other little curiosity: in Italian, fettuccine means ribbons; stelline means little stars; and capelli d’angelo means angel’s hair.

I think now you are ready to surprise your guests when you will cook pasta for them next time.

And if you want to have more news, stay tuned because you will see soon all the picture from the harvest.

Comment (0)

From Sicily a great recipe for the summer.

Yesterday I finally cooked the "Pasta con le Sarde" I was telling you last week to give my little contribution to the Project Ocean! This is a typical Sicilian dish that puts together, in a fantastic way, some of the best ingredients from the south!

Because here in London it's not so easy to find the wild fennel, I just went for the normal one, but the taste was great anyway.

 
So for this recipe (3-4 people) you will need:

- 500gr Bucatini Pastificio dei Campi, as the traditional recipe recommends, but also with some Penne a Candela it was great!

- 500gr of fennels

- 50gr of pine nuts

- 50gr of raisins (soaked in water for half hour)

- 500 gr of fresh and sustainable sardines

- saffron

- 3 anchovies

- olive oil, salt, pepper, 2 onions

 
As written on the"Grande enciclopedia Illustrata della gastronomia":

Cut the fennel in sticks and boil them in a big pot with water and salt for like 20 minutes while in a pan with some olive oil you will cook quickly the sardines (after removing the heads, the backbones and entrails). Take them off and cook there the onions, until goldish. Add then the drained fennels (remember to keep the water in a side to cook the pasta), the sardines, pine nuts, the raisins, some salt and peppers. Cook on a low fire to mix everything well.

Then cut the anchovies in little pieces and place them in another pan. Let them melt with some hot oil and add them to the big pan. After the saffron. Melted with the some fennel’s water and while waiting for all this to cook, boil the pasta the water you used before for the fennels.

When is “al dente” drain it and toss it with the sauce, but let it rest few seconds before to serve it. It will take all the flavors of these great ingredients and it will be fabulous.

I’m sure you will enjoy like I did!

Comment (1)

A new socially-oriented platform for creating, sharing and comparing lists of things.

Today are exactly five years since the first tweet was posted on Twitter. How many of us could have think in this massive success? From breaking news to celebrity tweets, to the bloggers, sportive and simple people interested in saying their own thoughts, Twitter grew up so much that, for a good number of people, is now totally part of their day by day life.

What about instead Listgeeks, a funny platform I just discovered today? Basically if you are one of this people that loves to do lists or just someone curious about the fab five of other people, you can’t miss this website www.Listgeeks.com

Listgeeks Introduction from listgeeks on Vimeo.

Still in beta, this platform could be a new interactive tool we won’t be able to avoid in the next years, but for the moment is interesting to see the charts created by other people, comparing those with yours and maybe looking also for some idea or suggestion. You can search by terms, like cities, beers, restaurant, hobbies and discover what the people have in their favorites. You can even find places to go, things to do, restaurants never tried before and … recipes of course.

This morning in fact I had a little tour and what do you think I search there in first instance? "Pasta" of course! The only lists coming up were about people’s favorite food: pizza, pasta, dumplings etc... Then looking for recipes I didn’t see anything , so I decided to create my own list with my favorite five recipes until now! I was thinking it could be good to keep them handy for when needed. So here they are. 

I hope you will enjoy the charts and my chart.

Comment (0)

For you the Maxi Cube Tasting or the Maxi Cube Custom!

Finally it's the 8th of December. Today in Italy is holiday and the majority of the people will spend their  time decorating the Christmas tree or shopping for the latest presents still in the list.

Have you already bought all your presents or you are just starting to think about them? But especially, are you the one who loves doing and receiving surprises or you prefer to buy or receive something requested?

We could stay here discussing hours about that and I personally prefer people who try to guess your taste and give you something, also little, but with an effort, than who is asking you 'what do you want for Christmas?". This sounds to me a bit lazy and simple. And there is no comparison with the surprise to open a packet and find something you didn't expect!

However for all of you, Pastificio dei Campi has a great solution: you can finally shop for your favorite shape of pasta on the same website, clicking on the e-commerce section.

Here you will find 3 options:

The Maxi Cube Tasting: a perfect pack for those who want to know (and be surprised by) the production of the pasta factory and loves to try many different formats. It consists of five kilograms of pasta Gragnano IGP, bronze drawn and slowly dried at low temperature, given in 10 different sizes selected from among those that best represent our company: paccheri, calamarata, pennoni, candele spezzate, penne ziti lisce, penne mezzani rigate, orecchiette, tubetti, spaghetti, linguine.  A nice gift idea for all lovers of pasta.

The Maxi Cube Custom:  a customizable package, designed for people who already know our Pasta Gragnano IGP or for those that have very decided tastes. Choose the contents of your package: this is left entirely to you. 8 packages of pasta, 500 grams Gragnano IGP in most popular formats.

Then of course, it's almost Christmas and you can also buy the fantastic gourmet gift box,  made in limited edition for Christmas 2010. Here the pasta di Gragnano IGP is accompanied by two other symbols of the south gastronomic tradition, an high quality extra virgin olive oil and tomatoes as explained here. (And the first five to leave a comment on the post will receive a 15% discount to buy this Cube).

So undecided or  ready to choose your  pasta shapes and Maxi Cubes?

Comment (0)