Food and Beverage Blog

Usually pasta is made of wheat or rice flour, although some varieties are made of beans and soy. Noodles may be of different shapes and sizes – flat or round, in the form of rods (tubes), or spider net or bar. They can be hard or soft, fresh or dried, with the addition of eggs and without them. Sometimes in noodles is added potash (potassium carbonate), in order to prevent them from mold in a hot and humid climate.

As every country have its own kinds of noodles, tangling in them – a piece of cake. To prevent this from happening, let’s get acquainted with the most popular types of pastas.

Rice Paper (pancakes). It is incredibly thin sheets of dough made from rice flour and water. They can be round or triangular. Used to be prepared for the first time in China, Thailand, and most importantly, the Vietnamese kitchen used them to cook Spring Rolls, or wrap pieces of meat or fish before hot. Ground is usually made of vegetables, or vegetables with shrimp, or pork – or from all together. First rice pancakes have to be dipped in warm water, for softening. Then rolled up rolls and fried or boiled in the fryer.

Rice noodles. These translucent or white strip width from a few millimeters to three inches are very popular in China.

Chinese wheat noodles. These creamy-beige or white noodles may vary in thickness, and also be round or flat, but necessarily long. They are prepared from wheat flour, salt and water.

Ramen. The most famous in the world view of Japanese wheat noodles. It is as thin as vermicelli, and long, sold in the form of briquettes.

Soy noodles. Noodles made from soy – looking thin and flat, like a rubber band. They are made of pressed bean curd, so it is rich in protein and other nutrients.

Fettuccine and linguine are pasta that is shaped like ribbons.

One popular Italian pasta group is ravioli and tortellini and manicotti. This group differs from other ones because this pasta has a stuffing (vegetables, cheese, ham etc.)

Tapioca noodles. Perhaps can be of one of the most varied forms: from grains and pasta spirals to varying degrees and length of the plane. It is eaten in Asia and Africa: fried together with sharp and aromatic sauces, and in Indonesia and Malaysia, it is mixed with red beans, coconut milk and sugar syrup. It turns to be a traditional dessert.

Soba. This is a well-known Japanese version of pasta. Soba is flat and thin, made from a mixture of buckwheat and wheat flour. Soba has a nutty flavor and color from beige to brown. Sometimes Japanese add in soba green tea, making it acquiring a greenish color. It is usually cooked in salted boiling water, steep 5-7 minutes. It is very popular in the summer of as it’s served cold.

Pasta is made through eggs and flour mixture. Preparing home made fresh pasta is easy as piece of cake if you have pasta machines at home.

Making fresh pasta manually is so time consuming, you need to flatten the dough manually using a rolling pin plus additional time will be consume when cutting a pasta dough into pieces. Doing it manually will not give you great results, pasta sizes will not be equally cut. Unlike having a pasta machine, preparing pasta dishes in just a minute is possible and it guarantees to give you perfect results.

Usually pasta machine has a built in rolling pin and cutting blades. You will just need to turn the handle when feeding the dough on the rolling pin. You may do this process many times until you acquire the desired thickness. Some machines have a metal clip used to attach in tables. This will stop machine from moving when you are working with the pasta.

When planning to buy a pasta machine, consider the quality, warranty and the inclusions. Choose a product that includes at least 5 different kinds of blades. This is useful in creating different sizes and pasta designs. Consider also the price. Don’t just shop at one store. Try to look for another store and compare their prices. There are some cases that they are selling the same product but different price.

1. Availability & Storage – Every supermarket store will carry pasta, even if it is in the simplest Spaghetti form. In fact, even the mom-and-pop stores across the streets carry them at time. No matter where you live, and no matter what weather it is, you can always rely on a package of pasta to

2. Healthy & Kid-Friendly Too! – Homemade pasta can be quite healthy, contrary to what one might think, if you stick to a healthy Pasta Sauce recipe; using whole wheat pasta and adding nutritious ingredients like spinach, garlic and herbs that add to the vitamin, mineral and fiber content of the pasta, some cheese for protein, tomatoes for lycopene & nuts for omega-3 oils will actually give you a filling meal fit for your kids and your entire family. Plus, pasta comes in so many interesting shapes, tubes, tunnels, and macaroni and more, which kids find it fun to indulge in the colorful meal laid out in front of them.

3. Ease of Preparation – It is so simple, even a kid could do it (well, almost, if the kid is at least 8 years old!) Just boil a pot of water, add a teaspoon of salt and empty the pasta noodles into the crock pot. Cook for 10 minutes and you are done. When you are short on time, just add some ready-made Pasta sauce on the top, some Parmesan cheese, some fresh pepper, and you are good to go. Simple enough, right? It doesn’t take rocket science to make some Baked Macaroni & Cheese!

4. Budget-Friendly – This is perhaps the most important reason to choose Pasta for dinner. A 2 lb package of noodles can easily feed a family of 4 or 5. Add the cost of some sauce and cheese, and you’ll still be looking at a family dinner under $10 – and that includes Garlic Toast too! That’s even less than the cost of one person’s meal if you go to a non-chain restaurant and orders a single item from their menu! And homemade sauces are even cheaper, as you can make in bulk and store and keep for use later on in the month. Try making different kinds of Pesto Sauces, like this Cilantro Pesto, or the Walnut Arugula Pesto for affordable yet tasty variations.

5. Delicious to Eat – Pasta comes in so many shapes and sizes, that it’s easy to mix and match and create a meal that is delicious, yet different from last time. What I do is keep 5 basic sauce recipes on hand, and 5 different types of pasta packages at home. Then I keep alternating between the pairings. So one time it’s Ravioli with Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce, other time it is Fettuccine in Wine Sauce, and yet another time it is the Vegetarian Spinach Lasagna!

Nowadays, there are no teenagers who can imagine themselves a view of an interesting movie without a pizza! In fact, for centuries the technology of pizza production has almost not changed – except that the furnace steel gas and electric. And everything else, including the mandatory manual preparation of the test, remained traditional. Real Italian pizza does not tolerate hack-work and, despite the rapidity of its preparation, does not like the hustle: all processes must take place clear and measured.

The main thing in pizza – tortilla. On the one hand, it serves only the basis for various fillers, and so should be fairly thin. On the other, unsuccessful tortilla spoil all impression of the pizza, which is simply inconvenient (tortilla, like hundreds of years ago, took place of a dish) and tasteless to eat. Cake should be crisp, but soft, so that it can be folded, not broken.

The main thing in cake – batter. It should be prepared with olive oil – then the pizza will not cause heartburn, bringing the guests of pizzerias maximum pleasure.

Pizza – a gastronomic masterpiece, rather than food mass. Its taste should not be monotonous, varying with the consumption of the product (cheese, tomato, spicy, olive, etc.). The taste of one component should not interrupt the taste of another.

Ok, pizza, pasta,.. but what about a party without a dessert? What will you choose for dessert? I’m assured that Tiramisu. This delicious Italian dessert, is cooked on the basis of mascarpone. Also includes Savoyard (Italian Savoyards) – porous, dry biscuits, eggs, sugar, coffee (preferably espresso), alcohol (rum, brandy, Marsala); top dessert is decorated with cocoa powder and grated chocolate. Cake is not baked; the texture is soft, like pudding.

Tiramisu – one of the most popular desserts in the world, as the biggest part of all Italian Foods which conquered the stomachs and hearts of millions of people all over the world.