TIPS FOR COOKING PERFECT PASTA

Discover with us our cookery tradition and our different shapes of pasta! A dish of pasta can be combined with any kind of ingredients (meat, fish, vegetables..). Pasta meets both the needs of people who enjoy good food even when they are in a hurry, as well as the real gourmets looking for elaborate recipes.
Cooking suggestions for a masterpiece dish:
First of all, a ANTICA PASTA box serves 4 people. 
The pot should be for at least 5 litres of water. 
When cooking egg pasta, some tablespoons of olive oil can be added, so that pasta will not be sticky. 
When the water boils, add 10 grams of coarse salt for each litre of water, then add pasta. 
The heat should be high, so that boiling can start again quickly. The pot should not be covered. When the boiling starts again, the pot should be over medium heat and ensure that the water keeps boiling. 
Stir delicately the pasta only when it’s becoming softer (after one minute, for the thinnest kind of pasta, after some minutes for tonnarelli and chitarra). Egg dry pasta has to regain the humidity lost during the drying phase. 
In every box, you can find cooking time suggestions. Anyway, it’s better to taste it first so that it suites your personal taste. We suggest to have it al dente, with a generous portion of sauce, as our pasta will absorb it perfectly. Serve hot...and enjoy it, buon appetito!

THE EASIEST RECIPES:

-pasta with olive oil and grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
-pasta with sage leaves, lightly browned in a pot with butter, thin slices of Parmigiano Reggiano optional. 
-pasta with extra virgin olive oil, tomato pieces and fresh basil.


COOKING TIME:

– Maccheroncini 1-2 minutes
– Linguine 2-3 minutes
– Fettuccine 3-4 minutes
– Tagliatelle 3-4 minutes
– Tonnarelli 6-8 minutes
– Chitarra 10-12 minutes
– Pappardelle 6-8 minutes


A GUIDE TO TASTING EGG PASTA

Dear Client, here follows some useful advice to taste egg pasta. An excellent pasta-as Antica Pasta is- should always satisfies even the most demanding client. In order to fully evaluate the egg pasta, 
the following steps involving all five senses should be kept in mind.


1-FIRST STEP-The Sight

The Colour: checking the colour of pasta is not superfluous, but instead it’s an effective way to detect its quality. Pasta should have a light uniform colour, without irregular shadows. The colour should be amber yellow. 

The Cooking Water: the better pasta quality is, the lower sediment quantity you will find in the water. In other words, when you drain the pasta, the cooking water should stay clear. 

2- SECOND STEP- The touch
You should easily detect the difference between our pasta and a standard one, simply perceiving how irregular the surface is, first touching it by hand, then tasting it in your mouth.

3-THIRD STEP-The Hearing
If you want to be sure that egg pasta is good, try to break it before cooking it: it should break clearly. 

4-FORTH STEP-The smell
When pasta is cooked, you can perceive the delicate bouquet of eggs and semola flour.

5-FIFTH STEP-The taste
Good food should be tasted as simple as possible! We invite you to taste our pasta before adding any sauce, to appreciate its delicacy and consistent taste at the best. 

6-SIXTH SENSE-Different shape, different taste
In order to appreciate a good dish of pasta, only some extra virgin olive oil and some parmigiano cheese are sufficient. Obviously, you can always try and enjoy new pasta shapes and sauces. L’Antica Pasta produces different pasta shapes. It’s not only a matter of fantasy, but mainly a matter of taste. The taste changes according to pasta shape and sauce absorbing. In other words, the shape deeply influences the close relation between pasta and sauce, then different shapes correspond to different taste. 


7- THE SEVENTH STEP- One-hour-after-cooking tasting
As the last tasting, eat our pasta, one hour after cooking it. Even if cold, you will notice that it is not sticky at all, but instead it is still “al dente”, having completely absorbed the sauce. 


COOKING TEST


At the end of the production process, our pasta goes through the cooking comparative tests. The cooking time, to keep pasta al dente without overcooking it, the eventual surface sticking, the sediment level in cooking water, the double cooking test for restaurant products are carefully checked and evaluated.