There’s More to Pasta Than Spaghetti. Authentic Italian Is Delicious; Thai Style Is Also Possible.

Pasta does not always mean spaghetti. Spaghetti is only a member of the pasta family. It is a familiar noodle among Thai people, because it can be made into lots of dishes, whether stir-fried dry or with a sauce. It can even be made into Thai-fusion food.

Types of Pasta Noodles

Pasta can be categorized into the following two groups: production processes and whether or not the noodles contain eggs.

By production process:

1. There’s fresh pasta, which must be eaten right away after cooking. This type offers a more tender texture.
   
   2. And there’s dried pasta, which consists of hard noodles that must be boiled before preparation.

   By the presence of eggs:

   There are both egg and eggless pasta noodles. Pasta noodles that contain eggs are more flexible and are better for wrapping and around fillings in dishes with fillings. As for texture, egg pasta is tenderer, and the noodles taste richer than regular pasta. Therefore, it’s great for eating with richly-flavored sauces. In buying pasta, you can check the packaging to see whether or not it contains eggs.

   Pasta Shapes

   There are over 500 different kinds of pasta. In addition to attractiveness, the complex shapes have been designed to allow the noodles to better hold sauce. Based on shape, pasta can be divided into four main groups.

   Let’s take a look at some of the pasta types restaurant owners might be able to use as new menu items or options for customers.

   1. Tubes

   – Penne is a short pasta shaped cylindrically like tubes. It is hollow in the middle and has pointed diagonal ends.

   – Rigatoni is similar to penne, but it differs by the fact that its ends are straight.

   – Macaroni is a curved tube pasta. Internationally, it is often baked with cheese. In Thailand, it can be adapted into a variety of dishes such as macaroni stir-fried with sauce and clear-soup macaroni.

   

   2. Ribbons

   – Linguine is similar to spaghetti, but it is wider and flatter. Linguine is about 6-9 millimeters wide. It is popularly eaten with oily sauces such as when stir-fried with olive oil, basil oil or seafood ingredients.

   – Fettucine is flatter and broader than linguine. It often comes in rolled clumps appearing similar to ribbons and is popularly eaten with richly-flavored sauces like carbonara, bolognaise and mushroom sauce.

   – Ravioli is similar to dumplings we often eat. It contains vegetables, cheese or meat inside and is often shaped rectangularly with jagged edges. It is popularly eaten with tomato sauce sprinkled with coriander on top.

   – Lasagna is another popular menu item, but it’s actually the name of the noodle used. Lasagna is a large rectangular sheet, and it is often eaten stacked in baked layers covered in sauce. It is popularly
   

   3. Rods

   – Spaghetti looks like slender strings. It goes well with lots of different sauces, and many different colors aside from the traditional yellow are available. Ingredients can be added to make the spaghetti orange, black or green to give it a unique identity. It can be served with rich tomato sauce, carbonara or it can be stir-fried with Thai holy basil, Pad Khi Mao and salted fish, Thai style, which tastes just as great as its Italian counterparts.

   

   4. Other Shapes

   – Fusili is a pasta that appears like a short spiral. Normally, it is made thicker than other pasta noodles, and it is often baked in cheese or sauces. The fusili’s spiral takes up a lot of space, so it has more starch and thickness than other noodles. Fusili is often mixed with vegetables such as beetroot, tomato and spinach to make it more colorful.

   – Farfelle is a short pasta that looks like a bow. Although it is a small rectangular noodle with jagged cuts on both sides and a squeezed middle in the shape of a bow, Italians often say that it looks like a butterfly. It is popularly served with thick tomato sauce or covered with cheese.

   – Conchiglie is what Thai people might call “conch-shell pasta” for its curvature, size, external pattern, and internal smoothness very much like seashells. This type of pasta is popularly stir-fried or baked with vegetables, cheese and meat.

   – Orzo is a slender-grained pasta with pointed ends similarly to rice. As a result, many people easily confuse it with rice. However, it is harder and more slippery. Orzo is often made into salads.

   

   Restaurant owners can offer pastas with different sauces as options for customers. Different kinds of pastas can be purchased at every Makro branch with the great buying convenience offered at Makro Click