Pretty Tasty

Flavored pastas are making a modest comeback, offering a popular option for diners and a daub of color on the plate.

By Suzanne Hall

Back in the 1980s, when the economy was flying and baby boomers were enjoying their status as “young urban professionals,” the culinarily correct did not eat spaghetti and meatballs or mac and cheese. They dined on pasta. They preferred it fresh, of course. If it was flavored, well, that was even better. Spinach, beet, herb and even squid-ink pastas were the rage.

Sometime between then and now, flavored pastas peaked and then waned in popularity. Now, they’re back, not with a vengeance, but with enough interest and variety to make them worth serious consideration.

Jimmy Burke, chef/owner of Riva in Scituate Harbor, Mass., was something of a pioneer on the flavored-pasta scene. “Twenty years ago, he was routinely producing every imaginable flavor,” writes Chris Gluck on pastapress.com.

“I did make a lot of flavored pasta at my former restaurants, Allegro and Tuscan Grill [Waltham, Mass.],” Burke says. “We still make all our own pastas, but I don’t have a flavored one on the menu right now. Maybe it’s time to give them a second look.”

Chefs giving flavored pastas a first and second look are Chris Grissom’s best customers. The owner and CEO of Alfresco Pasta in Nashville, Tenn., Grissom first got interested in high-quality pasta while a student at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. “This guy used to come to the school and peddle his homemade pasta out of the back of a truck,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘Someday, I’d like to make and sell pasta.’”

Six years ago, after working at several restaurants, he started doing just that, and today, Alfresco Pasta offers a full line of fresh filled, cut and extruded pastas. Grissom’s flavor palate runs the gamut from spinach and tomato to saffron and wild mushroom. “White-tablecloth restaurants make up the bulk of my customers, and ravioli is our best seller,” he says. “We make it in 50 or 60 varieties.” Grissom’s market area for pasta, which is sold frozen and through distributors, is mostly south and east of Nashville, but, “We’re looking to expand, and will ship direct to chefs while we find a distributor for them,” he says.

Those who want their flavored pastas dried can turn to companies such as Tempe, Ariz.-based Decio Pasta, which offers linguine in 14 flavors, including Szechuan orange spice and artichoke heart, as well as other pasta products. Both Alfresco and Decio offer custom pasta services. They and others are designed to take the time and effort of making pasta out of restaurant kitchens and into their own.

Do it yourself or outsource?

Pasta that’s made outside his venue is a convenience that appeals to Bouba Saidykhan, chef at Brookwood Grill in Atlanta, where nearly everything is made in-house. He buys lobster ravioli from Grissom. “Making it ourselves is just too time-consuming,” he says. Saidykhan currently has the ravioli on his appetizer menu. “We serve six on a plate, with a sauce made from our own lobster bisque and 16/20 shrimp, corn, tomatoes and scallions. It’s extremely popular. It really flies out of the kitchen.”

Jeremy Still, CEC, AAC, another of Grissom’s customers, is executive chef at the Edgewood Country Club in Charleston, W.Va. “Flavored pastas, especially ravioli and gnocchi, are among our core menu items. We also use them on our pasta bar for private parties,” he says. “We use them to offer our members more variety and flavor choices.” Although he sometimes makes herb- or saffron-infused pastas in-house, Still likes the consistency and convenience of buying flavored pastas.

At Broders’ Pasta Bar in Minneapolis, all the pastas, including flavored varieties, are made in-house by a pasta maker who works every day. “Over the course of a month, we serve 16 different types of fresh pasta. Half of them are usually flavored and cut into various shapes,” says Chad Plotnik, sous chef. Among Broders’ most popular flavored pastas are saffron fettuccine, herb/garlic linguine and a variety of spinach pastas.

Chris Fernandez, executive chef at Poggio in Sausalito, Calif., also makes his own pasta. His spinach ricotta gnocchi with beef ragu? is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. He also makes herb fettuccine and some beet pastas. “I find purchased flavored pastas are often too mild,” he says. “I use top-quality ingredients, like savoy spinach and organic beets, to get a richer flavor.”

Fernandez makes some kind of pasta every day. “It’s time-consuming, hands-on cooking, but it’s not an overwhelming task,” he says. “Good pasta takes time to make. But, if you have the ability and young people in the kitchen who want to learn, it’s always better to experiment with making your own.”

“When making flavored pasta, you have to be especially careful. Adding too much of the flavoring pureée makes the pasta too wet,” Burke says.

“The recipe has to be perfect, and you have to know how to make it. It takes a pasta professional,” Plotnik adds.

Mixing and matching

Although flavored pastas generally have a mild taste, the flavoring ingredient does come through and should be considered when creating sauces and other accompaniments.

“I usually create the dish around the sauce,” Fernandez says. “My beef ragù is very intense, for example, and pairs well with the spinach gnocchi, which are very light. If I had a sauce with a game bird, I’d pair it with a sage pasta, which would accent the dish more than a spinach variety.”

At Broders’, saffron fettuccine often is served with a rich cream/caper sauce. “But it also works well with a light mushroom sauce,” Plotnik says. The restaurant’s herb/garlic linguine usually is served with a classic pesto sauce. In spring, spinach pasta is paired with fresh local greens and other vegetables. “Spinach pasta also is good with tomato sauces,” Plotnik adds.

While spinach and tomatoes are a good combination, “You have to consider color when matching pastas and sauces,” Burke says. “Flavored pastas often are more about color than flavor. If you’re going to use a colored pasta, you should let the color be seen. Colored pastas almost serve as their own garnish.”

Pasta with an Eastern Spin

While Marco Polo didn’t introduce pasta to Italy, as some legends say, there’s no doubt that when he visited China in the 13th century, pasta was on the menu. The Chinese were making noodles, the term much of the world uses for pasta, at least as far back as 3000 B.C. And, noodles in one form or another are part of most Asian cuisines.

For years, American diners knew only of the crispy noodles used to top chow mein, or the soft strands that are an ingredient in lo mein. Today, thanks to Asian restaurant chains and small noodle shops, soba, ramen and udon noodles, if not household words, are familiar to many diners.

Asian noodles, like their Western counterparts, are made from a variety of starches. The same noodle may have different names in different countries. They are generally not “sauced,” but added to salads, stir-fries and broths, or served hot or cold with dipping sauce.

If you’re looking to add an Eastern dimension to your pasta offerings, here are some Asian noodles to try.

Wheat Noodles
Chuka soba, a long, thin, wavy Japanese noodle with a slightly creamy color, mild flavor and fine texture
Chinese wheat, long round or flat noodles that come in various thicknesses and are white or yellow-beige
Gook soo, a Korean noodle that comes in thin round or flat long rods and is pale
Hiyamugi, a delicate Japanese noodle usually served cold
Ramen, a popular thin off-white noodle sold in rods or bricks; some contain eggs
Udon, a thick white noodle with a slippery texture

Rice Noodles
Rice paper, triangular or circular sheets that are soaked and used to make spring rolls and similar wrapped dishes
Rice macaroni, thin white translucent tubes
Rice vermicelli, long, thin, brittle and similar to cellophane noodles
Rice sticks, similar to rice vermicelli, but thicker and wider and available in a variety of sizes and shapes

Egg Noodles
Dan mien, Chinese noodles that are round or flat, yellow and come in various sizes
Canton, long, round or flat noodles that have been pre-cooked
E-Fu, long, flat noodles that are deep-fried, then dried

Other Noodles
Soba, flat, beige to brown noodles with a nutty taste, made from buckwheat and regular wheat flour
Cellophane, translucent thin noodles with a slippery texture, made from mung-bean starch
Dang myun, Korean sweet-potato noodles with a chewy texture
Naeng myun, brown Korean noodle made from buck-wheat flour and potato starch, usually served cold

Suzanne Hall is based in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn.