You could also be accustomed to shapes like macaroni, penne, spaghetti, and even ravioli. But these pasta shapes are so bizarre, they’ll make you elevate your eyebrows and go — “Oh, mamma mia!” Let’s take a look at some funny-looking, uncommon pasta shapes.
Testaroli
Testaroli. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Is it bread? Is it pasta? We’ll depart that to you to determine. Testaroli, or testarolo, is skinny, spongy pasta, or bread that’s ready in round crêpe-like sheets, after which sliced into diamond or rectangular shapes. Due to its spongy texture, it’s usually in comparison with a bread that’s just like Focaccia bread.
Having originated within the Lunigiana area of Italy, it is among the oldest pastas in existence. Testaroli is ready by mixing flour, water, and salt – a few of the elements required for pasta dough – blended right into a batter, after which cooked on a flat floor made from terracotta or forged iron, known as a testo, therefore the identify. It could also be dressed with pesto or different elements reminiscent of olive oil, pecorino (a salty cheese constructed from sheep’s milk), parmesan cheese, and garlic.
Su Filindeu
Filindeu in broth. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
This uncommon and endangered pasta form appears to be like just like the textile trade received dough as an alternative of threads and big stitching machines, and positive sufficient, that makes it not solely the strangest, but in addition probably the most troublesome pasta form to grasp. This masterclass-worthy pasta form originated from the mountains of the Barbagia area in Sardinia, an island on the Mediterranean sea.
Due to its endangered standing, it’s listed within the Ark of Taste, a world catalogue of endangered heritage meals which makes efforts to guard these at-risk meals that are sustainably produced, distinctive, and are distinctive. (Yes, folks, you heard it! There’s an organisation for safeguarding endangered FOOD!)
Su Filindeu is made by folding and pulling semolina (sooji, as we name it) dough into very skinny threads that are additional laid in three layers on prime of one another on a tray and dried to kind textile-like sheets. The dried sheets are then damaged into smaller items and historically served in mutton or sheep broth with Pecorino cheese.
Campanelle
Campanelle or gigli. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
These are most likely one of many cutest pasta shapes on the checklist. The identify interprets to “little bells” or “bellflowers”, and because the identify suggests, they’re formed like little cones with a ruffled edge – or higher but, a bell. Due to its floral form, it’s additionally known as gigli (‘lilies’) or trompetti (‘trumpets’).
These floral pasta shapes originate from Tuscany, and right here’s a enjoyable truth – the pasta can be related to a really particular Italian flower: the Florentine lily (which is technically not a lily, however an iris). It additionally helps to know that Tuscany can be known as the “City of Lilies” as a result of affiliation with the flower.
These infants are fairly neatly formed, too. The conical construction helps in holding the sauce fairly properly, giving a burst of the sauce in each chunk. And therefore, it’s utilized in casserole dishes and dishes with a thick sauce.
‘A Caccavella
‘A Caccavella. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
This pasta is apparently formed like a pot. Funnily sufficient, Caccavelle interprets to “pots” within the Neapolitan dialect of Italian. But, what makes this much more worthy of a “DAMN!” is that it’s the largest pasta form in existence. A typical shell measures 9 centimetres in diameter and 6 centimetres in peak, and weighs round 50 grams.
Originating from Gragnano, a city close to Naples, Italy, this pasta is so enormous that they’re often served stuffed in single parts. Fun truth, Gragnano can be the place pasta was first produced commercially.
The commonest strategy to serve this pasta in a dish is with a filling of tomato sauce, mozzarella, minced meat and ricotta cheese. This is famously known as Caccavelle Pasta alla Sorrentina, and could be very conventional within the area of Campania.
Corzetti
Corzetti. PHOTO: FLICKR
If you thought enjoyable cut-outs with cookie cutters have been too mainstream, right here’s a pasta that takes aesthetic design to a different completely different degree: corzetti!
Hailing from Liguria in northwest Italy – alongside the border of France – corzetti has a really particular distinctive promoting level: an embossed little ornament on either side of the shell that may be given by a particular hand-carved piece of wooden, or by machine. This makes it seem like a seal, or a coin. At one level, the pasta shell had a household coat of arms engraved on them, now they’ve a regional coat of arms, or the producer’s trademark.
On a facet notice, the identify of the pasta is derived from the identify of a Genoan coin, corzetto. Surely explains rather a lot, doesn’t it?
Cavatappi
Cavatappi. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
What if fusilli and macaroni are crossbred? Perhaps, it could look one thing like this. Cavatappi is actually macaroni with a spiral form like fusilli.
This pasta can be known as spirali, and it originated within the Seventies, in a spot known as Barilla – considered one of Italy’s oldest meals corporations – in Parma, northern Italy. And its origin story is considered one of pleasure, too.
A set of pasta dies (steel plates used to impart a selected form within the dough) have been mistakenly made with a spiral set of traces, as an alternative of a straight set. These dies produced pasta in a spiral or spring form. Barilla determined to call it after Adriano Celentano – a singer-songwriter and actor from Italy, and one of many nation’s best showmen – who was nicknamed Il Molleggiato (lit. “the bouncy one”) as a consequence of his energetic dancing. Because this identify was already trademarked, different pasta producers gave it a unique identify, like cavatappi. (lit. corkscrews). And sure, DO NOT confuse this pasta with fusilli, regardless that that can be generally known as “corkscrew pasta”.
