Greasy, overcooked, slippery. Spaghettini, cappellini and small formats are back in fashion.
Spaghettini and capellini: in the menus of the great chefs the long pasta becomes narrow. They are not pet names, like when flans and baby carrots went out of fashion, but they were pasta shapes that had gone missing.
From the classic noodles we passed to years of domination of the spaghetti, of the square spaghetti, of the insistent callousness, of the push chewing. And so after the Spaghettoni Benedetto Cavalieri, 16-17 minutes of cooking, now they like spaghettini or, better still, capellini: 3 minutes and drain.
As in a counter-reformation, everything is changed and we are dedicated to more slippery formats, where the combination with the dressing is played with the consistency: al dente, from the consistency Crisp, or well cooked, to eat with effect "backwash". The spaghettoni in the restaurant force endless waits and occupy the pasta cookers making the work of the brigades difficult. These thin strands of pasta, however, represent a real challenge in the kitchen: they are cooked in just a few minutes, but just as quickly they overcook.
The spaghettone is good, tenacious, but indomitable with a fork. He unrolls himself by treachery, staining his shirt, and imposing suction
From Romito to Camanini, small is beautiful
Niko Romito serves them ends. In his continuous search for the archetype of the perfect pasta dish, he chose this format. The Capellini with tomato sauce are white, the tomato is there but you cannot see, like oil, that there is not enough. Massimiliano Alajmo, 3 Michelin stars, he also tried different, cold, rock or shell sauce.
Riccardo Camanini, a Michelin star chef at the Lido 84 restaurant in Gardone Riviera, award-winning and in his golden age, he serves a Spaghettino anointed in red. Almost blasphemous, Riccardo Camanini evokes the memory of overcooked pasta eaten as a child, the one that left the dish greasy. And here is the tomato paste (but handcrafted, Sicilian), the sauté and some noodles. The Spaghettino anointed in red cancels the years of sauces to the five, six, nine tomatoes, those of fresh tomatoes and restricted sauces, to revive a memory – unpleasant – of millions of Italians. And from him this too becomes very good because obviously instead of mistakes and haste, there are hours of work (24) and slow cooking. Very technical. In the ever-changing menu, a gluten-free spaghetti with ancient wheat and gluten-free rice have also passed, served lukewarm, dusted with thin-fried fried crab seasoned with lime kefir, tomato paste and chilli pepper … Matteo Baronetto at the Del Cambio in Turin, he works on the memory of pasta eaten in the North: almost overcooked and always fine. And here he proposes them simply with butter and parmesan, or crunchy, sautéed … in memory of the pasta the day after. Pino Cuttaia transforms angel hair into kataifi paste and rolls eggplant for a crunchy parmigiana.
Northern pasta
Nordic format? We ask to Riccardo Felicetti, of the homonymous pasta factory in Trentino and for years engaged in a research work with chefs of the caliber of Carlo Cracco. "The" ONE "phenomenon is a trend that is coming out of kitchens and fine pastas are now increasingly used by chefs," he explains. «Bottura, just to give an example, has a great spaghetti on paper. But already Gualtiero Marchesi, for his cold spaghetti with caviar, used a 1.5 mm thick Teflon drawn spaghetti to prevent an excessive release of starch . Carlo Cracco had cooked them in a small bowl, as a reinterpretation of a classic Ischia: Spaghettini with provola, lemon and fried caper flowers. We know how much the chefs play in advance and also drive home consumption. In fact, he continues: «The most“ fine ”format of Monograno Felicetti is currently the spaghettino Il Cappelli, but we are working on two new formats under the millimeter of thickness.
In the beginning it was Marchesi
The spaghetti salad with caviar and chives by Gualtiero Marchesi is a dish that has existed since 1985 and was revolutionary for a number of aspects: it played with pasta salad, using a long format; he was inspired by cold ramen eaten in Japan and reported dried pasta on the tables, when it was literally banned by the chefs of the time. It was the Master's favorite dish: «Caviar spaghetti salad. Cold spaghetti, with the chives on top. You would eat it every day. "
The theorist Peppe Guida
Spaghettini theorist, the Michelin two-star chef, Peppe Guida, chef of Nonna Rosa in Vico Equense, pasta guru, with Pastificio dei Campi he cooked several versions, including those to go to the Seafront Pastabar in Naples. Even in the south, therefore, the spaghettino likes it. From the classic Spaghettino with tomato, to the version with lemon water, oil and provolone and to the autumnal Torba, a dish inspired by spaghetti with mushrooms, but where there are no mushrooms, it has become his signature dish: Spaghettini with water of lemon and provolone.
The formats and the right sauce
Spaghettini are a classic format from southern Italy, also called vermicellini or half vermicelli. The Pastificio dei Campi of Gragnano proposes its Spaghettini di Gragnano I.G.P. (cooking 6 minutes) of Gragnano, the Spaghetti del Pastificio Gentile of Gragnano, produced with 100% Campania wheat. The noodles of the supply chain of the Mancini pasta factory, of the Marche, have a diameter of 1.8mm and a length of 260mm and the cooking time is 7-9 minutes. There Barilla it has always proposed different formats. Bavettine (6 minutes of cooking), Spaghettini (5 minutes), Capellini (3 minutes). The advice is always the same to better appreciate them: light seasonings, which do not weigh them down, very simple and white sauces. And no fear of cooking them because their fragility is only apparent: they keep their structure intact even when in contact with the hottest broth, while in dry recipes they are best expressed by enhancing all the flavor of the ingredients.
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