PERFECT PASTA Make Italian classics from the Caldesis

Master Italian classics from award-winning restaurateurs Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi

Pasta is a feeling as well as a fuel. In our opinion, there is nothing as satisfying to eat as a bowl of hot pasta clinging to a rich, intense sauce, from the aroma of the sauce warming in the pan to the first bite into al dente pasta that slides easily from fork to mouth. All pasta in Giancarlo’s household was fresh until the 1950s when dried pasta came onto the market and his mum was no longer tied to the kitchen table making it every day. I’m sure she loved her newfound freedom and time-saving packets of spaghetti. However, she and many other Italians never lost their love of freshly made pasta. For weekday meals, we buy dried pasta and sometimes splash out on fettuccine egg pasta. Otherwise, we make our own fresh stuffed pasta and ribbons when we have time.

Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi (caldesi.com) own two renowned Italian restaurants – one in London, one in Bray – and a cookery school with bases in London, Gerrards Cross and Bray.

Linguine with crab & cream, p90