There are hundreds of shapes of pasta. Here’s the long and short of why — and how to use them.
Pasta, a food darling of both Italy and America, comes in hundreds of shapes — more than 300 by some counts. There are long strands, round and flat, thin and wide, and twisty, ruffled, tube, and shell shapes, tiny morsels, and large sheets. Despite the abundance, there are about a dozen that dominate our plates, including spaghetti, linguine, fettucine, penne, rigatoni, rotini, farfalle, and lasagna.
If you’re wondering how there came to be so many pasta shapes, some just infinitesimally different from others or bearing different names, consider that Italy has 20 regions, diverse in agriculture, coastlines, foods, natural resources, customs, and traditions.
“Three hundred shapes, maybe more, maybe less,” says Marisa Iocco, chef and co-owner of Spiga Ristorante in Needham and the Italian food store Market-tiamo in Newton. “From one town to another you’ll find different dialects, different recipes, different pastas,” she says. “Traditional foods came about based on what you had to cook with.” Iocco grew up in the town of Orsogna in Abruzzo, near Italy’s east coast, and learned to make pasta from her mother and grandmother.
There are two primary categories of pasta: long and short. Long strands can be rounded like spaghetti or flat noodles of varying widths and thicknesses. Spaghetti (meaning “little strings” in Italian), one of the most common and popular pastas, ranges from thin and fine, including capelli d’angelo (“angel hair”), cappellini, fidelini (“little faithful ones”), spaghettini, and vermicelli (“little worms”), to slightly thicker spaghettoni, square strands called spaghetti alla chitarra, and hollow strands of bucatini and bucatoni. Flat noodles include narrow linguine (“little tongues”), slightly wider fettuccine (“little ribbons”), and wider tagliatelle and pappardelle.
(Pasta names often hint at their size by their suffixes. Shapes ending in -ini, -ine, -illi, -elli, and -etti convey a small size, while -oni, -one, and -otti mean large.)
Short pastas boast an even broader range, and include an array of tubes, some with ridges, some smooth, such as rigatoni, penne (“pens” or “quills”), mostaccioli (“little moustaches”), ziti (“bridegrooms”), and paccheri. Large tubes, such as cannelloni and manicotti, are stuffed with various fillings.
Twists, spirals, and squiggles make for fun eating. Varieties include rotini,
fusilli (“little springs”), gemelli (“twins”), campanelle (“bellflowers”), corkscrew-shaped cavatappi, farfalle (“butterflies”), and radiatori (“little radiators”). Shells and cup-like shapes, such as orecchiette, (“little ears”), conchiglie (“conch shells”), lumache (“snails”), and cavatelli (“little hollows”) are perfectly designed for capturing tasty morsels.
Sheets or broad noodles are used for layering, as in lasagna, and making stuffed pastas, such as ravioli, tortellini (“little twists”), tortelloni, cappelletti (“little hats”), and agnolotti (“priests’ caps”). Tiny pastas, often used in soups, include orzo, pastina, and ditalini (“little thimbles”). Couscous, both the small pearls and grain-size kernels, is a type of pasta.
Aside from its shape, the other way to classify pasta is fresh or dried. Fresh pasta usually contains eggs, while dried pasta is generally flour and water. Most dried pastas, and some fresh, are made with semolina, a durum wheat high in gluten and protein, which helps the pasta keep its shape during cooking.
At Dave’s Fresh Pasta in Somerville, owner David Jick says they roll their dough very thin through a sheeter, then cut it to yield long strands of spaghetti, fettucine, linguine, and pappardelle, as well as sheets for lasagna and ravioli. “Egg gives fresh pasta a richness,” he says. “It’s not as dense a product as a dried noodle.”
Choosing the right pasta
With all the choices of pasta shapes, sizes, and textures, there are many cases when just a few stand up to or host or cradle a particular sauce in the best possible way. Michael Pagliarini, chef and co-owner of Giulia in Cambridge, says, “There’s a reason why pairings evolved the way they have based on regional ingredients and production techniques.” In other words, traditional pairings of sauce and pasta have been passed down for centuries (or just decades) from Italian nonnas and other cooks.
A rich Bolognese from Bologna in Emilia-Romagna is typically served with a sturdy long pasta like tagliatelle or pappardelle or thick tubes of rigatoni; these stand up to the long-simmered meat sauce. Spaghetti works well with olive oil-based sauces, such as aglio e olio (garlic and oil) and cacio e pepe (cheese and black pepper). In Fettuccine Alfredo, the classic, very rich cream, butter, and Parmesan sauce is well served by ribbons of fettucine, while spaghetti is commonly paired with carbonara sauce made of eggs, cheese, and bits of cured pork. Other well-established combos include Tortellini en Brodo, Bucatini all’Amatriciana, and Penne all’Arrabbiata. Meatballs typically perch on top of a tangle of spaghetti, while the delicate briny flavor of clams is complemented by thin noodles in Linguine alle Vongole. Shapes like orecchiette and cavatelli capably hug chunks of sausage and broccoli (or broccoli rabe) for easy forkfuls.
When Pagliarini creates pasta dishes for Giulia’s menu, he chooses the sauce and its ingredients, then pairs it with a pasta, which, he says, has a lot to do with the “textural experience.” For pairings, he says, “I will look at what is done traditionally and see what our kitchen can produce. And deviate if the mood strikes me.” Examples of the chef ’s current seasonal pairings include pappardelle with braised wild boar, squid ink linguine with red wine braised calamari, and casarecce ai funghi (a short scroll-like pasta with mushrooms, asparagus, and Parmesan).
At Spiga, Iocco tosses a silky, bright green pesto with mandilli, wide, thin sheets of pasta with plenty of surface area to coat with sauce. One of her favorite peasant-style dishes is Sagne e Ceci made with thin squares of pasta, chickpeas, red pepper, garlic, and oil. “It’s a simple plate of pasta but when it’s properly seasoned it’s a poem,” she says.
And therein lies a big difference between what you see on Italian versus American tables. In Italian cuisine, sauce is a condiment or seasoning for pasta. Not surprisingly, Americans prefer a lot of sauce. It should be “the right amount,” says Pagliarini, explaining, “There has to be a spirit of generosity in our cooking, but the pasta itself has its own integrity and that is to be respected.”
Iocco agrees it’s a balance. “I don’t want to void the flavor of the pasta.” (Yet some guests love her sauces so much they ask for extra sauce on the side.)
From top: pasta on display at Eataly; tagliatelle Bolognese at Fox & the Knife; cavatappi.
Cooking it right
In your kitchen, making flavorful bowls of pasta starts with cooking it correctly. A few tips: Bring a large pot of water (3 to 4 quarts of water per pound of pasta) to a boil so the pasta has room to move freely and expand without clumping.
Salt the water generously before or just as it starts to boil. Pagliarini salts the water at the beginning so he doesn’t forget. “I’ll taste it to make sure it’s not too salty,” says the chef. Add the pasta and stir to immerse and separate all the pieces. Stir a few times as the pasta cooks.
The cardinal rule of cooking pasta is: Don’t overcook it! Set a timer for a few minutes shorter than the recommended cooking time on the package and taste the pasta frequently. As soon as it’s al dente (firm to the tooth or bite) with a little resistance when you chew it, it’s done. Chefs Iocco and Pagliarini like their pasta with a tiny bit of an uncooked center; it will finish cooking in the sauce. If that’s not to your liking, boil the pasta for another 30 to 60 seconds and taste again. Fresh pastas are ready as quickly as 2 to 5 minutes.
As soon as the pasta is done, scoop out a cup of the starchy cooking water with a glass measuring cup, then drain the pasta in a colander in the sink. Never rinse the pasta with fresh water; you’ll be saying goodbye to all that useful starch, which helps the sauce adhere.
It’s up to you whether you add pasta to the sauce or vice versa. In most restaurant kitchens, they add pasta to skillets of hot sauce and toss “so they become one dish and not separate parts,” says Pagliarini. At home, it’s generally easier to return the cooked pasta to the cooking pot (or a warmed serving bowl), pour in the sauce, and stir for a minute or two. Add some of the starchy water to integrate the sauce and pasta, says Iocco.
The variety of pasta shapes to pair with flavorful sauces is what makes bowls of pasta so interesting, tasty, and fun. You can devise your own combinations or choose a classic. But it’s always a good idea to respect what an Italian nonna can teach us.