A first recipe and eating spaghetti
"We named this dish 'studio pasta' because it's been one of our team's favourite lunches since the start. I can't count how many times it's been reinvented but, when we first published it in the early '90s. I feel that it sparked an innovative new wave of lighter pasta recipes. This recipe also was the beginning of my career as 'the girl with the twirl', due to my unique styling technique for pasta. Everywhere I went , people asked me to demonstrate my special spaghetti twirl - in fact, they still do!" Donna Hay
This is the first recipe in the final, 100th edition, of the Donna Hay Magazine. ( I am working my way back through my recipe book collection, which includes the odd magazine and booklet, investigating first recipes, their impact and any other topics that might arise from them.) The recipe is called Studio Pasta - and it's very possibly the archetypal Donna Hay recipe. Which is perhaps why it is the first recipe in the first section of this magazine which is labelled Favourite Things - "the dishes that define special moments dotted throughout her life and career to date."
I suppose it's a variation on the very simple pasta that is just flavoured with chilli and olive oil. For it doesn't have a lot more - in this case some rocket, lemon, garlic and capers. What is so quintessentially Donna Hay though is the style, the beauty of the finished dish. I think that her claim that she sparked an 'innovative wave of lighter pasta recipes' is perhaps a bit over the top, but then again maybe not. She has certainly been helped massively by her food stylist Steve Pearce. But I have talked about that before. And yes, as a first recipe it is very, very tempting to try and to read on into the magazine, and most importantly - to buy the magazine.
What is important here, with reference to style is the 'twirl' And if you want to see a demonstration of how it's done you could do worse than watch these two videos -
Summer crumb pasta, Pasta carbonara in which she shows you how. By the way - the summer crumb pasta looked particularly tempting. And I have to say having watched her make the carbonara, which I have never been able to do without scrambling the eggs, I am tempted to give it one more go. As for the 'twirl' technique, well - I'm not sure I shall be trying that. Why would I? Normally I am just cooking for myself and David and even for just we two I do not plate the dishes I make - I am so hopeless at it. It's all just plonked on the table and we dive in. Ditto for the family feasts which are the only occasions on which I serve pasta. I suspect I have never served pasta at dinner parties. Maybe in France or Italy on holiday, but again I would have just plonked it all on the table for people to help themselves.
The first recipe question put aside, I then thought to investigate ways to eat spaghetti. Seeing it all twirled up like that made me thing of this and also somewhere or other this came up in conversation recently. And I think the gist of the conversation was over the question of whether to use a spoon and a fork. I do it completely wrong I know - I half-heartedly twirl some spaghetti on to my fork and shove the bulk of it into my mouth before sort of sucking up the rest. Not very elegant and not correct. And you are also likely to splatter the sauce all over your clothes on the way from plate to mouth.
And no the spoon is not. The spoon is a no no, though I did see somebody say it was a north/south Italy thing, but I only saw this once, so am assuming it to be incorrect. All the articles I saw on the subject said no spoon. And you certainly don't shovel it into your mouth. Whoever it was I was talking to described the correct procedure, which involved just collecting a few strands on the tip of the fork and then rolling it up. The advice came from an Italian. It was difficult to visualise, but hey presto - the internet provides all - and here is a short description with mini videos of how to do it on the wikiHow site. A quick look and you will never slop spaghetti around again. You will look like this:
There is so much to eating spaghetti properly besides getting it neatly on to your fork, as I discovered in my trawling of the net. Perhaps the best summary I found was on The Splendid Table website. Here are some of the things I learnt, starting with that spoon.
The only time you use a spoon and fork where pasta is involved is when eating angel hair in a soup. You need the fork to get the angel hair on to the spoon.
Angel hair is only ever used in soup. Never is it cooked with a sauce.
Never put cheese on a fish or shellfish pasta
Chunky sauces go with chunky pasta - orecchiette, shells, farfalle, spirale, etc.
Smooth sauces go with long pasta - it coats the strands. Donna Hay's demonstration of carbonara amply demonstrates this.
Tortellini only ever goes in broth
Cheese is best put on the pasta before the sauce. It makes the sauce stick to the sauce better
Pasta with chilli and garlic - no cheese. Now that's a surprise. It goes so well.
Pasta should be served on a plate not in a bowl. I have failed again, because I confess I like mine in a bowl.
Donna Hay breaks the rules here and there - but then so de we all and that's how cooking moves forward all the time isn't it? Yes the Italians may pour scorn on spaghetti and meatballs but we love it don't we? And it seems there are endless and inventive ways of cooking pasta. Every cookbook or foodie magazine has several recipes for pasta.
Alas the only thing I now realise about the dish that started this all off is that I won't be making it any time soon - my husband won't eat chilli and red capsicum wouldn't really be the same. Though I could perhaps do a bastardised version with leftover pasta next time I have some. Then I would also use more calories using leftover spaghetti too.
