Fresh Pasta vs. Dried Pasta

Leo's fresh spinach ravioli, fresh tomato sauce with
olives, garlic, onion, and more, and freshly-made
ciabatta bread

I never knew the joys of fresh pasta until my husband, Leo, made fresh ravioli for me for one of our first Valentine's Days together. I might've had fresh pasta once or twice before in restaurants, but I wouldn't have known the difference. Today, though, I realize that there's a time and a place for both fresh and dried pasta...but regardless of which we're using, pasta is best when cooked "al dente" (translated, "to the tooth" which means, just a bit firm, but not crunchy), and even better when cooked in broth (we use water and Knorr vegetable broth cubes most of the time).

While Leo and I prefer dried pasta for soups and oil-based sauces (its heavier, firmer texture makes it stand up better to heavier sauces), fresh pasta is great with lighter, tomato, cream, or butter-based sauces or fish. The more delicate texture of fresh pasta requires a lighter, more delicate dressing. 

Dried pasta, by the way, is just pasta that's commonly made with semolina flour and has been baked at low temperatures for several days, and takes quite a bit longer to cook than fresh pasta. While dried pasta can take 7-10 minutes to cook, fresh pasta can take just 2-3 minutes.

Leo makes his pasta mostly from eggs and flour, and uses a pasta roller that I originally bought for crafting (but never used) to roll out the dough for ravioli. To make the ravioli, he uses an "As Seen On TV" perogi maker he found in the back of the kitchen cupboard. 

I love that fresh pasta is more eco-friendly than dried pasta, in that, rather than being mass-produced in a factory and shipped all over the place, this is made in our home from the basic ingredients, including eggs that were made by our very own chickens in our backyard. And there's something very earthy about seeing my husband making pasta on the bar in our kitchen. He'll put on some of the music of his Uruguayan friends (or better, Andrea Bocelli), don his "Kiss the Drummer" apron, and start tossing flour all over the place.

Do I like fresh pasta better than dried pasta? Not necessarily. But there are times when one makes more sense than the other. And of course, the romanticism of fresh pasta just can't be beat.