← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Pasta Enthusiast Dan Pashman on 'Anything's Pastable' Cookbook
00:18:51
Pasta Enthusiast Dan Pashman on 'Anything's Pastable' Cookbook
Loading summary
Transcript75 lines
- [00:00]
Wix Advertiser
How many times have you wished you could be in two places at once? With wix, you practically can. Wix's website builder is packed with powerful AI tools to make running your business online easier. Build a full site just by talking with AI, get an AI agent to manage your sales and marketing, or work like a 10 person team, even if it's just you. So you don't need superpowers to get everything done. You just need Wix. Try it out for yourself@wix.com.
- [00:29]
Bic Soleil Advertiser
Surprise Beach Day no excuses. I'm in. Gimme Five. With Bic Soleil Glide Razor, you'll have hydrated, smooth skin that's ready to go on the fly. No shave cream needed. You can prep, shave and hydrate all in one step thanks to moisture bars that hydrate your skin during and after shaving. 5 flexible blades hug your skin for a close shave. Glide into smooth. It's your time to shine with Bixsol a buy now at Amazon and Walmart. Ready. Your skin looks amazing. So smooth and beach ready.
- [00:56]
Dan Pashman
Let's go.
- [00:59]
Nordstrom Rack Advertiser
They say if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together. At Amica Insurance, we know what matters most to you and we work even harder to protect it Together as a mutual insurance company, we're built for our customers and prioritize your needs. Amica empathy is our best policy. Call 877-41-America and get a quote today. New fall arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores. Now get ready to save big with up to 60% off. Vince Kurt Geiger London and more.
- [01:38]
Bic Soleil Advertiser
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
- [01:40]
Matt Katz
There's always something new.
- [01:41]
Nordstrom Rack Advertiser
Join the Nordic Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock exclusive discounts on your favorite brands. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, get an extra 5% off every rack purchase with a Nordstrom credit card. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.
- [02:05]
Matt Katz
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Matt Katz in for Alison Stewart. Many great inventions come out because someone is dissatisfied with the choices at hand, or because they look at something and think, I can do better. That was exactly the case a couple years ago when Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman looked at spaghetti and found it wanting. Or to quote him, it sucks. In his opinion, spaghetti is difficult to get onto a fork, it's not satisfying to bite into, and sauce doesn't adhere to it. So Dan set about creating his own pasta shape, and almost exactly three years ago, he unveiled the result. It's called Cascatelli Italian for waterfalls. And it has become incredibly popular. Sporkful listeners all over the country began sending him photos of how they were cooking with it. But the photos, he felt, were tragic because three quarters of the photos involved tomato sauce, meat sauce, or Mac and cheese. Once again, Dan thought, I can do better. And today he is here to unveil the result. A cookbook that he feels is the equal of Cascatelli. It's called Anything's Pastable 81 inventive pasta recipes for Saucy People. He joins me now to discuss and take your calls. Dan, welcome back to wnyc.
- [03:23]
Dan Pashman
Hey, Matt, thanks. Great to be here.
- [03:25]
Matt Katz
I'm excited to talk pasta. You write, quote, many people seem unaware of all of the glorious ingredients they can and should be putting on their pasta shapes. Why do you think many people just default to the tried and true when it comes to pasta? Throw that tomato sauce on.
- [03:41]
Dan Pashman
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's for, for, for some portion of the population is just what folks grew up with. Obviously, this sort of like Italian American red sauce joint influence in American food culture still looms large. I feel like we're kind of still all trapped in the as descendants of Chef Boyardee.
- [03:58]
Matt Katz
Right.
- [04:00]
Dan Pashman
And. But the truth is that as our palates become more diverse and our country becomes more diverse, Americans all over the country are using different ingredients on their pasta. And I just wanted everyone to know about it.
- [04:11]
Matt Katz
And what's wrong with, you know, the marinara meat sauce, Mac and cheese thing? Is it just, like, boring or doesn't offer the opportunities for nutritious nutritional value that you can get with other ingredients?
- [04:22]
Dan Pashman
Nothing to do with nutrition. I mean, it's not about, I'm not against it. It's fine. It's just that there's an awful lot out of it and it's a little bit tiresome. And I just, I certainly felt like the world didn't need another cookbook with a recipe for marinara sauce in it, especially when there's so many great jarred sauces, really high quality jarred sauces available today. In my book, I just encourage people to buy a jarred sauce and then I give you a jarred tomato sauce decision tree to walk you through different options of what you can add to the jar of sauce to doctor it. But there's no recipe in here for marinara sauce. I decided early if it's going to be tomato sauce, it's got to be really different from something I've had before.
- [04:55]
Matt Katz
Listeners, if you have a question about how to pair pasta shapes with sauces, Give us a call. 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. You can also text us at that number. What's your favorite pasta shape? Have you tried Cascatelli? Do you have a favorite sauce you want to shout out? 212-433-9692. Tell us about Cascatelli, Dan. What makes it a perfect shape to experiment with for sauces?
- [05:25]
Dan Pashman
Well, perfect is a strong word, Matt, but I think it's a very, very good shape. And it's because, first of all, early on, I decided I wanted my shape to have ruffles. I went out and I ate all different kinds of obscure shapes. Isolated variables. What do I like in a shape? Tubes, Flat, long, short. I decided that I love ruffles. Number one, they create a playful texture in your mouth. Number two, they're very good at holding sauce. Everyone just wants to use tubes to hold sauce, and tubes do that pretty well. But it's not the only way. Nooks and crannies and folds are, in many cases, I think, a better way to hold sauce. So I wanted to have ruffles. Where I got lucky is that these two parallel spines of ruffles and Cascatelli that create this space between them. And I didn't originally intend for that. It was more because we couldn't manufacture it the way I originally had it in my head. And the manufacturer I was working with was like, well, maybe we move the ruffles here. And I was like, all right, we'll try that. And ended up making it better, which is often the case with inventions. It's a combination of a great idea and some hard work and some luck. And the space between those ruffles, which I call the sauce trough. When sauce gets in there, it cannot get out.
- [06:28]
Matt Katz
Wow. That's unlike spaghetti, where it just rolls right off.
- [06:31]
Dan Pashman
I'm sure, Matt, you've had the experience of eating a plate of spaghetti. You finish all the pasta and you look down, and half the sauce is still in the plate. All right? That is not a feature. That's a bug.
- [06:40]
Matt Katz
And then you have to take. I mean, you hope no one's looking, and you use your fork and you.
- [06:44]
Dan Pashman
Try to scoot, and that's. I mean, that's a sad, sad place to be. Right? Okay. We don't know. Nobody wants to be in that situation. Okay? So my point is, you just get a better shape in the beginning, and you can save yourself that pain and agony.
- [06:56]
Matt Katz
You did by the way, on your podcast, Sporkful, you did mission impossible about how you came up with this shape. It chronicles the whole journey. And now you actually have on your podcast, now you have a new series dropped today about the creation of the cookbook. And also your kids are in both of these series, which is great. They try out the recipes that you're using in this cookbook. All right, let's get to the basics. When it comes to pasta, you have some like, mistakes people make that you're advising people to do better on. When it comes to pasta. Give us a couple. First, I think is just buy good quality pasta.
- [07:33]
Dan Pashman
Yeah, you know, it's an affordable luxury. You know, just buying a little bit better quality quality pasta. Ideally extruded through a bronze dial, it doesn't have to be. But slow dried pasta, the drying makes a big difference. One thing you'll notice with the especially less expensive and lower quality pasta is that when you cook it, even if you cook it just the right amount of time, it's kind of rubbery. The texture is a little bit rubbery and that's because it has been dried as quickly as possible to be able to produce as much of it as fast as possible. When you slow dry pasta, you will get more of what I call tooth sinkability. You will get meatiness, chewiness, springiness. It's almost like biting into a steak. And that is really how good pasta should taste. Beyond that, salt, your water, you gotta, you know, I recommend for a pound of pasta, four quarts of water, two tablespoons of kosher salt. So. Cause you know, most of it you don't end up eating. But like, you need salty water to season that pasta. Really good pasta should taste great plain right out of the pot. It should have a delicious, a nutty flavor with the aroma of toasted bread.
- [08:35]
Matt Katz
And you say to put a, to cover the water when you're boiling it.
- [08:39]
Dan Pashman
Well before you put the pasta in. Yes, because it boils faster.
- [08:43]
Matt Katz
That's the only reason there's not any other mixture. Okay, got it.
- [08:45]
Dan Pashman
That will help it boil faster. But to debunk a myth, I will tell you, Matt, adding the salt is important because it seasons the water. It will not appreciably make the water boil faster. This is a dispute. People write into me on this porkful all the time about. In order to change the amount of time it takes for water to boil, you would have to add more, more salt than would be, than you would ever add for you to notice the difference.
- [09:07]
Matt Katz
Oh, I didn't I always thought it had something. The two things were connected.
- [09:11]
Dan Pashman
Nope.
- [09:11]
Matt Katz
So, by the way, we got. We got a text already in from a listener. Tom Caliccio's Jersey tomato sauce is amaze, I guess recommendation for. For the. The store bought tomato sauces.
- [09:24]
Dan Pashman
It could be. And again, that's why I'm sort of like, I'm sure it's. I'm sure his tomato sauce is excellent. There are a lot of excellent tomato sauces out there. I didn't feel like I had anything to add to that. So in my cookbook, I'm focusing on things like kimchi carbonara, keema bolognese, cacio e pepe with chili crisp, and optional Sichuan peppercorns. You know, instead of Italian wedding soup, we're doing Mexican wedding soup with turkey, albondigas, and chilies. And so there's a range of different flavors that go way beyond Italian cuisine.
- [09:51]
Matt Katz
Can we talk about the cacio e pepe with chili crisp?
- [09:54]
Dan Pashman
Let's do it.
- [09:55]
Matt Katz
We have the recipe. It's from Anything's Possible, your new cookbook, but it's also on the all of its show page@wnyc.org my, my. I mean, I love that dish in general. It seems so simple, but have so, so much flavor. I'm never disappointed. Tell us about the combination of flavors, why it works, and how if it's.
- [10:16]
Dan Pashman
Easy to cook at home, it's incredibly easy. This whole dish will come together in probably less than a half an hour. It's as easy as cacio e pepe. Frankly, chili crisp is an ingredient that I think people are becoming, you know, many people grew up with, if not people are becoming more and more familiar with it. I mean, there's now a chili crisp pasta dish on the menu at Olive Garden, and so people are becoming more aware. I'm sorry, Cheesecake Factory. Correction, Cheesecake Factory. And so with this dish. So I collaborated with a range of incredibly talented recipe developers for the recipes in this cookbook. This one I did with James park, who wrote an entire cookbook on chili crisp. He's an old friend of mine. And so I knew I wanted chili crisp in this cookbook, so I knew I had to bring James on board because he's the expert, and he. And it's a common thing to compare to add chili crisp to dairy. In fact, it's even a common thing to drizzle chili crisp over vanilla soft serve. So the combination of chili crisp and anything creamy and cheesy is a natural.
- [11:11]
Matt Katz
Yeah.
- [11:12]
Dan Pashman
So cacio e pepe with chili crisp Phenomenal. When I tasted it, I said, you know, it's very good. But I feel like there's another level, a deeper spice that I find myself craving. So we added optional Sichuan peppercorns. Toasted Sichuan peppercorns, if you want to take the spice to the next level.
- [11:25]
Matt Katz
Got it. So is it meat? And then the result is medium spicy.
- [11:28]
Dan Pashman
It's always hard to define spicy. That's so personal. You know, I went to great pains in the book to write. Write the recipes, the spicy recipes, in a way that would allow you to adjust to your liking. I would say that if you leave out the Sichuan peppercorns, it's a light medium to a proper medium, depending on your tolerance. If you add in the Sichuan peppercorns, it's more medium to hot.
- [11:47]
Matt Katz
Got it. We have a bunch of texts coming in about Cascatelli. All right, what is your one Listener asks what your second favorite pasta shape is after the one created.
- [12:00]
Dan Pashman
Well, setting. I'm a little biased because there's two other shapes that are obscure Italian pasta shapes that I. That I released with the Pasta Co. S Fellini. They're called Vesuvio and quattro. So those are also kind of my babies. I can't ignore them. Okay. I would say. But of the ones that I have nothing to do with, I really love. I love mafalda, which is like fetuccini, long, flat noodle, but with ruffles down the edges. I love Casareche, which is sort of. It's like a matchstick length, short shape, but it's kind of got folds and twists. Another example of how folds and twists, I think, often hold sauce better than tubes do. And then one that's very similar to Casarecce is Strozza pretti, which is the best name. My favorite name that means the priest. It means the priest strangler. Yes. Because as legend has it, corrupt priests used to eat it so quickly that they would choke. So strozza, pretti and casarecce.
- [12:50]
Matt Katz
We heard a listener already said.
- [12:52]
Dan Pashman
Did you say Mafal, Mafaldi, Mafalda or Mafaldina? It's basically the same. There's different names. There's three or 400 pasta shapes in existence, but they go by about 1200 names. So oftentimes there's a single shape that's called different things in different regions of Italy, or depending on the dialect.
- [13:09]
Matt Katz
Got it.
- [13:09]
Dan Pashman
So mafalda and Mafaldina are roughly the same.
- [13:13]
Matt Katz
A listener wrote that my favorite pasta shape is malfaldina, but so the emergence of Cascatelli was a true pasta enhancement in my life. And the text ended with pasta is incredible.
- [13:23]
Dan Pashman
Thank you.
- [13:25]
Matt Katz
So the. Oh, and, oh, and one other. One other question about your Cascadelli. Are there gluten free options?
- [13:33]
Dan Pashman
Yes, there's a gluten free Cascatelli made by Bonza. I believe. It's available at Whole Foods nationwide and often through Bonza's website.
- [13:41]
Matt Katz
Very good. If you're just joining us, I'm Matt Katz filling in for Alison Stewart today on all of it. Dan Pashman is the host of the Sporkful podcast and the author of anything's possible 81 inventive pasta recipes for Saucy People. What is Pangra Tattoo?
- [13:59]
Dan Pashman
Pangritato. Yes. This is part of this cookbook that I'm so excited about because I'm at. I'm a big texture eater. I am fascinated with a concept that sensory scientists call dynamic contrast. It's the idea of multiple textures together in the same bite. For instance, if you think of any of your favorite candy bars, you have a hard chocolate shell and your teeth break through that. And then you sink into something that's more chewy or gooey, like a caramel.
- [14:24]
Matt Katz
Like a malamar has three different kinds.
- [14:27]
Dan Pashman
Of things going on. Yes. And you got crunch, you got crisp, you got chewy, you've got gooey. And all those things together provide dynamic contrast, which even if you didn't know that term, you love it. Everyone loves it. And so I. But I. And Italian pasta dishes. There are a lot of pasta dishes in Italy that use dynamic contrast and have a variety of textures. And of course, certainly throughout the world of Asian noodle and rice dishes, there's a lot of different textures coming together. Most people in America eating pasta, the American pasta dishes just did not get the memo about texture. And so I wanted to make. I have a whole chapter in the book all about pasta dishes with novel textures. And there's another section with pan gratatos, which are seasoned. That is the plural, but I'm anglicizing it seasoned. Toasted breadcrumbs. It takes five or 10 minutes to make them. One of my favorites in the book is toasted corn nuts with lime zest. You crush them up and you sprinkle those. Traditionally, they do pan grittado. In Italy, it'd be breadcrumbs with maybe garlic oregano, but I do them. I got a furikake pan grittado. You make those and you put it on the table with a spoon. First of all, you're gonna Struggle to get it to the table. Cause I usually eat half of it before I even serve the meal. It's so good. But then you sprinkle it on and it just coats the top of the pasta. And you get this light, crisp, and extra flavor in every bite. And you get that. That way when you're sinking your teeth into the chewy pasta, first you hit the cris exterior, then you hit the chewy pasta center, and you get dynamic contrast. You get all those textures, and it just takes the whole experience to another level.
- [15:55]
Matt Katz
That's fantastic. I literally remember the first time I had that on Mac and cheese where I had that crusty topping.
- [16:01]
Dan Pashman
But that's, that's. That's the one place where a lot of Americans are familiar with it is, is like a baked Mac and cheese, a Ritz cracker type topping. So if you like it like that, wouldn't you like it like that in a million other pasta dishes? Absolutely, yeah.
- [16:12]
Matt Katz
The other thing I love, which you. You get into a bunch of variations on, is pesto. What makes pesto so versatile? And give us a recipe.
- [16:23]
Dan Pashman
Yeah, I mean, look, most of us are most familiar with the Genovese pesto, the basil and pine nuts. And that's delicious. But again, I didn't feel like I needed to tell people how to make that. Instead, I have a presto pesto formula in the book which basically tells you pesto just means pounded. And so it's really kind of meant to be something that you take, Oh, I have these extra greens, I have these extra herbs, I got some nuts, I got some hard cheeses. I'm going to pound it all together. And that's kind of what pesto is really for. And so I give you this formula and you can take. I mean, I had yesterday I had a bunch of extra arugula in my fridge that had been there for a couple days. I didn't want to make. I didn't want to go bad. Blended that up with some Asiago and some toasted almonds and olive oil, garlic, and that's a pesto. And so I give you this formula and you can turn almost any sort of combination of greens and, and herbs and cheese and nuts into a pesto. And I even have options for if you have nut allergies. You can use sunflower seeds. There's other possibilities.
- [17:18]
Matt Katz
And you did that in a blender?
- [17:20]
Dan Pashman
Yeah. Food processor.
- [17:22]
Matt Katz
Food processor. Got it.
- [17:23]
Dan Pashman
And my food processor is not even really a full fledged food processor because I hate extraneous kitchen equipment. And I managed to get all the way through this cookbook without buying a standalone food processor.
- [17:32]
Matt Katz
Nice. So what's a way to up your normal pasta and marinara dinner just with the stuff you might already have in your kitchen?
- [17:46]
Dan Pashman
So this is where the jarred tomato sauce decision tree comes in that I mentioned. So that, you know, you start off and it asks you, do you want your tomato sauce to be heartier? Do you want it to be spicier? Do you want it to have more texture? One of those three. And you follow those questions into different outcomes. So let's say you say I want it to be hardier, but I'm vegetarian. You follow those that path and I'll show you. Take an eggplant, roast it for 45 minutes, scoop out the insides, mix it with a tomato sauce. You made it heartier, more filling, and you added the flavor of the eggplant. But then it could be as simple as like, add a tablespoon of fish sauce or sriracha or cholula, whatever hot. You want a peppery spice, I've got you. You want sweet, savory spice, I've got you. Add a fistful of parmesan cheese. Add msg, which I'm all for, and which is a great way to enhance the savoriness of your, of a jar of tomato sauce. So there's a million different ways to take a jar of high quality sauce and transform it into something that feels a little more special in a matter of minutes.
- [18:41]
Matt Katz
That's cool. So, you know, Dan, you're one of the top food podcasters in the country. You invented your own pasta and now you're a cookbook author. Which one of these things? Is there one thing that's like nearest and dearest to your heart that you'd like? You know, when you're, I don't know, your kids are at school and they, some other kid says, what does your dad do for a living? What do you want them to tell the other kids?
- [19:05]
Dan Pashman
I mean, the podcast, you know, the Sporkful podcast will always be sort of number one because that was the first thing in the things you listed. And, you know, I'm, I was a guy who worked in radio before I worked in podcasting. I fell in love with audio in college and always wanted to work in that. So I always have a soft spot for that. But I'll probably be more known for Cascatelli, which is also okay. I mean, when it was first going viral, when it launched a couple weeks in, I think Sarah Jessica Parker put it on her instagram And I was like, oh my God, this is next level now. And I came home. I had just gone to the liquor store to grab a six pack of beer and I came home. My wife comes running out of the front door of the house. I thought something was wrong. I said, what's wrong? She said, sjp put it on her Instagram. And that night I we're sitting on the couch, the kids are asleep, and I turned to her and I said, you know, this is gonna be my obituary. And that's okay. You know, like it's a little weird to be in your 40s and realize you're probably never going to top something you just accomplished, but at the same time, like inventing your own pasta shape. If that's what I'm going to go down in history for, I'll take it.
- [20:03]
Matt Katz
It's extremely cool. There are a million podcasters out there, right? And there's not a lot of people who have invented pasta shapes, particularly in the 21st century.
- [20:11]
Dan Pashman
Yeah.
- [20:12]
Matt Katz
Dan Pashman is the host of the Sporkful podcast and the author of anything's possible. 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People comes out two weeks March 19, but there are two events in our area with Dan coming up that you should check out. He'll be in conversation with Claire Saffitz at the gramercy theater on March 18, and the next day, March 19, he'll be at the Suffolk County JCC. For more information on those events, head to sporkful.com/tour. Dan, thanks so much for being here. Great to see you.
- [20:45]
Dan Pashman
Thanks so much. And people can preorder the book right now. So thanks to see you, Matt.
- [20:48]
Matt Katz
Excellent.
- [20:49]
Wix Advertiser (Alternate)
What does it mean to move at the speed of AI? It means thinking big and moving fast. It means running like a 10 person team, even if it's just you. With Wix, it's possible. Create a website that's as unique as your business, launch a new campaign, or test new ways to make more money without slowing down. Think it, build it. Scale it all with AI on WIX.
- [21:17]
Bic Soleil Advertiser
Surprise Beach Day. No excuses. I'm in. Give me five. With Bic Soleil Glide Razor, you'll have hydrated, smooth skin that's ready to go on the fly. No shave cream needed. You can prep, shave and hydrate all in one step thanks to moisture bars that hydrate your skin during and after shaving. 5 flexible blades hug your skin for a close shave. Glide into smooth. It's your time to shine. With bixsolil. Buy now at Amazon and Walmart. Ready? Your skin looks amazing.
- [21:42]
Wix Advertiser (Alternate)
So smooth.
- [21:43]
Bic Soleil Advertiser
And beach ready?
- [21:44]
Dan Pashman
Let's go.