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Pasta Salads
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| When the heat starts getting to you, you can use pasta for making very tasty, easy-to-prepare salads, giving free rein to your creativity. Gastronomic delights, full of color and wholesome flavors, they can be served as complete meals or as a convenient, nutritious lunch during the workday. In order to make the most of cold pasta, however, it's a good idea to keep a few rules in mind, indispensable when it comes to preparing a wholesome, tasty ingredient that should always be "al dente", in keeping with tradition. |
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Short pasta shapes lend themselves especially well to making salads. Fusilli, Penne, Mezze Penne, Farfalle, Gnocchi and Casarecce are generally the best way to go. These shapes are perfect for mixing together with other ingredients of your choice in a big bowl and creating a delicious summer salad.
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The other key consideration for ensuring the success of your intended salad is the way you cook the pasta, which should always be "al dente". In order to avoid soft, "swollen" pasta, it's best to drain it quickly and carefully. Making a pasta salad is the only time that it is OK to rinse the cooked and drained pasta under running cold water in order to arrest the cooking process so the pasta doesn't start to get too soft. This way you also remove the extra starch, which helps keep the pasta from sticking together. Once you have done this, while you are preparing the rest of the salad, you can put the pasta into the refrigerator, making sure that you dress it first with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.
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The recipes for pasta salad are extremely creative and imaginative, allowing you to indulge your whims and pursue your own culinary instincts without fear of making a mistake. The important thing is to be sure and liven your salad up with plenty of color, making it look good as well as taste good, drawing freely from Mother Nature's summer palette. So it's the more the merrier when it comes to diced red, yellow and green sweet peppers added directly to the cold pasta or sautéed briefly with a little onion. And don't forget some fresh herbs, everything from basil to marjoram, chives to mint. And seafood is always a nice touch, especially tuna and anchovies, as well as swordfish, shrimp and other kinds of delicious fish. When it comes to meat, we would suggest either chicken or turkey breast. All you have to do is grill it and, once cooked, cut it into fine strips and then marinate it for a few hours in water and lemon juice, or water and vinegar, before a final quick sautéing.
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The best results are achieved when you prepare your pasta salads well ahead of time (even half a day), leaving the pasta at room temperature for at least an hour before serving it. This way the ingredients have ample opportunity to fully release and mingle their flavors. If you decide to serve your salad with a dressing, like a salmoriglio sauce (a traditional Sicilian dressing made with olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper, garlic, parsley and oregano) or pink sauce (a mayonnaise and ketchup cocktail sauce), it would be a good idea to wait and add it just before serving the pasta salad, since the heat of summer will cause most dressings to deteriorate.
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A tasty pasta salad you should definitely try is the one made from Farfalle, sweet peppers and rucola. After browning onions, anchovy and parsley in a little oil, add diced red and yellow sweet peppers. When this mixture has cooked, add it to the previously cooked Farfalle and sprinkle with fresh rucola and grated Parmigiano Reggiano. For people who prefer more delicate flavors, we would like to suggest a salad made with Penne Rigate and featuring salmon, zucchini and lemon. After browning some scallions with a tablespoon of oil, add the zucchini, which have been diced. Once these ingredients have cooked, add the salmon, which has also been diced, and then add the entire mixture to the cold pasta, sprinkling the salad with grated lemon zest. A quick and easy summer salad that's always fresh and elegant.
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