One meal that we never get tired of is pasta. Pasta is a blank canvas for pretty much any flavor combination you can imagine, which is in addition to the fact that the zillion different shapes always keep dinner interesting (having spaghetti one night and radiatore the next isn’t the same thing for dinner two nights in a row, is it?). Giada de Laurentiis is currently one of our most respected pasta experts as she has dozens of delectable pasta recipes up her sleeve. She taught us something new this week, including how to plate pasta expertly. Do you mean eating it straight from the pan *isn’t* considered proper serving technique?
Now, not only does de Laurentiis pronounce pasta flawlessly (no one says spaghetti like Giada), but she also has unmatched plating skills. Here is an alternative if you’re sick of messy pasta piles, bowls with squiggly noodles spilling out of them, and sauce splatters all over your table.
A carving fork is the secret device de Laurentiis uses to serve her spaghetti. Similar to how you might use a fork and spoon to twirl spaghetti before shoving it into your mouth when you’re eating, she uses the carving fork and a large serving spoon. De Laurentiis carefully transfers the large carving fork to a plate using the spoon after swirling it through the noodles. The noodles slide right off, in a perfectly twirled mound.
She also provides instructions for how to use basic salad tongs if you don’t have a spare carving fork. Once you have a perfect mound of noodles on your plate waiting for an additional sprinkle of cheese or freshly cracked black pepper, you grasp the pasta in your tongs and twirl it around and around until it is cooked. By employing these strategies, you may be able to convince yourself that you are dining at your preferred small Italian restaurant even if you are eating pantry pasta in front of the television for the third time this week.
Here’s how to do it: When your pasta is done, take a portion of it and secure it in a ladle using the tongs or carving fork. After that, all you have to do is continue tossing the pasta around in the ladle until it coils neatly into a nest. After moving the pasta nest out of the ladle with a gentle push, slowly remove the fork while keeping it in the ladle.
It turns out that if you use a straightforward (and clever!) technique, you can easily avoid all of that. Because I use the same technique when I food style recipes for work, I was reminded of it while watching chefs compete in a pasta competition in Milan. You only need two kitchen tools, both of which you probably already own.
All that’s left is a perfectly coiled serving of pasta that will stay in its place. Although attractive pasta plates don’t always mean better food, they are a striking and entertaining way to serve your delectable dishes to friends and family on your next pasta night.
If you order pasta at a fancy restaurant, it will probably be served to you perfectly platted, swirled in a tiny mountain of noodles, and essentially made for Instagram. Long pasta can be challenging to work with without sauce splashing all over the rim or errant noodles escaping, so how do restaurants manage this?
In fact, the method may be familiar to you—after all, you’ve probably eaten spaghetti by twirling it with a fork against a spoon to keep everything in place. All you need is a ladle and a pair of long, tweezer-like tongs or a carving fork.
One meal that we never get tired of is pasta. Pasta is a blank canvas for pretty much any flavor combination you can imagine, which is in addition to the fact that the zillion different shapes always keep dinner interesting (having spaghetti one night and radiatore the next isn’t the same thing for dinner two nights in a row, is it?). Giada de Laurentiis is currently one of our most respected pasta experts as she has dozens of delectable pasta recipes up her sleeve. She taught us something new this week, including how to plate pasta expertly. Do you mean eating it straight from the pan *isn’t* considered proper serving technique?
Now, not only does de Laurentiis pronounce pasta flawlessly (no one says spaghetti like Giada), but she also has unmatched plating skills. Here is an alternative if you’re sick of messy pasta piles, bowls with squiggly noodles spilling out of them, and sauce splatters all over your table.
She also provides instructions for how to use basic salad tongs if you don’t have a spare carving fork. Once you have a perfect mound of noodles on your plate waiting for an additional sprinkle of cheese or freshly cracked black pepper, you grasp the pasta in your tongs and twirl it around and around until it is cooked. By employing these strategies, you may be able to convince yourself that you are dining at your preferred small Italian restaurant even if you are eating pantry pasta in front of the television for the third time this week.
A carving fork is the secret device de Laurentiis uses to serve her spaghetti. Similar to how you might use a fork and spoon to twirl spaghetti before shoving it into your mouth when you’re eating, she uses the carving fork and a large serving spoon. De Laurentiis carefully transfers the large carving fork to a plate using the spoon after swirling it through the noodles. The noodles slide right off, in a perfectly twirled mound.
The two prongs on this practical tool make it simple to spin, lift, and arrange slippery, long noodles neatly on a plate or in a bowl. You can use a large serving fork in place of a meat fork if you don’t have one. Another important tip is to toss the pasta in the pot or pan before serving it so that it maintains its shape and doesn’t spread out excessively or dribble sauce everywhere.
Every time we attempt to make a bowl of spaghetti or linguini that is worthy of a restaurant at home, it looks more like a Pinterest failure than a lovely, mouthwatering heap of noodles. What is the secret that all those chefs and food stylists use to make their pasta look so lovely?
FAQ
How do you serve noodles at a party?
Drain the pasta and rinse the noodles before using a chafing dish (this removes extra starch, which can result in stickiness). Then, add the pasta to the chafing dish and toss it in the olive oil or whatever sauce you’re going to serve it with.
How do you twirl a pasta nest?
Use the tongs to portion the pasta into the ladle once it has been perfectly sauced and is ready to be served. Then, spin it with the carving fork. The pasta will “climb” up the fork in smooth strokes. Make sure to catch any drips as you move the fork to the plate with your tongs, making sure to do so.
