Anyone who has ever cooked pasta at home – that is, absolutely everyone – will have encountered the typical situation of having several packages of various types almost exhausted in the pantry. Often with broken pieces that fall to the bottom, and small amounts that are not even enough for a serving. An Italian would never waste that leftover pasta, and to be honest, neither would my mother.
Today we return to claim the kitchen of use with the minimum possible waste of food, but this is a custom that comes from ancient times, when you really had to take advantage of everything in the kitchen. Also in Italy they keep the genes of the humble kitchen and there are many who maintain the tradition of taking advantage of the remains with what they call mixed pastathat is to say, mixed pasta or pasta mix.
The idea is basically the same one that I have seen my mother apply all my life when several packages of almost finished short pasta are put together, but that do not last for the whole family: everyone to the pot. At home it was not uncommon that when eating the generic “macaroni” we had a hodgepodge of pennies, penne rigate, fusilli and even tortiglioni either farfalle.
But the Italians are more experts in applying this old custom and, as the chef shares Julien Serri on her Instagram account, in many houses the mixed pasta it accumulates little by little throwing out those useless leftovers from the packages in the same jar. When the jar is full, you cook everything together with some creativity, preferably in some spoon dish that allows more leeway for cooking times.
For this reason it is more advisable to have two jars to combine short pasta and long pasta, or at least have cooking times very similar. We have a good example in the Neapolitan pasta and potato recipe, which was originally made with assorted pieces of crushed short pasta, a variety on sale as such today.
The commercial mista pasta, as Anna Mayer explained in her day, was born from the ancient tradition of taking advantage of those remains of broken pasta, unappetizing for sale, which accumulated in shops when it was more common buying in bulk. Today we can make our own mixed pasta at home or buy it directly.
De Cecco – Mixed pasta, durum wheat semolina – 500 g
Photos | azerbaijan-stockers – Freepik
In DAP | How to make fresh egg pasta: the basic recipe that always works
In DAP | The keys to achieve a pasta dish worthy of the best restaurants (even if you use boat sauce)