Enduring appeal of Italian

FOOD fads come and go, but the craving for Italian food endures; a few, really simple pasta recipes are a must in everyone’s repertoire and where better to seek them out than in Giuliano Hazan’s books.

Giuliano’s first book, The Classic Pasta Cookbook, sold more than half a million copies worldwide, so it obviously hit the spot for many people. He went onto write several others, including Every Night Italian, and How to Cook Italian, but I found several more, new gems in his last book, Thirty Minute Pasta: 100 Quick and Easy Recipes.

There are many types and shapes of pasta in Italy; some pasta is made with wheat flour, others with buckwheat, chickpea, chestnut flour or farro. The latter is an ancient, Etruscan grain similar to spelt, which is gaining in popularity. The most common is made from flour and eggs, or flour and water. The latter tends to be made from durum wheat, a harder flour that results in a firmer, sturdier pasta best suited to oil-based and more robustly flavoured sauces – e.g. those with anchovies, olives, capers or fiery red chillies.