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The Art Of Perfect Pasta
By Sharon Soh
UOB Ala Carte Series
Easy Streats Weekender, 30 Oct 2003
HOW do you tell if a pasta is perfectly cooked? I
found out more from chef Mario Schwallie of the newly-opened Zambuca
Italian restaurant.
Some people swear by the wall test: Hurl a strand against the kitchen
wall. If it sticks, the pasta is ready. Others, including Schwallie,
prefer the less theatrical undercooking method.
"As the pasta cooks, break a strand and taste to see if it
is partially cooked. Drain the undercooked pasta into a colander
and let the residual heat do the rest," explained the 33-year-old
from Sydney.
In the meantime, prepare the sauce and by the time that's done,
the pasta will be just cooked and with a pleasing resistance to
bite, or as the Italians say, al dente. "The problem with the
wall test is that you will have to serve the pasta immediately,
or else it may pass the al dente stage and become too soft by the
time you serve it."
The quality of the pasta is also important. An inferior pasta turns
even the most excellent of sauces into an insipid nosh, so stick
to the good brands.
Good dry pasta doesn't break down so fast and takes a little longer
to cook than inferior dry pasta. Good fresh pasta, on the hand,
cooks faster than not-so-good ones, he said.
Make sure that the egg fettucine really tastes of egg and squid-ink
pasta, of squid ink. If not, he added, the pasta is just an awful
concoction of flour and food colouring.
 Chef
Schwallie helms the kitchen at the two-week-old Zambuca at Pan Pacific
hotel, together with culinary director Angelo Sanelli of Michelangelo's
fame.
The restaurant boasts an impressive fully glass-enclosed wine cellar
housing more than 8,000 bottles of wines!
Wine lovers will have a field day choosing from over 1,600 labels
from all over the world.
On the menu, pasta dishes share equal limelight with the meats and
seafood items – and there are no run-of-the-mill bologneses
and carbonaras here.
Instead, a capsicum pesto is zipped with chilli in the cappelli
di Angelo con rucola ($24+++), and the house special, fettucine
Zambuca ($28+++), sees sambuca-flambeed prawns tossed with artichoke
and spinach in a wonderful, feather-light cream sauce.
Another dish that tugged at my heart was the simple yet comforting
penne alla Siciliana ($24+++) – penne coated with thyme-tomato
sauce and mixed with spicy Italian sausage, semidried tomatoes and
olives.
"Traditionally, pasta sauces are broadly classified as either
tomato-based or cream-based. Today, contemporary chefs are becoming
creative and using non-traditional ingredients but still keeping
the results very Italian in spirit," said Schwallie.
The chef lets on that he is currently working a risotto dish that
uses a mysterious "Asian" truffle. He reasoned: "In
Singapore, there are so many different restaurants, so it's good
to be a little different."
Zambuca Italian Restaurant & Bar is located at
Level 3, Pan Pacific Hotel, 7 Raffles Boulevard. Tel: 6337 8086.
OPENING HOURS:
Lunch: 11.30am to 2.30pm (closed on Saturday), Dinner: 6pm to 10.30pm
(daily).
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