Dried pasta

Of course, this is one of the essential items of the Italian pantry. As long as you have pasta and a few other basic ingredients described in this chapter, you can always put together a meal. Have several different shapes on hand because different sauces work best with different shapes of dried pasta. The three basic kinds are long pastas, tubular pastas, and special shapes. The basic long pasta is spaghetti to which you might add spaghettini (thin spaghetti), spaghettoni (thick spaghetti), and bucatini (thick, hollow spaghetti). The main tubular shapes are penne, maccheroni, and rigatoni. Special shapes include fusilli (spirals), farfalle (bow ties), orecchiette (little ears), and many others. Of course, you could easily fill an entire cabinet if you were to stock every shape, but I suggest you have at least one from each group plus a small soup pasta. For a discussion on what to look for when choosing brands, read the introduction to Pasta.