The Viral Pasta Shape That Changed Everything

Today, Josh and Nicole are joined by Dan Pashman, inventor of the viral pasta shape –cascatelli!

0:00 Welcome, Dan Pashman!
1:40 Inventing Cascatelli
5:45 Do Sauce & Pasta Shape Combos Matter?
10:11 Round Vs. Square Ravioli
11:03 The Best Kind of Vodka Sauce
12:19 The Best Pasta Dish Dan’s Ever Had
13:42 Why Is Pasta Romantic?
15:37 Breaking The Pasta Rules
18:38 Etymology of Pesto
21:22 Rejected Pastas
23:24 Can Anyone Beat Raos?
24:26 Best Pasta Sauce Overall
30:44 Opinions Are Like Casseroles
31:37 Is Lasagna The Worst?
36:04 Angel Hair Is Overrated
38:35 Big Hole Is A Big No
42:35 Less Water Is Goated

Subscribe to Mythical Kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/mythicalkitchen?sub_confirmation=1

Submit your Dreams Become Food photos here: https://forms.gle/cBopySaTXdzG7RFr5

Check out our podcast, A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich!
Apple Podcasts: https://mythic.al/ahdias
Spotify: https://mythic.al/hotdog

Click the bell icon so you’ll know when we add a new video!

Want more Mythical Kitchen? Check out these playlists:
Fancy Fast Food – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW8XZTagL0oJhk71Ip3rIzHOFY3Edw2pw
Snack Smash – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW8XZTagL0oKYv5beEZpH5hP8aA5ahGKQ
Food Fears – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW8XZTagL0oK6vh1N6DOYcdWzGyuAxjtN
Food Feats – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW8XZTagL0oJI4IG7pZ-y792AHI4vIbWD

Pick up official Mythical Kitchen merch at https://mythical.com/collections/mythical-kitchen

Check out Sporked, Mythical’s new website dedicated to helping you find the best food on the shelves! – http://www.sporked.com

Join the Mythical Society: https://www.mythicalsociety.com

Follow Mythical Kitchen:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mythicalkitchen
Facebook: https://facebook.com/mythicalkitchen
Mythical Chef Josh’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/mythicalchefjosh

Follow Mythical:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mythical
Facebook: https://facebook.com/mythical
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mythical
Website: https://mythical.com

Check Out Our Other Mythical Channels:
Good Mythical Morning: https://youtube.com/goodmythicalmorning
Rhett & Link: https://youtube.com/rhettandlink
Ear Biscuits: https://applepodcasts.com/earbiscuits
Good Mythical MORE: https://youtube.com/goodmythicalmore

Want to send us something? https://mythical.com/contact

In the spirit of minimizing food waste associated with the filming of this series, Mythical is donating to the Hollywood Food Coalition ( https://hofoco.org ) who provide daily, nourishing meals to underserved communities in the Los Angeles area.

Closed Captioning provided by Rev

Get Mythical Kitchen gadgets and equipment!
(As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases from paid links below)
* Pots and Pans – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B49H5CG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
* Instant Read Thermometer – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F59K0IW/ref=twister_B00NMQGAPS?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
* Immersion Blender – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J1AWUR0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
* Dehydrator – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M6AZ863/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2L77EE7U53NWQ&psc=1
* Vitamix Blender – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0758JHZM3/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
* Food Processor – https://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-DFP-14BCNY-Processor-Brushed-Stainless/dp/B01AXM4WV2?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1
* Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QBDMCKH/ref=twister_B07XKC8VN4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
* Kitchen AidPasta Attachment – https://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-KSMPEXTA-Gourmet-Attachment-Interchangeable/dp/B01ENK4UV2?ref_=ast_sto_dp
* Spice Grinder – https://www.amazon.com/KRUPS-Electric-Coffee-Grinder-Stainless/dp/B00004SPEU?ref_=ast_bbp_dp&th=1&psc=1

Marinina marinara Marina marinara Marina I don’t get paid enough for this this is a hot dog is a sandwich ketchup is a smoothie yeah I put ice in my cereal so what that makes no sense a hot dog is a sandwich a hot dog is a sandwich what Welcome to our podcast a

Hot dog is a sandwich the show we break down the world’s biggest food debates I’m your host Josh a and I’m your host Nicole Ani and we have a very special joining us today please welcome the Creator and host of the James Beard award nominated podcast this wait you

Won that right uh yes technically yeah but not I guess if you won it you are also nominated that’s true James Beard award winning weren wrong James Beard award winning podcast put some respect on the name the sporkful inventor of the pasta shape that changed the game

Forever and author of the new cookbook anything’s possible Dan passion welcome to the show thanks so much for having me guys of course you like pasta you did every day uh not I mean I I got kids I eat a lot of pasta so yeah every day no

But I eat a lot of pasta but if you could you would yeah well I I’ll tell you the truth in the process of working on this new cookbook there were times that I was testing multiple recipes in the same day I was cooking a pasta dish for dinner a

Pasta dish for lunch and then one for dinner and after a couple months straight of like some days two a days uh there were moments that I was that I got sick of pasta I never never thought I’d say it Nicole but there were a couple

Moments but 99% of the time you put pasta in front of me I’ll be very happy my people this is my uh we we made a bold claim in this intro uh that you invented the pasta shape that changed the game forever and that was those were words that I

Directly wrote Because I remember listening to your multi-part series on the sporkful um Mission Impossible on creating a new pasta shape effectively from scratch and I not only did I fall in love with the storytelling behind that but also I fell in love with uh how obsessive you were about the

Types of sauce that need to go into the types of pasta and then also the architecture of the pasta it matters yeah it absolutely matters and so uh yeah just tell tell us a little bit how you invented casatelli and then how that translated into your new

Cookbook yes so I mean uh as you say if people want the full story The Mission Impossible series is still in the sporkful podcast feed but the short version of the story is that I I I I was dissatisfied with a lot of the pasta shapes out there like spaghetti I’ve

Eaten a lot of spaghetti in my day it’s not that great of a shape you know I have these three metrics that I came up with that I used to judge all pasta shapes so there’s Fork ability how easy is it to get a good bite on your fork

And keep it there sauce ability how well does sauce adhere and tooth syn ability which is how satisfying is it to sink your teeth into it and spaghetti fails all three of these tests getting a good bite of spaghetti on your fork is almost impossible it’s either too much or too

Little you have danglers that smear all over your face you finish the plate of pasta and half the sauce is still sitting there um and so I set out to invent a a a new better shape of pasta that would check all these boxes but it

Was important to me like I didn’t just want a gimmick I didn’t just want a pasta shape that would like look cool on Instagram I wanted it to be legitimate to work and to be legitimately good to eat and I wanted to actually mass-produce it and try to sell it and

That ended up being a lot harder than I anticipated CU I had to convince the people who make pasta dyes which are like the molds for the shapes to work with me and there’s only one guy left in America who makes pasta dyes his name is Giovani he lives in Northern

Massachusetts like he makes the dyes for craft mac and cheese he was just like not that interested in hanging out with a podcast or with a dream if you wrote that into a movie they would have told you like hey we got to recast giov two

On the not yeah it’s to exactly right right right make let’s make his name Pete um and so but and then Co hit and we couldn’t even get the bronze you need to make the dyes the moles then I had to get a Pasta Company to work with me all

The big players again were not interested the really small companies didn’t have the apparatus I ended up teaming up with this a midsize company called spolini SF o g l i n i uh in Upstate New York and we made the shape and it’s called casatelli it’s a short

Shape with these sort of two parallel Ruffles that stick out and create kind of a what I call a sauce trough like a gap between them and sauce goes in there and it does not come out and it’s got Ruffles that create a very interesting texture in your mouth and Against All

Odds it went went viral and it’s now in stores around the country you can order it on spolini’s website it’s been kind of incredible um it was named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of the year uh I was on everywhere from The New York Times to Access Hollywood which is

Not on my vision board when I started um but to to to bring it a full circle Josh like I as exciting as it all was when casatelli went viral and everyone’s buying it and they’re sending me all these pictures of what they’re making it was very gratifying to see

People cooking with this creation of mine but there was also a problem which was that 75% of what I saw was tomato sauce meat sauce mac and cheese pesto I mean a few party animals made kacho Pepe um it just wasn’t that inventive and I

And that gave me this idea I said what if I were to come up with a cookbook full of you know totally non-traditional pasta recipes none of the classics you’ve seen a million times new and different approaches to pasta that would show people that there’s so many more

Things that you can and should be putting on your pasta um and we did a multi-part podcast series that’s getting you know that um you know sort of the sequel to Mission Impossible with my kids and my wife in it about the creation of this cookbook anything’s

Possible and that’s sort of uh The Next Step In the Journey I think it’s beautiful cuz on the one hand pasta is this infinite playground you can do literally anything you want with it I remember I mean stupid example in my College dining hall at UC Santa Barbara

Uh they made pad thae with spaghetti and everybody was like hey this is pretty messed up and then you ate it like it still tastes good though it’s not P thae but this like CCH it does the job I’m in college whatever but at the same time uh

With pasta like the architecture the form of it is so important to the sauce so that’s what we’re trying to do today we’re trying to one answer the question does the shape of the noodle actually matter with what sauce you pair with I Know Dan you would argue yes but then

Can we come up with some sort of universal answer to best sauce if there were one sauce that could go with the most shapes of pastas what would that be D my first question for you casatelli with such a unique shape what is like the perfect archetype of sauce to go

With it and what is the least perfect like what’s the worst way if there is one to use casatelli I would say best would either be something thick and you know thick and creamy or with with a lot of small bits like a meat sauce I love it with um

There’s a recipe in my cookbook um for mapo tofu casatelli it’s like a ground meat sauce using all the flavors of mapo tofu that I worked with a a great recipe developer named Andrea won um so like anything thick anything with little bits of meat or anything with big chunks

Where you can stab you’re going to stab to compose ideal bites so like big chunks of vegetables uh shrimp stuff like that CU casatelli is very stabbable not so great are like a thin oily sauce because casatelli is very meaty and I think that you know you want a little

Bit more of a delicate shape to go with a delicate light sauce interesting what do you what do what’s your ideal combo like if what you guys like if you go like if you go to a pasta place like trento or something or Olive Garden even

Like what do you pick um okay so I tend to I have this thing I have that disease that people have where they go into a restaurant and they try and order the most interesting thing on the menu often to their own detriment Nicole knows what I’m talking about because it happens all

The time with us and so when when I go to a restaurant unless their whole thing I remember this restaurant called uh wvo opened in Los Angeles with uh it’s kazunori hi ho cheeseburger and wovo Sugarfish it’s the Sugarfish family right they it’s a part of the Sugarfish

Family but those three are always together in like one shopping center their whole their whole shtick right is that they uh fly in all their pasta fresh from bolognia overnight every single day so if you go to a place that’s repping the the pasta from bolognia you get the you know Ragu the

Bolog right and so if it’s something like that I will do that but for me I’m always trying to order the most interesting thing possible and so for me a lot of the Classics like butin alamana it’s great but it’s not something I seek out very often spaghetti K Pepe or

Carbonara it’s not something that I often seek out the things that I find myself really loving are I’m thinking about this dish it was a lasti with uh king crab Ru Oh Yeah from a restaurant and the way that put those together it was Dan what does laan mean to you cuz I

Don’t know what how they were using it I mean I it sound I mean it sounds like it’s uh a derivative of lasagna br broken up lasagna sheetss is what I thought if you really want to know oh is is that what it is I think of that as

Malagata which is like which means badly cut it’s a similar kind of concept well so it was um if you imagine those very heavily ruffled lasagna noodles that I personally hate for actual lasagna uh it was like that except it was just very long and thin the width of like edges

The width of like a like a paperella or like a oh that’s that it’s like a mafalda or a mafala I think so I can I’m right here right it it’s like fetuccini but with ruffles down the edges yes correct correct correct yes correct that

Is one of my favorite shapes I love that shape it was a huge inspiration to me with casatelli interesting but it was it was that but it was long it was slurple but it was the way that the sauce Wicked off of the Ruffles as you slurped it

Created like a secondary experience that is probably the single best pasta and sauce combination I have ever had in my life really MH I don’t know I always find myself leading towards like round stuff so like uh I love noi like I If there’s noii aasta we call him this aasta in

This yeah with Dan with Dan yes um like ravioli like things like that I always tend to about Square ravioli though Nicole whatever wait is there hold on is there a way to differentiate between a square and a round because I think we can all agree that round ravioli are

Significantly better right I love round ravioli more than Square I think it depends what you’re looking for I mean a s Square ravioli will have more perimeter Edge in relation to interior and so if you have right you want you’re in it for the filling Nicole so you want

Round but if you like the textural experience of a jagged frame like or an ornate exterior then you want a square RAV because you’ll get more exterior in relation to Interior yeah so I always lean so I always lean towards something rounded stuffed and plump instead of like long noodles although rotoni riate

Is my favorite noodle of all time truly my favorite the best I love that with the vodka sauce but let me tell you something about nvo vodka sauce that gets on my last nerve I don’t like how it’s like tomato paste that’s cooked down to like oek and then they put a

Bunch of cream in it I don’t like that I like it whenever it was just whatever red sauce they had in the back and whatever white sauce they had in the back and they mixed it together that is my vodka sauce and that’s the vodka

Sauce that I will always love more but I still order the reg stuff but yeah I always find like big plump juicy pastas with like heavy creamy sauces because I always tell myself I can’t really I don’t want to make this at home you know

At home I can just throw some red sauce and some noodles and call it a day but something about heavy creamy sauces and round beautiful pastas at a restaurant that knows what they’re doing is one of my favorite expressions of pasta I love also I feel like when you order

Something like that in a restaurant you kind of don’t really know how much cream and butter it’s probably just a I’m sure it’s fine and then you go and make the recipe at home and they’re like you need Gall of heavy cre for this dish exactly I won’t

Even I won’t even order pasta from a restaurant that has an open kitchen or if they do I like excuse myself to the bathroom I don’t even I don’t want to be faced with this oh my gosh Dan do you have like a single best pasta dish

You’ve ever had in your life like does that stuck in your head I mean so so for the cookbook I did a research trip across Italy cool to learn about some very obscure to to get it first of all to explore larger questions of Italian pasta history and

Also to research a couple of specific very obscure Italian pasta dishes that I wanted to put in the book and I went to a place in Rome I met up with this food writer there named Katie parla and she took me to this place in Rome called

Armando Al panteon AR Armando at the pantheon and they and I know that I just talked a lot of crap about spaghetti they served me a spaghetti alaaa it’s like it’s like a a precursor to carbonara it’s carbonara without eggs so it’s just Guan chal which is you know like a cured

Pork jow um uh peino Rano cheese black pepper they do a touch of white wine there and it it but like the spaghetti there was just perfectly cooked perfectly too syncable the Guan chal was in slabs and like crispy around the edges and Meaty in the center and this

Mound of peino on top like a fresh snowfall and and then they didn’t just like have little bits of black pepper they took whole pepper corns and just like crunched them up and put them on top so you could you took one bite you got this a nose full of this like earthy

Fragrant black pepper and it was just it was the best thing I ate in Italy and I’m still dreaming about it I love the way we all talk about food how dreamy pasta is also an incredible food to talk about in those romantic terms right sure sure sure you’re you’re right Josh but

It’s interesting that you use the word romantic cuz the one of my big takeaways from my trip to Italy that was that really stuck with me and informed The cookbook is that there’s so much Ro around Italian food and being an Italy and eating pasta is very romantic and

There’s a Nostalgia and a tradition to it but what I learned and what was so shocking to me in my research there is that Italian pasta history is not nearly as old as we think it is that that pasta was not the national food of Italy until

About a 100 years ago H um and that many very iconic dishes like carbonara was only invented in like the 1950s MH uh other dishes that I went to go research there were invented around 1960 chicken parmesan is older than carbonara is a thing that I like to tell every Italian

That I meet yeah sure and there’s also been a lot of the Italian food history of the past 75 years was influenced by Americans and Italian Americans people who left Italy and then came back during World War II let’s say and brought other influences and so um as much as that you

Know and Italians are kind of very invested in this mythology um in the podcast series about the cookbook I interview a food historian named Luca chisari in bolognia who’s kind of debunking a lot of these myths so that’s you know to me like that like like this combination of the Romanticism

With the fact that it’s actually more a more Dynamic Cuisine than it gets credit for um to me was like super interesting to learn one fact that I talk about all the time is that Italy as a nation state as like a Sovereign Nation that’s unified didn’t exist until like the late

1800s and so you’re getting all of these desperate cultures that you know especially around let’s talk about the rise of fascism on the Pod no that’s but that’s a big part of it’s why we view a lot of Americana Foods as we do as well it was this idea building one identity

For a nation and then you realize that everything is so much more diverse and complicated than you actually think but I was asking this question because you break well I’d say a lot of rules that Italian people would say are rules uh in your cookbook which it’s in a really

Beautiful way you have a recipe for you know a doll with macaroni in it um which is fantastic and kimch carbonara kimchi carbonara and that’s also how I think most chefs cook at home for sure is it like hey I have pasta and I have these

Leftovers I know I made like a um Tai yellow curry and I had a lot of leftover liquids without solids and I had you know some spaghetti in the fridge and I was like well I’m s I’m finishing that in the yellow curry sauce and I’m

Putting some parm on it and it was great um so tell us about like breaking those what some would call rules well I mean I think you’re right Josh though that’s that is that’s not just how a lot of chefs come up with ideas that’s just how

A lot of regular home Cooks end up creating things that’s how that’s a big part of how Cuisine evolves there’s so much focus on Chefs and restaurants MH but a lot a lot of cuisine just evolves in in kit all over the place when people just end up with two ingredients in the

Fridge and decide to mix them together um and especially as as uh America has become more diverse over the past 50 years and more different Cuisines have gain wider acceptance and assimilated into culture I think it’s just happening more and more in home kitchens without anybody necessarily saying I’m going to

Come up with something quote unquote new um and I’ve been very inspired by I I love there’s a book came out a couple years ago called indie is by priia Krishna and she talks you know it’s a great book and you know she mashes up a lot of Indian flavors with quote unquote

American dishes um and there’s been more books that are showcasing the same kind of perspective Eric Kim’s korean-american um a woman a writer named Kush bua has a book coming out soon called amri Khan that’s I you know friend of show I love her sag paneer

Lasagna just like off the hook so you know and it’s the same thing for me and I’m like you jday I had leftover torini in the fridge I had some leftover doll I’m like I’m going to make these together and so you know to me I think

That on one hand yes I’m sure some people will see the recipes in this cookbook and think that I’m sort of kicking down the door of Italian tradition but but I think in reality it’s just sort of a natural extension of the way that quisine evolves especially

In America and I think it’s the way a lot of people are cooking today and so that it feels very natural to me yeah 100% And I think so many people look at the rules of pasta and saucing and they think at least I do they think it’s just arbitrary gatekeeping coming from

There’s levels to it I’m sure there’s levels but I think a lot of it is based on these like universalisms that we find in food like you were talking about the mapo tofu which mapo tofu one of my favorite freaking Foods in the world texture very similar to regu right um

And so also people uh they’re like Asian noodles aren’t pasta and pasta aren’t Noodles Etc but it’s really separated by either one or none ingredients right a lot of wheat based noodles are made via the same process and so it’s like uh everything sort of one organic globule

And everybody just wants delicious chewy starch uh covered in lovely sauce I want to talk about pesto talk about pesto you know what you know what it is about pesto there’s pesto just means muddled up in a in a little Bowl right you just take something in a mortar and peso and

You just bash it up and stuff wait that’s the that’s like the emology of pesto like pesto like pestl oh maybe oh I actually that’s I actually Oh I thought that’s what you were saying I’m just talking I don’t know about you’re theology guy I’m just here shooting the

I actually hadn’t I have a section on pesto in my book and even I hadn’t put that together I I I think that literally it means pounded or crushed but you’re right I mean you’re probably right that it comes from the same atmology wow yeah pestar the

Pounder Crush well there you go look at that etmy with Nicole Nicole you’re the smartest person you know what I you know what I don’t love I don’t like whenever there’s like red pesto and white pesto to me pesto always has to be green and I just don’t I just don’t understand why

There’s like different colors of pesto now I don’t like it I just want my pesos to be green how do you guys feel about that Josh you want to you want to start I mean I made a lovely red pesto the other day with my f Julia we had a good

Time think it’s wack and then we ate it and we were like I wish this was green so you’re kind of right I mean I I to me Nicole I feel like you know and we I have a section in the cookbook called The Press Doe formula and it’s just a

Way to take any comb almost any combination of nuts herbs maybe cheese maybe garlic and turn it into pesto and that’s really it like it’s the kind of thing where like if I got a some arugula in the fridge that’s been there for a couple days just turn it into pesto yes

A lot most pesos end up being green because they usually have herbs or some kind of which makes them green but to me like if you’re mashing it up and it tastes good you know I don’t think you know I think technically you you just you kind of argued against your own case

Nicole because you pointed out you pointed out that pesto just means pounded or crushed but it needs to be green I just I just can’t I just whenever I I don’t pesto means green if it’s not Jen pesto Nicole’s grandmother will roll over in her grave

Mor I just I just feel passionate about like I it’s just whenever I go to a place and it’s like oh this is a pesto and then I see like it’s not green it just hits a nerve in my in my brain where I’m like there’s a disconnect and

I just I guess guess I just haven’t my brain hasn’t caught up to my heart and my heart hasn’t cut up to my brain in that aspect to me carbonara should have chicken breast uh American bacon mushrooms and peas and heavy cream and I stand I swear to God that was my first

Introduction to carbonara and it is still a flavor combination that I crave I understand it is not traditional Italian carbonara peas and carbonara piss off a lot of people but who cares they sure do um Dan I’m curious did you have any failed experiments especially in relation to the shape of the pasta

And the sauce while writing this book like what’s the worst thing you made ooh the worst thing there was an attempt I I had this idea um cuz uh my wife and I are both sort of uh our lineages where they were Eastern European Jewish and her family her parents came from

Czechoslovakia so there are a lot of I thought it’ be nice to include a little bit of that Heritage and there’s a lot of noodle dishes in Central and Eastern Europe that are sort of like um cottage cheese with like crushed nuts some of them are even sweet they’re like done

With like cinnamon and sugar I grew up on so much noodle cougal man oh my God so you know so sorry and so um so I thought like what if we could take some kind of concept like that and sort of adapt it or do something new and

Different and it just kind of like never it never came together but there was another one you know I I I tested a sirloin Ragu was a a sort of like an upscale tomato based meat sauce and it was very good but it took almost two

Hours to make and when I ate it I was like this is good but it tastes like a slightly better version of a tomato based meat sauce that I’ve had a thousand times and not only did I cut it from The cookbook but I made a declaration in that moment I said I’m

Not going to put any tomato based meat sauce I’m not going to put any tomato based sauce in this book unless it’s either very different from anything I’ve had before or ridiculously easy so that actually inspired me to include in the book a jar tomato sauce decision

Tree because I think that cuz to me like there’s so many good jar sauces out there the world does not me need me to give you another recipe for marinara bless you you are correct so just go buy a really good jar of sauce but then I

Give you this decision tree you want to make it heartier you want to make it spicier you want to make it more Savory you want to add meat you want to you know add add cream and and there’s all these different paths you can follow to

Make it a little different add some you know it up um so that failed sirlo and Ragu led to the jar tomato sauce decision tree that’s incredible I I have said on record I can’t I can’t beat r I can’t I’ve made my own I’ve labored over tomato sauce the marchella Huzan

Sauce of course is very fun to make fantastic it’s iconic um but I can’t beat Rayos me either I’m curious I think we’ve come to the point of the discussion we have to decide if there is the possibility of one universal sauce to rule them all we okay we did this we

Didn’t even talk about spaghetti and meatballs what we didn’t even talk about talk about spaghetti and meatball talk about it we talk about aot we talk about like my favorite I I love I love beag beag is maybe my favorite pasta we didn’t get to talk about with what sauce what what

Eves actually no we didn’t uh maybe my favorite pasta dish you’re talking about Eastern European Heritage favorite past dish at all time in Los Angeles is a chef named Steve Samson used to have a restaurant called SoDo he did a oh my God I love SoDo the chicken liver the

Rigatoni with chicken liver Ragu yeah it was really good and great must was to this day one of the best things that I’ve ever eaten and he has not made that dish sense and I’m bummed about it Steve you got to make that dish if you’re

Listening um but no let’s talk about the idea of universal sauce we did an episode is there a Best Universal dipping sauce we did yeah and we decided what we decide on we listen what we we can’t remember anything hot hot sauce and mayonnaise oh yeah that was if you

Need one egg rolls you’re mixing up the titles I think it was just what’s the best sauce yeah it was dipping dipping there was a silent dipping in that title was there yeah cuz it wasn’t sauce we weren’t arguing that you should put orange mayonnaise on Spaghetti but damn

One sauce to roll them all on pasta what is it I guess I would have to say you’d want it to have so so in the in the book I I come up with these two ways of of classifying all sauces two two criteria you’re to Define so that

You can pair sauces and shapes and there’s two properties of sauce you want to look at one is viscosity basically like thickness stickiness the other is chunk factor which is how many chunks and how big are the chunks so I think think that that a good you know if you

Really want a universal sauce it needs to have good viscosity needs to have some thickness and stickiness that it aderes to the pasta and if you have especially big chunks that just it’s going to be difficult I mean it can be done but I think that probably but you know mac and

Cheese feels like too too easy of an answer I I think I might have to say vodka sauce because it’s thick it’s got a nice viscosity it’s a low chunk factor it’s sort of allpurpose it can kind of work with any pasta shape I don’t think you’re ever going to go wrong with

It what did you it was going to be vka we all independent but just for the sake of being a little different um my favorite pasta sauce isn’t even a sauce at all it’s just butter and some sort of hard cheese on the top uh and that’s that’s a

Phenomenal answer my favorite us that’s it that’s it that’s it maybe a chili flake maybe an anchovie no no no no I’m not doing the anchovie just spicy fatty pasta that’s it that’s my answer you’re also you’re a pasta Alo oo girl too I ha I don’t like it I don’t hate it

Look at us learning new things about each other possible I don’t think it was possible no I don’t actually don’t like it I don’t either there’s something that’s like a little bit too sparse about it for me I need something big something anxious um yeah vodka sauce exactly what I came

To as well because you know you get a little bit of that cre to cut through all that tomato if that gets boring uh pesto is I think a deceptively like quite aggressive flavor um and even for myself I don’t always crave it I was going to say Ragu then you cut out

Vegetarians you know what I mean but I think it’s got to be vodka um I will also has alcohol in it also it has alcohol in it si there you go um no I’m going to say classic American carbonara heavy cream uh Bon chicken mushrooms and peas that’s the best pasta sauce schol

Them all uh take that Italy uh let’s up some engagement in the comments let’s get those [Laughter] over Trade coffee is here to help you make better coffee at home trade brings roasted to order coffee from more than 55 of the nation’s top roaster right to your doorstep stay tuned for a new

Special offer for a hot dog is a sandwich listeners in just a moment it’s March we’re getting a bit into the year now and some pickme ups are becoming more of a need than a want by this point you know what I’m saying Nicole just a little pickme up energy there a bright

Spot of my week Nicole it’s been my trade deliveries I do love trade uh when you subscribe to trade you’ll discover new favorites while supporting small businesses across the country the best part is you can personalize everything they send you coffee that’s matched to your taste preferences and you choose

How often you get it delivered oh of course I absolutely love their guadal and blend Nicole it’s like robust it’s not too bitter cuz here’s the thing I don’t love those dark roast right you get those super dark French roast I love dark to me it reads way too bitter on

The palette I want something light bright give me that little caffeinated rush to start the day and something that’s not going to like weigh on my palette all the time not make me feel like I got to brush my teeth after you know really I just got this great coffee

It’s called nebula by mother tongue and it’s so roasty toasty delicious notes of milk chocolate it is phenomenal one of my favorite bags I’ve ever tried well hot dang jump start your daily coffee routine by signing up for a trade subscription right now trade is offering

Up to $15 off select plans and you get your first bag of coffee free just visit drink trade.com hotdog that’s drink trade.com hotdog for a free bag and up to $15 off select subscription plans drink trade.com hotdog a hot dog is a sandwich is sponsored by better help what’s the

First thing you’d do if you had an extra hour in your day Nicole I’ve been spending a lot of extra hours in my day you know what I’ve been doing hot girl walks I’ve been going on hot girl walks it has been such an incredible thing for both my mental health

And my physical health I’ll put on either a podcast I love or a new genre of music to an old album that I want to revisit I will take an hour in the middle of my day sometimes I take my shirt off cuz I like to absorb the sun

Uh but I will just walk around and I’ll clear my head and it’s been genuinely transformative for me that’s awesome that vitamin D is got to be good for you too love me some give me that d a lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more

Time the question is time for what if time was unlimited how would you use it the best way to squeeze that special thing in your schedule is to know what’s important to you and to make it a priority and I’ve really started prioritizing my hot girl walks and

Nicole I’m hotter and more well adjusted than ever but therapy can also help you find what matters to you so you can do more of it yeah having a professional to talk to about difficult challenges and lifestyle adjustments was the key to my relationships growing and thriving so if

You’re thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it’s entirely online it’s designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule yeah just fill out a brief questionnaire to get match with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge learn to make time for

What makes you happy with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com hotdog today to get 10% off your first month that’s better help hp.com hotdog all right Nicole and Dan we’ve heard what you and I have to say now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the

Universe it’s time for a segment week call opinions are like casseroles you didn’t hit them with Dan why didn’t you sing sorry I wasn’t ready do it again yeah let’s do it one more one more time it was um it’s time for opions are like Cassero so we have had our audience they have written in their hottest takes about pasta on Twitter and last time we asked for one of these is when we were recording with Dr Mike and we asked for their hot takes about like food and nutrition we got like we got like 12

Responses I had 250 50 responses about hot pasta takes in about 10 minutes wow so we have tried to pick uh people have opinions so many Nicole you want to go first sure um punkish ghostcore says lasagna is the worst pasta dish it tastes burnt it’s chewy and the sauce I

Have to spend hours working on isn’t worth it and I’ve made lasagna that everyone loved but I didn’t it’s just an overglorified casserole how do you feel about that um I partly agree and partly disagree I mean I I think if it if you don’t like the taste of it or the

Texture that’s sort of like you know hate the player not the game I mean like it’s not that’s not the fault of the of the platonic ideal of lasagna it’s the fault of the person who prepared it or maybe it’s just not your thing um that

Said I do agree and I do say in my cookbook that uh lasagna is too much work it’s not worth the work as soon as you cut it up and start eating it it falls apart and so you’ve lost the layers that you’ve worked so hard to

Craft you could just make baked ziti and it take you a tenth of the time and end up with the same flavors coming together together if you’re going to take the time to do lasagna in my book I have a recipe for a spinach artichoke dip lasagna pin wheels and you make a

Filling and it’s not quite as heavy as regular lasagna it’s vegetarian you do a lemon bamel with chopped artichokes and cheese you roll it up in the lasagna and then stand up those pin Wheels in a pan cover with a bit of cheese put that in the oven it looks stunning it stays

Together and holds its shape in a way and it’s got a unique combination of flavors yum that sounds so good uh what’s your lasagna well since I make it on the show so much I’ve like learned the art make it so much we make lasagna on the show

So much it’s crazy we have learned how to you know cook a good lasagna and I’m proud of our lasagna talents but I’ve recently seen a recipe where you just do it on a sheet pan you just take it and you do it on a sheet pan like you oh is

It the two layer lasagna that’s not a Las I’ve never made it before and speaking I’ve never made it before and I’ve never eaten it before but something about it seems so attractive and less effort but same same texture in your mouth so I don’t I think this punkish

Ghost underscore is being a little bit of a of a drama queen um but I I mean there’s ways around it if you if you don’t like the art of making lasagna there’s ways around it to get the same lasagna feel without all of that effort like in

Wheels I think a key that we’re glossing over here is I’ve made lasagna that everyone loved but I didn’t I think what happened is they had a sort of like postpartum lasagna you know depression postpartum lasagna no I think I think cuz I’ve had this happen with a lot of

Things that I’ve cooked where I put so much I put so much energy into it and then by the time that it’s done and I don’t draw um cories to child birth here because I just that was terrible me when you say with kids not me kids no I’m

Saying anyways the point is you end up resenting it right like you end up resenting the food that you’ve made and everyone’s telling you how much they loved it you’re covered in sweat your eyes are burning do you remember the last lasagna that I made Nicole that you

Made cuz I brought in a lot because oh you made I didn’t have the right pan I wanted to do one of those it’s when you slice it you see all the layers you tip it over you serve it on its side I was trying to do like the 100 layer lasagna

Thing just for fun I like taking up right um and I wanted to make it modeled after musaka so I had eight whole roasted eggplants layered in there oh my God I had 22 layers of saffron fresh pasta sheets that I rolled out my fiance

Was out of town Dan and this is how I party I’m I’m up till 1: in the morning layering this the bashel all that I wanted to get the uh what are they called like the eighth Hotel pans that are very very long but tall I only had

Double that so I had to fill the whole thing to get the shape that I wanted it end up being like 16 12 pounds and I uh brought it in and served it to everybody at work my point is a proper lasagna should be like a wedding cake it is a

Thing that you have like you know once I say one every 5 years I hope I don’t get div but you know what I mean like it takes a lot of effort but it could be worth it in the end or just yeah don’t

Make it make big zi yeah but I think I think you make a great Point Josh you’re right that um sometimes when you put a ton of work into something it’s hard to enjoy it because you’re just like you’re also like when you’re in the kitchen

Cooking that long you end up nibbling on ingredients you don’t really realize that you’re doing it and that also will kind of dull your appetite so you’re not at like Prime appetite at the moment of eating and that also can um Less in the enjoyment I got 1,200 pounds of Ms in my

System I don’t need pasta at this point all right we got another another opinion from at excelsor angel hair pasta is a disgrace just mushy as hell no bite no dish is made better by the addition of angel hair pasta I mean did I send these in I feel

Like all these people are speaking my language I I agree angel hair everyone’s always like oh you just have to cook it right I mean like the window of cooking angel hair right is like .3 seconds uh it it’s always mushy it it all it smushes together into a ball it’s just

Yeah you know it it it’s it’s ends up kind of slimy it’s just yeah it’s not a good shape my dad loves angel hair and that’s because he’s old I feel like I feel like nowadays the kids don’t want why are you laughing it’s so true yeah I feel like

Our parents grew up with angel hair being fancy it had a big it had a big moment in the 80s and 90s they say it’s coming back but I’m really trying to prevent that from happening yeah something about like angel hair capalini all these like super thin tiny pastas

Just doesn’t do it for me um does it for my dad though shout out to Morris he also he loves Arby’s I love Arby my dad loves Arby’s I love I would take Arby’s over Angel Hair my dad is a man dad loves drinking tea I love your dad’s tea

You know me Morris not a lot in common can’t I think I had a bit of a breakthrough cuz I’ve been the same way with angel hair right I ate it growing up because my dad was like this is fancy thear on the angir um but recently I

Made my fiance and I couldn’t decide between making was like avolo or making ramen so we decided to fuse them uh and you okay you should use the mythical kitchen as your like mad scientist place and your home should just be like chill no cuz I don’t right I don’t cook in the

Kitchen anymore my job is to like answer emails and uh you know talk to people and so I crave these weird cooking projects of Galino Ramen it is not the move it makes both dishes worse but uh I used angel hair because I was like well this is like you know a

Western soup and you know just a wheat B past wheat based pasta uh using angel hair as a soup noodle allahar Ramen and then eating it with chopsticks pretty damn good if we’re being honest and again it’s you know I think the only difference in ingredients between a

Ramen noodle and like an angel hair would be sodium bicarbonate I believe for The Chew for The Chew but you know that was my most Pleasant angel hair eating experience I’ve had in a long time but still no need for it all right let’s see what we got

Here Allison Burke says I hate pasta with big holes zii rigatoni big hole equals big no it’s too slippery in my mouth and creates a double noodle layer that I don’t need small holes like elbows or kavat tapi are perfect all right how much time do I

Have to respond to this uh like I’m I’m going to one minut you now I I I uh I resent her lumping together zii and rigaton okay when you have pasta with a tube there’s big tubes medium tubes and little tubes when you have a big tube

Like a rigoton when you bite into it it goes flat and you essentially have a double layer of pasta which is very tooth syncable when you have a very very narrow tube like a butini when you bite into it because the tube is so narrow it

Has a lot of structural strength and it will spring back against bite force so that’s fantastic in the that it is springy rigoton fantastic in the sense that it is chewy zi and Pen the mediumsized tubes those are the ones that suck because they’re not big enough

To go flat into two layers and they’re not small enough to spring back against bite force all they’re really good enough to do is to Spring off your fork as you attempt to get them into your mouth um and so I think big tubes or small tubes are great medium tubes

Suck I think you I rest my a single thing to have how do we fall I might have spent just a little time thinking about this I love Ron Ron is the best POS the shape of all time I I I think rigoton is the best of the sort of

The you know the five or 10 Supermarket basic shapes that you can get in basically any store in America rigatoni would be my go-to I I I have do you have your favorite like obscure pasta shape that you love uh like one of those we one of the

Weird ones that you see on a menu can I get it from a store no no like you like only go to a restaurant it called the car caramel oh the the caram caram is probably my favorite cuz it looks like a little snack I don’t know that one I’m

I’m going to Google that now it goes by another it goes by another name um anot no no it’s a filled pasta it looks like a little rolled caramel um oh it looks almost like a garganelli maybe caram I see there’s another name for we Jules

And I made it the other day and it was she rolled the pasta and you did great you did so good baby the pastas look perfect um D do you have do you have a favorite like obscure pasta shape that people wouldn’t know um I mean that this

Caramel looks good I like I like shapes they’re in that similar vein I love um um Kazar which is sort of like if you imagine like a flat square of pasta and then you start to like roll it up like you’re rolling a joint but then you roll

It halfway back the other direction and then it kind of twists and and it’s one of the few mass produced shapes where not every piece in the package is identical and so I like that variety um strota pretti which means the priest Strangler is very similar to Kazar and I

Love both of those shapes they have nooks and crannies people always want to talk about tubes for holding sauce but tubes don’t hold sauce all that well I think that that nooks and crannies and twists and turns tend to hold sauce more effectively than tubes interesting I uh

Mandili deetta is one of my they call it like handkerchief pasta it’s it’s just rough torn that’s almost like we talked about the torn lasagna sheets um but there was only like one in LA and yeah the the factory just called pasta no not oh The Old Spaghetti Factory no no the

Green handkerchief pasta yeah it was covered in a pesto oh I’m looking at this I I I haven’t heard of this it almost looks like uh right like is it like lasagna but cut into squares without the Ruffles it’s not even cut though just torn willy-nilly the hands

Of a grandma SL you know a culinary school grad uh in the back of that kitchen and tossing it in the water but I love that variety and I love how it just coats the mouth and also reminds me of my favorite Vietnamese dish bunun and

I think that’s what I’m really after is I just love bu you just love Vietnamese food a lot I love Vietnamese F all right we got we got one more opinion cooking pasta like rice with the water barely covering it is goated the water boils quicker the starch is more concentrated

Leading to better adhered sauces you don’t need six six cups of water to boil one cup of macaroni yeah I mean I I think it’s probably true that we sometimes put more water than we need to um you know in my cookbook I I I want to have standardized

Uh uh measurement so I just told everyone for every pasta for a pound of pasta four quarts of water 2 tablespoons of kosher salt cuz that’s just like easy measurements but uh but I think it’s true as long as it coats it well uh it’s

Fine that being said a lot of recipes do call for adding pasta water and if you use so little water then it may be a struggle if you need to get like a cup and a half or two cups of pasta water out once it’s all cooked that could be a

Struggle that’s a good point there’s toally there’s a recipe going around on the internet’s pasta alasa oh yeah the torched pasta at the bottom SPH oh this is in my cookbook spaghetti alasa this is one of the dishes that I went to Italy to research I I went to the

Restaurant where it was invented that’s cool and that’s a really unique uh actual like cooking technique on it right yeah so basically like you take they take spaghetti they put it in a spicy tomato sauce and you cook it down and cook it down till the sauce turns to

Like a spicy tomato paste and you keep frying in the pan until it turns charred and Crispy Crunchy M uh it is fantastic the the Flav I mean I’m a big texture eater so the fact that it’s crispy and crunchy or as the Italians would say crocante crunchy um is really special

And they only make it in the city of Bari and I went and I interviewed this 80 80-year-old Chef who was who was one of the inventors of it and it was super cool that’s awesome God that’s incredible we got to go to Italy when

Are we going to do our live laugh love trip to Italy together I don’t know I’m down whenever you never want to take vacation you you’re you just you know what it is you need to take vacations with your fiance like three more times

Yeah and then we can go on a trip that’s a good point that’s a good point I want to talk about pasta water real quick cuz I love pasta water well here’s the thing I think it’s a scam I hate it I don’t think we should even talk about it

Anymore because here’s the thing that I found out do you remember when we made K Pepe and I went in and I was like I’m not going to practice this but I believe that it’ll work with my new technique involving a protein Sher oh you should

Tell them about your new technique so uh kachu Pepe I had tried to make it several times before using the pasta water to emulsify y yada but I started to think that the starchiness of your pasta water is so dependent on too many variables that how could you possibly

You know adjust for that and I surmise that all you’re really after is starch and water so I’m going to put some flour and some water and create a slurry and I am going to finish my pasta in a flowy water slurry that I shook in a protein

Shaker and then I’m going to use the latent heat from that flour slurry plus the particulate emulsifiers from the flour and use that to melt the cheese and it was a perfectly emulsified creamy kachu Pepe it sure was and right the proof is in the pudding Italians were

Really mad about that on the internet but they’re like the flowers raw I’m like you watched me boil this what are we talking about is there any Merit to that tell me I’m good tell me I’m I mean I I I think everything you’re

Saying makes sense to me I mean I I I think I look I I think that pasta water also has a nice flavor to it it does have flavor from the pasta so but in terms of the science of the emulsification and the thickening and the starch like I agree that there’s

More than one way to get that end result M there’s a pasta water candle I really want from DS and derga get the heck out of here yeah it smells like pasta water that’s incredible I need that I need that I I want that too

Now uh do we do we have time for one more no oh we’re supposed to wrap we’re done oh do you hold up the sign yes oh cuz it’s on the screen but Dan SP is on the screen I’m learning I’m learning I told Jamie that you do not look at the

Little uh clipboard Jamie I’m so sorry I don’t look at the little clipboard okay I look at it and I do this I give her a harsh blink to know that I have received that information all right and then we’re gonna get one clean and d That’s so interesting

On thank you all for listening to a hot dog as a sandwich we got new Audio Only episodes every Wednesday in a video version here on YouTube every Sunday if you want to be featured on opinions or like cast rolls hit us up at 833 dogp 1

Our number again is 833 dogp one and of course make sure to check out Dan’s brand new cookbook anything’s posable 81 inventive pasta recipes for Saucy people that’s us and you can see Dan and special guests on his tour March 15th through May 2nd more info at sport.com tour Dan responds is written

In the script Dan thank you so a long day tell the people where they can find you well you can find the sporkful podcast whever you get your podcast anything’s possible the book wherever you get books uh you can find my pasta casatelli in some stores around the

Country or you can order it online at spin.com that’s SF o l n i.com Dan Dan sure did respond the script was right go uh for real Dan i’ I’ve been a huge fan of this SP PO for a long time uh I mean you’ve got been podcasting for 14 13 14

Years at this point yeah since 2010 um but honestly man like you do incredible work over there tell incredible stories have incredible guests on uh and thank you so much for taking the time to be here no it’s my pleasure thank you so much and I look forward to having you

Guys on the port for one of these days soon oh yeah we’ll be Around