It may seem taken for granted for Italians to expect pasta to be “al dente”, but when we deal with gluten-free dishes, “al dente” is not that “obvious” any more…
È da un bel po’ che testo ricette ma a dire il vero non mi sono mai avventurata nel campo della pasta fresca senza glutine. Da quando sono passata alla dieta senza glutine non mangio quasi mai la pasta, non sono ancora riuscita a trovare una marca che mi piaccia veramente.
In Italy, the holiday season brings – along with the huge amount of to-dos everybody knows – the Hamletic doubt: panettone or pandoro. Italians, from icy Alto Adige to warm Sicily, split into two parties: Panettone supporters and Pandoro fans.
The only thing both parties agree on is that both cakes are meant to be offered during Christmas time. No other time is allowed. Soon after January 6th they become outdated. Everything else is open to an endless declination of variants.
The name Panettone is the corruption of the phrase Pan de Toni (Toni’s bread). Toni was a scullion at Ludovico Maria Sforza’s palace. Legend says that on Christmas night the duke of Milan invited the most important patricians of the town. His cook had been given the task to create a new cake that was meant to leave his guests astonished. He actually made it, but he forgot it…
You don’t need to be a musician to enjoy “spaghetti alla chitarra” [chitarra, pronounced key-tahr-rah, is the Italian word for guitar]. You just need to be a curious foodie, since spaghetti alla chitarra, or simply “chitarra” is one of the many signature dishes of the Abruzzi cuisine.
Chitarra – the artisanal cooking tool – is made of a wooden frame with steel wires stretched on it. Once you have a classic fresh pasta dough, the entire process of making spaghetti is relatively simple.
Sfoglia di semola rimacinata… Photo: Deda
First you’ll need to make a “sfoglia” (= dough rolled-out to form a sheet), then you lay it onto the the chitarra and press it with the help of the rolling pin to cut the delicious strands (by means of the pin or by hand). The outcome is this.
Making “Spaghetti alla chitarra”… Photo: Deda
Spaghetti alla chitarra is durum wheat square-shaped egg…
Sfoglia di semola rimacinata… Photo: Deda 
Making “Spaghetti alla chitarra”… Photo: Deda 
OCKstyle.com 