You may prefer “alla Sorrentina” or with ragù, in any case Potato gnocchi is an evergreen Italian classic, everybody knows.

By using the right products, it’s definitely possible to prepare at home, in less than 5 minutes, a delicious and tasty dish, in a simple , easy and practical way.

Let’s see how to prepare it :

The ingredient : no doubts , buy the best and keep going with De Cecco potato gnocchi , pesto and EVO fruttato. As I’m writing from Melbourne , I have asked Chef Michele from GenobileSaba to help me with everything

Step 1 : pour the pesto in a stainless steel mixing bowl .

Step 2: add some EVO. De Cecco pesto is produced 100% with EVO but you can add some . I strongly recommend Fruttato, a fruity and smooth EVO that perfectly pairs with Pesto .

Step 3: when the water is boiling , pour the Gnocchi . Remember, it takes only 2 minutes to cook them!

Step 4 : pour some of the boiling water in the stainless bowl, just a little and stir it till the consistency of the sauce is creamy enough.

Step 5 : pour the gnocchi in the bowl with the pesto, stir properly and consistently until sauce and gnocchi are well mixed.

Step 6 : shred parmigiano on top, and add some fresh basil if you wish. De Cecco pesto is produced with real aged parmigiano reggiano but definitely you can add some on top when the dish is ready .

Step 7 : serve your wonderful dish prepared in less than 5 minutes !

As usual , keep eating only the best, no doubt that De Cecco gnocchi , evo and pesto are the best you can find on the market !

Francesco

Any Chef knows very well how to manage a proper double cooking process for his pasta dishes but I guess a simple and practical guide would be appreciated especially among the non-professional audience .

But in fact, what is double-cooking? Double cooking is a culinary technique that allows a faster preparation of the orders due to a pre-cooking of the selected pasta. In brief, depending on the pasta type, the normal lead time can be above 15 minutes especially if you use a quality brand ( as a rule of thumb, given the same shape, the longer is cooking-time the better quality is the pasta brand ) and in food service this is definitely a too lengthy waiting time

For this reason pasta can be pre-cooked, usually for half of the time it would normally requires, stored in a proper way, and revived just on demand with simply 60 second additional cooking.

This process is very common and broadly used among PROS, but it’s very important to state that not all the brands perform the same and the difference in final result can be massive. One more time, the better quality is the pasta the better is the performance in double cooking, avoiding pasta stickiness and micro-breaking.

Here are 6 simple standard steps explaining how this process works :

Step 1 : Boil the water. Pasta needs sufficient water, ideally 1 Liter every 100g, it’s important to respect this proportion in order to avoid that pasta stick together.

Step 2 : Add salt. Once pasta is boiling add salt and immediately after add the pasta. It’s commonly thought that the best ratio is 7gr of salt for 1 Liter of water.

Step 3 : Respect the timing. After approx 1 minute in the water it’s better to slightly stir the pasta, and keep stirring in regular interval. The better is the quality of your pasta, the less you need to stir it up. Refer to the table here below for the cooking time ( every different pasta type has a different pre-cooking timing ) based on De Cecco pasta, arguably one top performer brands in double cooking.

Step 4 : Chill the pasta. After the pasta is properly drained proceed spreading the pasta in a classic gastronome tray . The size of the tray depends a lot on the type of pasta you are preparing however a classic GN1/1 : 530 × 325 mm it’s usually suitable. It’s very important not to pile the pasta but keep it evenly spread as much as possible. Add some olive oil on top just to maintain the content of the tray well preserved and seal with cling film .

Step 5 : Store your pasta. Ideally in a blast-chiller but if no blast-chiller is available the best solution is to let the pasta cools down at room temperature and then store it in the fridge .

Step 6 : Revive your pasta. Pasta is now ready to be revived any moment, just put it in boiling water for 60’’ ( follow the table @point 3 ) and in one minute you’ll have a perfectly cooked pasta .

Double-cooking is definitely a key in modern food service especially now that pasta popularity is crossing over any kind of restaurant concept. By following these simple steps it is possible to serve an amazing pasta dish in just few minutes, requiring just a little bit of planning and most important, a good pasta brand!

Keep eating only the TOP !

The differences between a premium and low-end pasta are important and often this gap is underestimated both on consumer and professional side. Let’s be simple, clear and brief about that and identify what really makes a premium pasta.

1) RAW MATERIAL: It probably appears obvious but the raw material is the first step of any production and without premium raw material there won’t be any premium output. It’s better to immediately state that Italian pasta has to be produced only by DURUM WHEAT FLOUR, and the Government strictly control over this aspect.

2) SEMOLINA: When we talk about durum wheat flour it’s also important to understand that from the durum wheat milling, different quality levels of flour can be obtained: the top one is called SEMOLINA and it’s the flour used to produce pasta, then we have SEMOLATO also used to produce pasta at a lower level followed by the normal flour ( for bread ) and 2 more kind of flour used for non-human consumption.

3) BRONZE / TEFLON EXTRUSION: at the end of the production line the pasta-producers may invest huge amount of money in a bronze die plate that gives to pasta a rough and porous surface allowing pasta to better keep the cooking and most important to properly absorb any sauce VS a cheap and life-lasting Teflon plate leaving the pasta smooth and far from the coarse effect obtained from bronze die extraction.

4) LOW TEMPERATURE / HIGH TEMPERATURE DRYING : pasta comes from dough, which is prepared mixing flour and water and so at the end of the production line is wet and has to be dried. In an industrial environment, there basically are 2 ways to finalize this process, a low-temperature/product-respectful way and a high-temperature/burning-product method. The final output is completely different and it’s visually immediate to identify premium and low-end pasta.

There are tons of other differences between a premium product and an average-low-end one but these are the most important and intuitive. You want to know something more about these aspects and how a real premium brand manages all this?

This is what De Cecco, the number one high-end pasta producer in the world, does:

– Raw material: De Cecco is selecting the best raw material since 1886 and no other producer can ensure more stability and top quality in this aspect. Before grinding the wheat is tested at any level of the supply chain and must pass the most strict and rigorous laboratory test to arrive on consumer plates.

– Semolina: De Cecco only use Semolina flour for its production, very coarse grain in order to maintain the central part of the wheat and an extremely high gluten index. De Cecco only uses <65% of the wheat, while average-low-end producers are above 90%.

– Bronze die: no need to say that the production is fully on Bronze die.

– Low temperature drying: the drying process in De Cecco can take till 36 hours, 3 to 5 times the time required for a low-end producer to complete this process. The respect of the product result in an output that basically has the same white color of the flour used to produce it.

– The X Factor: De Cecco prepares its dough with pure cold spring water , at a temperature less than 15° to ensure a perfect maintenance of protein level. As stated, the water is natural spring water as the factory is based in the amazing location of National Park, Parco della Maiella, a unique and uncontaminated venue.

When you eat Italian pasta, think about these points: it’s very easy to claim to be a premium brand, but as a matter of fact only few can be really identified as what they claim to be.
Now you know why.
Keep eating only the top !

Francesco Maioli

Japan has always been a key market for Italian premium brands but it’s confirming his strategic role with great performance in Food Service industry .

The overall Japanese food service industry increased in 2018 for the seventh consecutive year also due to the boost in non-Japanese restaurant sector .

Similarly to Thai situation , tourism is a key factor for a country that passed from 8.5 million tourists in 2012 to 32 million in 2018. The best performer in APAC .

Imported Italian Pasta volume is almost 3 times bigger than the second biggest market ( China ), with annual imported volume ranging from 66k to 75k tons in the 4 years . Consumer is mature and oriented to quality-products, in fact being De Cecco the absolute leader both in retail and food service .

General restaurants are the biggest part on total restaurant sales followed by sushi & noodle shop ( both of them very traditional and rooted in the consumers’ culture ) .

Probably the most interesting opportunities are coming from the expansion of HMR sector ( home meal replacement ) . More and more convenience-stores and retailers are offering HMR in a variety of recipes . Local taste is still absolutely dominating but more HMR based on Italian pasta are already generating really interesting figures .

The most important national food exhibition is Foodex held in March ( 2020 ) 10 to 13 .

Keep following grocerya for more info on APAC retail and food service distribution !