ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290074
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELEANOR OSTMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Green linguine dangling from your fork may look like it's of the spinach persuasion, but does it taste even remotely like that assertive vegetable?
Not likely.
Colored and flavored pastas nestle in a grocery niche that's bursting its box. Overall sales have doubled in the past year, though the rainbow varieties represent a tiny pile of noodles compared with traditional fill-up-the-family plain and egg strands and shapes.
Adventuresome cooks are experimenting more and more with pastas of color to diversify low-fat meals and bolster a limited vegetarian regime.
Do the colored carbos taste like anything? And if they start with a recognizable infused flavor, does it survive the cooking process?
I boiled and ate two dozen colored and flavored pastas, both dry and fresh-refrigerated products, and for some, what you see is what you don't get.
Here's what I found:
* For spinach pastas, the darker the hue, the deeper the flavor.
* The stronger the added flavor element, the more likely it will show up on the plate. Black pepper, chili and lemon seem to survive the cooking process in both dried and fresh
versions. Sun-dried tomato also shines through, but those pinkish dried shapes supposedly touched with regular tomato have no brilliance.
* Refrigerated fresh pastas seem to have more noticeable flavor, probably because they cook a shorter time and less of their flavor is leeched into the water.
* Don't expect much more than color from multi-hued wheels and twists, generally meant for salads where other ingredients will provide the flavor.
Of all the dried pastas we tried, Pasta LaBella products actually delivered on their labels' promises. Roasted Garlic and Roasted Bell Pepper is the most appealing to the company's national customers, said Brad Grau, marketing manager for American Italian Pasta Co., which makes a dozen flavor-shape combinations.
I am most impressed by the company's Porcini Mushroom Penne Rigate because the flavor of the earthy Italian dried mushroom not only survives cooking but is a great match for Italian-inspired sauces. Basil could be identified in the Pesto Linguine; the Chili Pepper Penne left a definite buzz on the tongue; and Lemon Pepper Linguine balanced and retained, through cooking, its dual elements.
For downright adorable, nothing matches the intensely colored Cuisine Perel Pastas made in San Rafael, Calif. Forest-green, die-cut artichoke shapes are more precise than the vegetable they mimic. Garlic bulb clones are the color of plain pasta but taste good and garlicky.
Highest marks were bestowed on the deeply red and sensuously smoky-chili flavor of elongated chipotle pepper pasta. However, the burgundy-tinted wine grape clusters didn't taste like any cabernet I've ever sipped.
Pasta LaBella's Grau said his company's president was inspired by the colored and flavored pastas that have been popular in Europe.
``We spent a lot of time developing the products so they deliver on their promise,'' Grau said. Flavors, he added, come from natural ingredients, not artificial flavors. However, producing a pasta that will retain al dente quality is difficult when semolina flour gives way to softer vegetable flavorants. ``That's why we don't make a spinach pasta,'' he said.
Though grocery-store sales of colored and flavored pastas are less than 3 percent of the overall dry-noodle segment, Grau sees heightened awareness on the part of consumers for flavored pasta. Most of regular dry pastas are sold to families who love the convenience ``and because the kids will eat it,'' he said. Flavored pastas are more expensive and attuned to special-occasion cooking.
``The beauty of flavored pastas is that they're versatile. Sauces can be simple or complex. Pesto, cracked black pepper and roasted garlic all work well with traditional red sauce. If you have a pasta with full flavor, all you really have to do is toss it with Parmesan cheese and olive oil,'' Grau said.
To heighten the character of homemade sauces and match them to exotic pastas, he suggested adding a portion of the liquid in which flavored noodles were cooked.
Sarah Schlesinger promotes the use of colored varieties in her new book, ``500 (Practically) Fat-Free Pasta Recipes'' (Villard, $25), but her motive is more appearance than flavor.
Schlesinger's recipes were designed with her husband's heart in mind; she knows, after changing the family diet after his heart attack, that ``making a dish more attractive with colored pastas doesn't cost anything in terms of fat grams and gives eating pleasure to people who have to deprive themselves in so many ways.''
While shopping for flavored pastas on the East Coast - from Balducci's in New York City, where she lives part of the year, to neighborhood supermarkets in Delaware, where she also has a home - she discovered that ``the more mass-merchandised the products are, the blander they are.'' Domestic brands, she said, often have more flavor character than imports.
``Colored pasta adds ambiance to the dish,'' she said, ``but in place of herb-flavored ones, you might as well use plain pasta and add fresh herbs. Or instead of wine-flavored pastas, add a dash of wine to the sauce.''
Here are the results of tasting colored and flavored pastas, based on cook-it-and-eat-it-plain trials. In each category, they are listed in order of taste preference and with the price per package.
SPINACH PASTAS
* Colavita Spinach Tagliatelle Nests ($1.79): Deepest green, most spinach flavor.
* Amish-Style Spinach Egg Noodles ($1.79): Second most apparent spinach flavor.
* Belvedere Tagliatelle with Spinach ($2.99): Packed in two cellophane tubes to reduce breakage, flavor rates a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.
* De Cecco Homestyle Egg Pasta With Spinach ($3.09): Prettiest, with mottled color but virtually no spinach flavor.
* De Cecco Penne Rigate ($3.09): Intense spinach color, but almost neutral flavor.
MULTICOLORED PASTAS
* Il Duomo Veggie Wagon Wheels ($1.99): Spinach wheels carry flavor; beet rounds are flat; tomato is tasteless.
* Stoneridge Tri-Color Fettuccine ($1.45): Spinach detectable, but tomato tastes just like the plain one in this threesome.
* No Yolk Vegetable Twists ($1.61): The yolk's on you if you expect to find flavor among these curlicues.
RARE FLAVORS
* Pasta LaBella products (various prices): Deliver on their flavor promise. Lemon pepper is lemony; porcini mushroom has more than a hint of the earthy dried Italian mushrooms; chili pepper takes a moment to perceive, but then hits hot and strong; pesto is properly basil-herby.
* Cuisine Perel die-cut flavored pastas ($5.49 per bag): Plenty of eye appeal, but just a blink of flavor. Chipotle pepper is best; garlic comes in second; wine was too dry to taste. Artichoke pasta is flavored first with spinach, then with artichoke powder, so it may look like an artichoke, but it tastes like spinach.
* Cara Nonna Cicatelli Dinamite Hot ($5.29): Italian import has a slow but persistent burn, offering more sensation than taste.
FRESH REFRIGERATED PASTAS
* Monterey Pasta Co. Garden Vegetable Ravioli in Sweet Red Pepper Pasta ($3.99): Balance of sweetness and the freshness of vegetable filling.
* Bella Luna Tomato-Basil-Garlic Tortelloni ($3.17): Retains its color; flavor subtle but collaborated pleasantly with cheese filling.
* DiGiorno Sun-Dried Tomato Ravioli ($2.75): Can definitely taste the tomatoes.
* Trio's Cracked Pepper Garlic Tortelloni With Cheese ($3.89): Garlic wins in this complex combination, with pepper undertones gaining strength during subsequent bites.
* Cheese DiGiorno Hot Red Pepper Cheese Tortelloni ($2.75): Slow starter, but flavor ignites eventually.
* Monterey Pasta Co. Snow Crab Ravioli in Lemon-Dill Pasta ($3.99): Here, you'll wish you didn't taste the dill.
* DiGiorno Pasta Herb Linguine ($1.79): Vaguely colored, vaguely flavored; add herbs to your sauce.
* Contadina Spinach Tagliatelle ($1.83): Green, but that's about it.
LENGTH: Long : 144 linesby CNB