Not Italian , but I totally agree. Quality dried pasta is wonderful , fast and easy. Fresh pasta is literally not worth the effort..... Unless I am making ravioli / tortellini , etc. if it's a stuffed pasta , then I am making it, because frozen ravioli is awful. Costco sells a premade ravioli that is not frozen that is pretty damn good , btw. Stuffed shells are not included because I don't have to fold the dough on itself.As an Italian American I wholeheartedly disagree. Not worth the effort at all, except for certain dishes where you need a softer texture, like ravioli or lasagna. For a regular pasta dish with sauce, homemade pasta is worse. It'll never get as perfectly al dente as boxed pasta. Even if you're a total psycho and make it weeks in advance, it's still not dense enough. And you're telling me you can really notice that homemade fresh flour taste? F outta here
Easily fixed. Just save pork trimmings in the freezer for a while. Cut into small cubes and render the fat in a cast iron pan. Sticking it into the oven works really well. The left-behind crispy bits of tissue are delicious, too.Stock is tricky; yes, 'proper stock is better', but it's not like I have enough stock to go boil my pasta in it or waste it willy nilly. My reality is that I simply consume more stock than I could even hope to produce.
Tallow isn't even sold in the stores here... heck you can't even find lard in the Netherlands.
Lard isn't about flavor for me; the flavor is mild and very subtle. It's about the crispness it imparts when frying in it, and a moreishness it adds to dishes that I don't know how to describe. Like umami? Mouth-filling? Savory? I'm not sure what words to use, but I'm a big fan. Tallow has a similar quality, but not as strongly, and there is more overt flavor there, which limits the applications for which it fits well. Chicken fat has it least of all, and is dominated by its flavor and a certain stickiness of texture. Not much a of a fan of chicken fat, once it is removed from the chicken.To be honest I've tried supermarket lard and taste wise it never impressed me that much, it was always super bland. But I guess you mostly use it for the better texture.
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