>> Pasta

Pasta, pasta. Dry pasta, fresh pasta. Pasta is without doubt the most important of our national foodstuffs, it has become the trademark of Italy, the one product that the whole world identifies with our country. The vast pasta industry has a responsibility that is absolutely irreplaceable; it has the job of providing healthy nutrition at a low cost. The quality of manufactured plain pasta has improved considerably over recent years. Large scale manufacturers need no longer envy the quality of pasta produced by smaller home industries, so popular amongst spaghetti fans. This is however, only true for dry, plain, durum wheat pasta.

The situation is rather different for egg pastas and especially for freshly made egg pasta, where the magic word "fresh" has helped open a market that has been flooded with poor quality products. The pasta produced by small, home industry pasta makers has a humidity level that exceeds forty per cent and therefore it does not swell during cooking. This kind of pasta is also full of bacteria, for which the humidity and egg content provide an ideal culture medium. In addition to these drawbacks, the flour that is used is nearly always a soft wheat type and therefore has a low gluten content and poor nutritional values. The rolling process is also very limited as the pasta is often simply passed once or twice under a roller or at times even under a press.

 >> Rice

The peoples of the Orient are famed for being great rice eaters, but in the East, rice is generally used in quite a simple way as a steamed and rather insipid accompaniment. Italian flair, on the other hand, takes rice, with all its infinite combinations, and turns it into a gastronomic masterpiece. The type of rice that has always been used at Harry's Bar is the "Vialone nano semifino" variety. This is a type of rice that comes from Mantua and is perfect for making risottos or pilafs. Rice is often rather unpopular in a restaurant situation because of the time it takes to cook. Eighteen minutes for a hungry customer can seem an eternity. Despite this, I do not believe in belying expectation by serving a customer something else. A good risotto should and must be eaten as a first dish.

For years we had an exceptional maître, Angelo Dal Maschio, working with us. He had very set ideas and always put them into practice with his customers. He insisted that nothing, not even a basket of bread was to be brought to a table before the risotto. Angelo was Truman Capote's favorite as well as many other people's, who preferred to wait for a table, if it meant being served by him. Besides the "Vialone nano", another excellent risotto rice is the "Carnaroli". This has an extremely limited production and is very difficult to find in the shops. There are many different ways of cooking a risotto, probably as many ways as there are people who adore it.

 >> Oil

Which oil?
There are more types of oil in Italy than there are whiskies in Scotland. Here, every oil has its staunch supporters. There are those who adore extra virgin olive oil, those who prefer seed oil, those who love the oil that comes from the South, from Tuscany or from the Italian Riviera. And they are all right. Oil is a question of being converted to a certain taste. At Harry' Bar we use soya seed oil for frying. But it must be changed every time it is used and never exceed 180°C. The olive oil that comes from the Italian Riviera is perfect for other kinds of cooking as it is the olive oil with the lightest taste A small company produces and chooses it for us. The olives are picked from the trees when they are perfectly ripe, they are carefully selected and then cold-pressed.

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