Tomato Test Kitchen – The Tomato

Hand made pasta with Daniel Costa of Corso 32 and Christopher Hyde, Bar Bricco

Daniel on making pasta and other things culinary:

Italian food is all about simple ingredients with bold and direct flavours — you shouldn’t have to look for it.

I don’t agree that everything should be seasoned with salt and pepper. Sometimes it’s better to add the pepper later. But salt, always. Most people don’t season enough, or use enough oil.

Fresh cherry tomatoes make a nice tomato sauce but our tomatoes are usually not sweet enough, especially the seeds, which can make a sauce bitter.

I don’t like to freeze ricotta gnocchi but freeze the pasta after you have rolled it out. It’s better than drying it.

Add the finely grated cheese off the heat, otherwise it’ll clump.

Don’t oversauce the pasta.

Don’t rinse the pasta, you need the bit of starch to help your sauce stick.

Don’t skimp on the salt.

Daniel Costa mixing ricotta filling for ravioli	Ravioli with butter and sage	Nikki McGill and her sister Jodi share a laugh over pasta dough
Dough after first pass through the pasta machine	Placing the ricotta filling	Sealing the deal with the top sheet of pasta.