A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What's the Best Pasta Sauce? ft. Dan Pashman

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Today, Josh and Nicole team up with Dan Pashman to uncover the ultimate pasta sauce, diving deep into flavors and controversies. This episode is brought to you by Trade, sign up at drinktrade.com/hotdog and enjoy a free bag of roasted-to-order coffee and $15 off select plans when you join. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/HOTDOG and get on your way to being your best self. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@mythicalkitchen To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Marina. Marinara. Marina. Marinara. Marina. I don't get paid enough for this. This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich.

Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates.

I'm your host, Josh Scherr. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And we have a very special guest joining us today. Please welcome the creator and host of the James Beard Award-nominated podcast, the... Wait, you won that, right? Yes, technically, yeah. Why did we put... I guess if you won it, you are also nominated.

That's true. James Beard Award winning podcast. You weren't wrong. James Beard Award winning podcast. Put some respect on the name. The sportful inventor of the pasta shape that changed the game forever and author of the new cookbook, Anything's Pasta-able. Dan Passion, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me, guys. Of course. You like pasta? You eat it every day? I mean, I got kids. I eat a lot of pasta. So yeah, every day, no, but I eat a lot of pasta. But if you could, you would.

Well, I'll tell you the truth. In the process of working on this new cookbook, there were times that I was testing multiple recipes in the same day. I was cooking a pasta dish for lunch and then one for dinner. And after a couple months straight of like some days, two a days, there were moments that I got sick of pasta. I never thought I'd say it, Nicole, but there were a couple moments. But

99% of the time you put pasta in front of me, I'll be very happy. My people. This is my people. My mishpacha. Me, my mishpacha. My mishpacha. We made a bold claim in this intro that you invented the pasta shape that changed the game forever.

Those were words that I directly wrote because I remember listening to your multi-part series on the Sporkful Mission Impostable on creating a new pasta shape effectively from scratch. Not only did I fall in love with the storytelling behind that, but also I fell in love with how obsessive you were about the types of sauce that need to go into the types of

pasta and then also the architecture of the pasta. It matters. Yeah, it absolutely matters. And so, yeah, just tell us a little bit how you invented Cascatelli and then how that translated into your new cookbook. Yes. So, I mean, as you say, if people want the full story, the Mission Impossible series is still in the Sporkful podcast feed. But the short version of the story is that I was dissatisfied with a lot of the pasta shapes out there, like spaghetti. I've eaten a lot of spaghetti in my day. It's not that great of a shape. I have these three metrics that I came up with that I used to judge all pasta shapes. So there's forkability. How easy is it to get a good bite on your fork and keep it there?

Sauceability, how well does sauce adhere? And tooth sinkability, which is how satisfying is it to sink your teeth into it? And spaghetti fails all three of these tests. Getting a good bite of spaghetti on your fork is almost impossible. It's either too much or too little. You have danglers that smear all over your face. You finish the plate of pasta and half the sauce is still sitting there. And so I set out to invent a new, better shape of pasta that would check all these boxes. But it was important to me, like, I didn't just want a gimmick. I didn't just want a pasta shape that would, like, look cool on Instagram. I wanted it to be legitimate to work and to be legitimately good to eat.

And I wanted to actually mass produce it and try to sell it. And that ended up being a lot harder than I anticipated because I had to convince the people who make pasta dyes, which are like the molds for the shapes to work with me. And there's only one guy left in America who still makes pasta dyes. His name is Giovanni. He lives in Northern Massachusetts. He makes the dyes for Kraft Mac and Cheese.

He was just like not that interested in hanging out with a podcast or with a dream. If you wrote that into a movie, they would have told you like, hey, we got to recast Giovanni. It's too on the nose. Yeah, it's too. Exactly. Right, right, right. Let's make his name Pete. And then COVID hit and we couldn't even get the bronze you need to make the dyes, the molds.

Then I had to get a pasta company to work with me. All the big players, again, were not interested. The really small companies didn't have the apparatus. I ended up teaming up with this mid-sized company called Sfolini, S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I, in upstate New York. And we made the shape. And it's called Cascatelli. It's a short shape with these sort of two parallel ruffles that stick out and create kind of what I i call a sauce trough like a gap between them and sauce goes in there and it does not come out and it's got ruffles that create a very interesting texture in your mouth and

against all odds it went viral and it's now in stores around the country you can order it on svalini's website it's been kind of incredible um it was named one of time magazine's best inventions of the year uh i was on everywhere from the New York Times to Access Hollywood which is not on my vision board when I started but to bring it full circle Josh as exciting as it all was

when Cascatelli went viral and everyone's buying it and they're sending me all these pictures of what they're making it was very gratifying to see people cooking with this creation of mine but there was also a problem, which was that 75% of what I saw was tomato sauce, meat sauce, mac and cheese, pesto. I mean, a few party animals made cacio e pepe. It just wasn't that inventive, and that gave me this idea. I said, what if I were to come up with a cookbook full of totally non-traditional pasta recipes, none of the classics you've seen a million times, new and different approaches to pasta that would show people that there's so many more things that you can and should be putting on your pasta.

And we did a multi-part podcast series that's getting, you know, that, you know, sort of the sequel to Mission Impossible with my kids and my wife in it about the creation of this cookbook, Anything's Possible. And that's sort of the next step in the journey. I think it's beautiful because on the one hand, pasta is this infinite playground. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do literally anything you want with it. I remember, I mean, stupid example,

my college dining hall at UC Santa Barbara, they made pad thai with spaghetti. Yeah. And everybody was like, hey, this is pretty messed up. And then you ate it and you're like, it still tastes good though. It's not Pad Thai, but this like ketchup.

It does the job. I'm in college, whatever. It does the job. But at the same time, with pasta, like the architecture, the form of it is so important

to the sauce. So that's what we're trying to do today. We're trying to, one, answer the question, does the shape of the noodle actually matter with what sauce you pair it with?

I know, Dan, you would argue yes. But then, can we come up with some sort of universal answer to best sauce? If there were one sauce that could go with the most shapes of pastas, what would that be? Dan, my first question for you, Cascatelli with such a unique shape, what is like the perfect archetype of sauce to go with it? And what is the least perfect? Like, what's the worst way if there is one to use cascatelli i would say best would either be something thick and you know thick and creamy or with a lot of small bits like a meat sauce i love it with um there's a recipe in my cookbook um for mapo tofu cascatelli oh hell yeah it's like a ground meat sauce using all the flavors

of mapo tofu that i worked with a great recipe developer named Andrea Nguyen on. So like anything thick, anything with little bits of meat or anything with big chunks where you can stab or you're going to stab to compose ideal bites. So like big chunks of vegetables, shrimp, stuff like that because Cascatelli is very stabbable. Not so great are like a thin oily sauce because Cascatelli is very meaty. Not so great are like a thin oily sauce because Cascatelli is very meaty. And I think that, you know, you want a little bit more of a delicate shape to go with a delicate light sauce. Interesting. What's your ideal combo?

Yeah, what do you guys think? Like if you go to a pasta place like Chento or something or Olive Garden even, like what do you pick? Okay, so I tend to... I have this thing. I have that disease that people have where they go into a restaurant and they try and order the most interesting thing on the menu, often to their own detriment. Nicole knows what I'm talking about because that happens all the time with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so when I go to a restaurant, unless their whole thing... I remember this restaurant called Wovo opened in Los Angeles. With its Kazunori Haiho Cheeseburger and Wovo. Sugarfish. It's the sugarfish family, right? It's a part of the sugarfish family, but those three are always together in like one shopping center. Their whole shtick, right,

is that they fly in all their pasta fresh from Bologna overnight every single day. So if you go to a place that's repping the pasta from Bologna, you get the ragu, the bolognese. And so if it's something like that, I will do that. But for me, I'm always trying to order the most interesting thing possible. And so for me, a lot of these classics like bucatini alla matriciana, it's great, but it's not something I seek out. Very often spaghetti, cacio e pepe or carbonara, it's not something that I often seek out. The things that I find myself really loving are, I'm thinking about this dish,

it was a lasagnetti with king crab ragu from a restaurant. And the way that the- I would never think to put those together. It was, Dan, what does lasagnetti mean to you? Because I don't know

how they were using it. I mean, it sounds like it's a derivative of lasagna. Broken up lasagna sheets is what I thought, if you really want to know. Oh, is that what it is? I think of that as a maltagliata, which means badly cut. It's a similar kind of concept. Well, so it was, if you imagine those very heavily ruffled lasagna noodles that I personally hate for actual lasagna.

It was like that, except it was just very long and thin. Oh, just the edges? The width of like a pappardelle or like a oh that's that it's like a mafalda or a mafaldina i think so i can also google it i'm right here right it's like fettuccine but with ruffles down the edges yes correct correct correct yes correct that is one of my favorite shapes i love that shape it was a huge inspiration to me with cascatelli. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was that, but it was long. It was slurpable, but it was the way that the sauce wicked off

of the ruffles as you slurped it. Created like a secondary experience. That is probably the single best pasta and sauce combination I have ever had in my life. Really? I don't know. I always find myself leading towards like round stuff so like

I love gnocchi like I if there's gnocchi is gnocchi a pasta we call this a pasta in this I would call it

I mean yeah with Dan with Dan yes like raviolis like things like that I always tend to what about square ravioli

though Nicole whatever wait is there hold on is there a way to differentiate between a square and a round because I think we can all agree that round ravioli are significantly better right i love round ravioli more than square i think it depends what you're looking

for i mean a square ravioli will have more perimeter edge in relation to interior and so if you have right you want you're in it for the filling nico. So you want round. But if you like the textural experience of a jagged frame or an ornate exterior, then you want a square alveoli because you'll get more exterior in relation to interior. Yeah. So I always lean towards something rounded, stuffed, and plump instead of like long noodles. Although rigatoni rigate is my favorite noodle of all time Truly my favorite, the best I love that with the vodka sauce But let me tell you something about Nouveau vodka sauce

That gets on my last nerve I don't like how it's like tomato paste That's cooked down to like a sec And then they put a bunch of cream in it I don't like that I like it whenever it was just Whatever red sauce they had in the back And whatever white sauce they had in the back and they mixed it together that is my vodka sauce

and that's the vodka sauce that i will always love more but i still order the regular stuff but yeah i always find like big plump juicy pastas with like heavy creamy sauces because i always tell myself i can't really i don't want to make this at home. You know, at home I can just throw some red sauce and some noodles and call it a day. But something about heavy creamy sauces and round beautiful pastas at a restaurant that knows what they're doing is one of my favorite expressions of pasta. Also, I feel like when you order something like that in a restaurant, you kind of don't really know how much cream and butter is going into it. And I don't want to, baby. It's probably just a touch. I'm sure it's fine.

And then you go and make the recipe at home and they're like, you need six gallons of heavy cream for this dish. Exactly. I won't even order pasta from a restaurant that has an open kitchen. Or if they do, I like excuse myself to the bathroom. I don't even, I don't want to be faced with this. Oh my gosh. Dan, do you have like a single best pasta dish you've ever had in your life like does that stuck in your head i mean so so for the cookbook i did a research trip across

italy cool to learn about some very obscure to get it first of all to explore larger questions of italian pasta history and also to research a couple of specific, very obscure Italian pasta dishes that I wanted to put in the book. And I went to a place in Rome. I met up with this food writer there named Katie Parla, and she took me to this place in Rome called Armando al Panteone, Armando at the Pantheon. And I know that I just talked a lot of crap about spaghetti. But they served me a spaghetti alla gricia. Gricia, it's like a precursor to carbonara. It's carbonara without eggs.

So it's just guanciale, which is like a cured pork jowl, pecorino romano cheese, black pepper. They do a touch of white wine there. But the spaghetti there was just perfectly cooked, perfectly tooth-sinkable. The guanciale was in slabs and like crispy around the edges and meaty in the center and this mound of pecorino on top, like a fresh snowfall. And then they didn't just like have little bits of black pepper. They took whole peppercorns and just like crunched them up

and put them on top. So you took one bite and you got this, a nose full of this earthy, fragrant black pepper. And it was just, it was the best thing I ate in Italy and I'm still dreaming about it. I love the way we all talk about food. How dreamy. Pasta is also an incredible food to talk about in those romantic terms, right?

Sure, sure, sure. You're right, Josh. But it's interesting that you use the word romantic because one of my big takeaways from my trip to Italy that really stuck with me and informed the cookbook is that there's so much romance around Italian food. And being in Italy and eating pasta is very romantic and there's a nostalgia and a tradition to it. But what I learned and what was so shocking to me in my research there is that

Italian pasta history is not nearly as old as we think it is. That pasta was not the national food of Italy until about a hundred years ago. And that many very iconic dishes like carbonara was only invented in like the 1950s other dishes that i went to go research there were invented around 1960 chicken parmesan is older than carbonara is the thing that i like to tell every italian that i meet uh yeah sure and there's also been a lot of the italian food history of the past 75 years was influenced by americans and italian amer Americans, people who left Italy and then came back during World War II, let's say, and brought other influences. And so as much as – and Italians are kind of very invested in this mythology.

In the podcast series about the cookbook, I interview a food historian named Luca Cesari in Bologna who's kind of debunking a lot of these myths. food historian named Luca Cesari in Bologna, who's kind of debunking a lot of these myths. So that's, you know, to me, like this combination of the romanticism with the fact that it's actually a more dynamic cuisine than it gets credit for, to me, was like super interesting to learn. One fact that I talk about all the time is that Italy as a nation state, as like a sovereign nation that's unified, didn't exist until like the late 1800s. And so you're getting all of these disparate cultures that, you know, especially around, let's talk about the rise of fascism on the podcast. But no, that's, but that's a big part of, it's why we view a lot of Americana foods as

we do as well, is this idea of building one identity for a nation. And then you realize that everything is so much more diverse and complicated than you actually think but I was asking this question because you break well I'd say a lot of rules that Italian people would say are rules uh in your cookbook which it's in a really beautiful way you have a recipe for you know a doll with macaroni in it um which is fantastic and kimchi carbonara kimchi carbonara and that's also how I think most chefs cook at home. For sure. Is that like, hey, I have pasta and I have these leftovers.

I know I made like a Thai yellow curry and I had a lot of leftover liquids without solids. And I had, you know, some spaghetti in the fridge. And I was like, well, I'm finishing that in the yellow curry sauce and I'm putting some parm on it. And it was great. So tell us about like breaking those, what some would call rules. Well, I mean, I think you're right, Josh, though,

that that's just how a lot of chefs come up with ideas. That's just how a lot of regular home cooks end up creating things. That's a big part of how cuisine evolves. There's so much focus on chefs and restaurants. But a lot of cuisine just evolves in kitchens all over the place when people just end up with two ingredients in the fridge and decide to mix them together. And especially

as America has become more diverse over the past 50 years and more different cuisines have gained wider acceptance and assimilated into culture, I think it's just happening more and more in-home kitchens without anybody necessarily saying, I'm going to come up with something quote unquote new. And I've been very inspired by, I love, there's a book came out a couple of years ago called Indian-ish by Priya Krishna. And she talks, you know, it's a great book. And she, you know, she mashes up a lot of Indian flavors with quote unquote American dishes. And there's been more books that are showcasing the same kind of perspective.

Eric Kim's Korean American, a woman named, a woman named Kushboo Shah has a book coming out soon called Amrikhan. That's, you know, I love her. Saag paneer lasagna, just like off the hook. So, you know, and it's the same thing for me. And I'm like, you just said I had leftover tortellini in the fridge. I had some leftover dal. I'm like, I'm going to mix these together.

And so, you know, to me, I think that on one hand, yes, I'm sure some people will see the recipes in this cookbook and think that I'm sort of kicking down the door of Italian tradition. But I think in reality, it's just sort of a natural extension of the way that cuisine evolves, especially in America. And I think it's the way a lot of people are cooking today. And so that it feels very natural to me. Yeah, 100%. And I think so many people look at the rules of pasta and saucing and they think, at least I do, they think it's just arbitrary gatekeeping coming from, you know. There's levels to it, I'm sure. There's levels, but I think a lot of it is based on these like universalisms that we find in food. Like you were talking about the

Mapo tofu, which Mapo tofu, one of my favorite freaking foods in the world. It's really good, yeah. Texture very similar to ragu bolognese, right? And so also people, they're like, Asian noodles aren't pasta, and pasta aren't noodles, etc. But it's really separated by either one or none ingredients, right? A lot of wheat-based noodles are made via the same process. And so it's like everything's sort of one organic globule and everybody just wants delicious chewy starch covered in lovely sauce. I want to talk about pesto. Talk about pesto. You know what it is about pesto?

Pesto just means muddled up in a little bowl, right? You just take something in a mortar and pestle and you just bash it up and stuff. Wait, that's like the etymology of pesto? Like pesto, like pestle? Oh, maybe. up and stuff wait that's the that's like the etymology of pesto like pesto like pestle oh maybe oh i actually that's i don't know i thought that's what you were saying no i'm just talking talk i'm gonna you're the etymology guy i'm just you're shooting the shit i actually hadn't i have a section on pesto in my book even i hadn't put that together i i think that literally it means pounded or crushed but you're right i mean you're probably right that it comes from the same etymology wow yeah pestari to pound or crush well there you go

look at that etymology with nicole you know what i you know what i don't love i don't like whenever there's like red pestos and white pestos to me pesto always has to be green and i I don't love? I don't like whenever there's like red pestos and white pestos. To me, pesto always has to be green. And I just don't understand why there's like different colors of pestos now. I don't like it. I just want my pestos to be green. How do you guys feel about that? Josh, you want to start? I made a lovely red pesto the other day with my fiance, Julia, and we had a good time.

I just think it's whack. And then we ate it and we're like, I wish this was green. Right? You're kind of right. See? good time. I just think it's whack. And then we ate it and we're like, I wish this was green. Right. You're kind of right. I mean, I, to me, Nicole, I feel like, you know, and we have, I have a section in the cookbook called the presto pesto formula. And it's just a way to take any common, almost any combination of nuts, herbs, maybe cheese, maybe garlic and turn it into pesto. And that's really like, it's the kind of thing where like, if I got some arugula in the fridge,

that's been there for a couple of days, just turn it into pesto. Yes, most pestos end up being green because they usually have herbs or some kind of – which makes them green. But to me, if you're mashing it up and it tastes good, I don't think – I think technically you just – you kind of argued against your own case, Nicole. No, I didn't. You pointed out that pesto just means pounded or crushed. But it needs to be green. I just can't. I don't think pesto means green.

If it's not Genovese pesto, Nicole's grandmother will roll over in her grave mortacci tua. I just feel passionate about like, it's just whenever I go to a place and it's like, oh, this is a pesto. And then I see like, it's not green. It just hits a nerve in my brain where I'm like… It's just whenever I go to a place and it's like, oh, this is a pesto. And then I see like it's not green. It just hits a nerve in my brain where I'm like, there's a disconnect. And I guess I just haven't…

My brain hasn't caught up to my heart and my heart hasn't caught up to my brain in that aspect. To me, carbonara should have chicken breast, American bacon, mushrooms and peas and heavy cream. And I swear, that was my first introduction to carbonara. And it is still a flavor combination that I crave. I that was my first introduction to carbonara. And it is still a flavor combination that I crave. I understand it is not traditional Italian carbonara.

Yeah, pizza carbonara pissed off a lot of people, but who cares? They sure do. Dan, I'm curious, did you have any failed experiments, especially in relation to the shape of the pasta

and the sauce while writing this book? Like, what's the worst thing you made? Ooh, the worst thing. There was an attempt. I had this idea because my wife and I are both sort of our lineages where they were Eastern European, Jewish, and her family, her parents came from Czechoslovakia. So there are a lot of, I thought it'd be nice to include a little bit of that heritage.

And there's a lot of noodle dishes in Central and Eastern Europe that are sort of like cottage cheese with like crushed nuts. Some of them are even sweet. They're like cinnamon and sugar. I grew up on so much noodle kugel, man. There you go. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. And so I thought like, what if we could take some kind of concept like that and sort of adapt it or just do it different? And it just kind of like never, it never came together. But there was another one, you know, I tested a sirloin ragu, sort of like an upscale tomato-based meat sauce. And it was very good, but it took almost two hours to make. And when I ate it, I was like, this is good, but it tastes like a slightly better version of a tomato-based meat sauce that I've had a thousand times. And not only did I cut it from the cookbook,

but I made a declaration in that moment. I said, I'm not going to put any tomato-based meat sauce, I'm not going to put any tomato-based sauce in this book unless it's either very different from anything I've had before or ridiculously easy. So that actually inspired me to include in the book a jarred tomato sauce decision tree. Because I think that because to me, like there's so many good jarred sauces out

there. The world does not need me to give you another recipe for marinara. Bless you. You are correct. So just go buy a really good jar of sauce. But then I give you this decision tree. You want to make it heartier. You want to make it spicier. You want to make it more savory. You want to add meat. You want to add cream. And there's all these different paths you can follow to make it a little different, add some, just zhuzh it up. So that failed sirloin ragu led to the jarred tomato sauce decision tree. That's incredible. I have said on record that I can't beat Rao's. I've made my own. I've labored over tomato sauce. The Marcella Hazan sauce, of course, is very fun to make. It's iconic.

It's fantastic. It's iconic. But I can't beat Rao's. Me either. I'm curious. I think we've come to the point of discussion. We have to decide if there is the possibility of one universal sauce to rule them all. Okay, we did this, Daniel.

We didn't even talk about spaghetti and meatballs. What? We didn't even talk about spaghetti and meatballs. What do you want to talk about spaghetti and meatballs about? We just didn't even talk about it. We didn't talk about it a lot. We didn't talk about it a lot. We didn't talk about it.

Like my favorite, I love, I love Beagley. Beagley is maybe my favorite pasta. Okay. We didn't get to talk about Beagley. With what sauce?

What? Whatevs. Actually, no, we didn't, maybe my favorite pasta dish, you're talking about Eastern European heritage.

Favorite pasta dish at all time in Los Angeles is a chef named Steve Sampson. Used to have a restaurant called Soto. He did a, Oh my God, I love Soto.

The chicken liver, the rigatoni with chicken liver ragu and grape must was to this day one of the best things that I've ever eaten and he has not made that dish since and I'm bummed about it.

Steve, you gotta make that dish if you're listening. But no, let's talk about the idea of universal sauce. We did an episode. Is there a best

universal dipping sauce? We did? Yeah, and we decided of course. What did we decide on? We'd? Yeah, and we decided, of course. What did we decide on? We'd listen. We can't remember anything. Hot sauce and mayonnaise.

Oh, yeah. If you need one, you're dipping egg rolls, you're dipping chicken wings. You're mixing up the titles. I think it was just what's the best sauce. Yeah, it was dipping. There was a silent dipping in that title. Was there? Yeah, because it wasn't sauce for pasta.

We weren't arguing that you should put orange mayonnaise on spaghetti but damn one sauce to roll them all on pasta what is it i guess i would have to say you'd want it to have so so in the in the book i i come up with these two ways of classifying all sauces, two criteria so that you can pair sauces and shapes. And there's two properties of sauce you want to look at. One is viscosity, basically like thickness, stickiness. The other is chunk factor, which is how many chunks and how big are the chunks. So I think that if you really want a universal sauce, it needs to have good viscosity. It needs to have some thickness and stickiness that adheres to the pasta. And if you have especially big chunks, it's going to be difficult.

I mean, it can be done, but I think that probably mac and cheese feels like too easy of an answer. I think I might have to say vodka sauce because it's thick it's got a nice viscosity it's got a low chunk factor it's sort of all purpose it can kind of work with any pasta shape i don't think you're ever going to go wrong with it what did you it was gonna be vodka we all independent but just for the sake of being a little different, my favorite pasta sauce isn't even a sauce at all. It's just butter and some sort of hard cheese on the top. That's a phenomenal answer.

My favorite sauce. That's it. That's it. That's it. Maybe a chili flake. Maybe an anchovy. No, no, no, no. I'm not doing the anchovy. Just spicy, fatty pasta. That's it. That's my answer. You're also, you're a pasta aglio e olio girl too, right?

No, I'm not. Like you, what? I hate, I don't like it. I don't hate it. Look at us learning new things about each other. I know, I didn't think it was possible. I didn't think it was possible. No, I don't, I actually don't like it. I don't either. There's something that's like a little bit too sparse about it for other. I know, I didn't think it was possible. I don't think it was possible. No, I actually don't like it. I don't either. There's something that's like

a little bit too sparse about it for me. I need something big, something unctuous. Yeah, vodka sauce is exactly what I came to as well because, you know, you get a little bit of that cream

to cut through all that tomato if that gets boring. Pesto is, I think, a deceptively quite aggressive flavor. And even for myself, I don't always crave it. I was going to say ragu, then you cut out vegetarians. You know what I mean?

But I think it's got to be vodka. Also, it has alcohol in it. Also, it has alcohol in it. Yeah, sick. There you go. No, I'm going to say classic American carbonara, heavy cream, bacon, chicken, mushrooms, and peas. That's the best pasta sauce to rule them all.

Take that, Italy. Let's come up with some engagement in the comments. That's the best pasta sauce to rule them all. Take that, Italy. Let's come up with some engagement in the comments. Let's get those over with. All right, Nicole and Dan, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. It's time for a segment we call

Opinions Are Like Casseroles. You didn't hit them. Dan, why didn't you sing? Sorry, I wasn't ready. You want to do it again? Yeah, let's do it one more time. It's time for Opinions Are Like Casseroles. All right, so we have had our audience

they have written in their hottest takes about pasta on Twitter and last time we asked for one of these is when we were recording with Dr. Mike and we asked for their hot takes about food and nutrition. We got like 12 responses. I had 250 responses about hot pasta takes in about 10 minutes.

So we have tried to pick. People have opinions. So many. Nicole, you want to go first? Sure. Punkish Ghost underscore says, lasagna is the worst pasta dish. It tastes burnt, it's chewy, and the sauce I have to spend hours working on isn't worth it. And I've made lasagna that everyone loved but I didn't.

It's just an over-glorified casserole. How do you feel about that? I partly agree and partly disagree. I mean, I think if you don't like the taste of it or the texture, that's sort of like, you know, I hate the player, not the game. I mean, like it's not – that's not the fault of the platonic ideal of lasagna. It's the fault of the person who prepared it or maybe it's just not your thing. That said, I do agree and I do say in my cookbook that lasagna is too much work. It's not worth the work. As soon as you cut it up and start eating it, it falls apart, and so you've lost the layers that you've worked so hard to craft. You could just make baked ziti, and it'd

take you a tenth of the time and end up with the same flavors coming together. If you're going to take the time to do lasagna, in my book, I have a recipe for a spinach artichoke dip lasagna pinwheels. And you make a filling, and it's not quite as heavy as regular lasagna. It's vegetarian. You do a lemon bechamel with chopped artichokes and cheese. You roll it up in the lasagna and then stand up those pinwheels in a pan, cover with a bit of cheese, put that in the oven. It looks stunning. It stays together and holds its shape in a way, and it's got a unique bit of cheese. Put that in the oven. It looks stunning. It stays together and holds its shape in a way. And it's got a unique combination of flavors. Yum.

That sounds so good. What's yours? Lasagna. Well, since I make it on the show so much, I've learned the art. Why do we make it so much? We make lasagna on the show so much. It's crazy. We have learned how to cook a good lasagna.

And I'm proud of our lasagna talents. But I've recently seen a recipe where you just do it on a sheet pan. You just take it and you do it on a sheet pan. Like you take- Oh, is it the two layer lasagna? That's not a lasagna.

I've never made it before. And I'm, stop, I'm speaking. I've never made it before and I've never eaten it before. But something about it seems so attractive and less effort, but same texture in your mouth. So I think this punkish ghost underscore is being a little bit of a drama queen. But I mean, there's ways around it. If you don't like the art of making lasagna, there's ways around it to get the same lasagna feel

without all of that effort. Like pinwheels. I think a key that we're glossing over here is I've made lasagna that everyone loved, but I didn't. I think what happened is they had a sort of like postpartum lasagna, you know, depression. Postpartum lasagna depression. No, I think because I've had this happen with

a lot of things that I've cooked where I put so much. So many people. I put so much energy into it. And then by the time that it's done, and I don't draw corollaries to childbirth here because I just, that was a terrible throwaway. Why are you looking at me when you say that? No, because I didn't. Dan's the one with kids, not me.

Kids, no. Anyways, the point is you end up resenting it, right? Like you end up resenting the food that you've made and everyone's telling you how much they loved it and you're covered in sweat. Your eyes are burning. Do you remember the last lasagna that I made, Nicole? That you made? Because I brought in a lot because it. Oh and you're covered in sweat. Your eyes are burning. Do you remember the last lasagna that I made, Nicole? That you made? Because I brought in a lot because

I didn't have the right pan. I wanted to do one of those it's when you slice it, you see all the layers, you tip it over, you serve it on its side. I was trying to do like the hundred layer lasagna thing just for fun. I like taking up time. Right, right, right. And I wanted to make it modeled after moussaka.

So I had eight whole roasted eggplants layered in there oh my god I had 22 layers of saffron fresh pasta sheets that I rolled out my fiance was out of town Dan and this is how I party I'm up till 1 in the morning layering this the bechamel all that

I wanted to get the what are they called like the 8th hotel pans that are very long but tall I only had double that so I had to get the, what are they called? Like the eighth hotel pans that are very, very long, but tall. I only had double that. So I had to fill the whole thing to get the shape that I wanted to end up being like 16 and a half pounds. And I brought it in and served it to everybody at work. My point is a proper lasagna should be like a wedding cake.

It is a thing that you have like, you know, once, I say once every five years, I hope I don't get divorced. But you know what i mean like right it takes a lot of effort but it could be worth it in the end or just yeah don't make it make big ziti yeah but i think i think you made a great point josh you're right that um sometimes when you put a ton of work into something it's hard to enjoy it because you're just like you're also like when you're in the kitchen cooking that long you end up nibbling on ingredients you don't really realize that you're doing it and that also will kind of dull your appetite so you're in the kitchen cooking that long, you end up nibbling on ingredients. You don't really realize that you're doing it. And that also will kind of dull your appetite. So you're

not at like prime appetite at the moment of eating. And that also can, um, lessen the enjoyment. I got 1200 pounds of Mott's in my system. I don't need pasta at this point. All right. We got another, another opinion from at Excelsior's angel hair pasta is a disgrace. Just mushy as hell. No bite, no dish is made better by the addition of angel hair pasta is a disgrace just mushy as hell no bite no dish is made better by the addition of angel hair pasta I mean did I send these in I feel like all these people are speaking my language I I agree angel hair everyone's always like oh you just have to cook it right I mean like the window of cooking angel hair right is like 0.3 seconds uh it it's always mushy it all it smushes together into a ball.

It's just, yeah, you know, it ends up kind of slimy. It's just, yeah, it's not a good shape. My dad loves angel hair, and that's because he's old. I feel like nowadays the kids don't want it. Why are you laughing? That's so true. Yeah, I feel like- Our parents grew up with

angel hair being fancy yeah it had a big it had a big moment in the 80s and 90s they say it's coming back but i'm really trying to prevent that from happening yeah something about like angel hair capellini all these like super thin tiny pastas just doesn't do it for me um does it for my dad though shout out to morris he also heby's I love Arby's my dad loves Arby's I love Arby's I would take Arby's over Angel Hair my dad is a man

dad loves drinking tea I love your dad's tea you know me and Morris have a lot in common I just can't I think I had a bit of a breakthrough because I've been the same way

with Angel Hair right I ate it growing up because my dad was like this is fancy dumped the jar of ragu on the Angel Hair but recently I made my fiance and I couldn't decide between making what was it like was like, this is fancy. So true. Dumped the jar of ragu on the angel hair. But recently I made,

my fiance and I couldn't decide between making what was like Avgolemono or making ramen. So we decided to fuse them. Okay, you should use the mythical kitchen as your like mad scientist place and your home should just be like chill. No, because I don't cook in the kitchen anymore.

My job is to like answer emails and to answer emails and talk to people. And so I crave these weird cooking projects. Avgolamino ramen, it is not the move. It makes both dishes worse. But I used angel hair because I was like, well, this is like a Western soup and just a wheat-based pasta. Using angel hair as a soup noodle a la ramen and then eating it with chopsticks, pretty damn good if we're being honest. Okay.

And again, it's, you know, I think the only difference in ingredients between a ramen noodle and like an angel hair would be sodium bicarbonate, I believe. For the chew? For the chew. Okay. But, you know, that was my most pleasant angel hair eating experience I've had in a long time, but still no need for it. All right.

Let's see what we got here. Allison Burke says, I hate pasta with big holes. ZD Rigatoni, big hole equals big no. It's too slippery in my mouth and creates a double noodle layer that I don't need. Small holes like elbows or cavatappi are perfect. All right. How much time do i have to respond to this uh like i'm gonna give you one minute i'm gonna give you one all right talk now i i i uh i resent her lumping together ziti and rigatoni okay when you have pasta with a tube

there's big tubes medium tubes and little tubes when you have a big tube like a rigatoni when you bite into it, it goes flat, and you essentially have a double layer of pasta, which is very tooth-sinkable. When you have a very, very narrow tube like a bucatini, when you bite into it, because the tube is so narrow, it has a lot of structural strength, and it will spring back against bite force. So that's fantastic in the sense that it is springy. Rigatoni, fantastic in the sense that it is chewy.

Ziti and penne, the medium-sized tubes, those are the ones that suck because they're not big enough to go flat into two layers and they're not small enough to spring back against bite force. All they're really good enough to do is to spring off your fork as you attempt to get them into your mouth. And so I think big tubes or small tubes are great. Medium tubes suck. I think you used your whole minute. I rest my case. I haven't seen a single thing to add. How do we follow? I might have spent just a little time thinking about this.

I love rigatoni. Rigatoni is the best pasta shape of all time. I think rigatoni is the best of the sort of the, you know, the five or 10 supermarket basic shapes that you can get in basically any store in America. Rigatoni would be my go-to. I have, do you have your favorite, like, obscure pasta shape that you love? Like one of those, one of the weird ones that you see on a menu. Can I get it from a store?

No, like only you go to a restaurant. Is it called the caramel? Oh, the caramele? Caramele is probably my favorite because it looks like a little snack. I don't know that one. I'm going to Google that now. It goes by another name. Agnolotti?

No, no. It's a filled pasta. It looks like a little rolled caramel. Oh, it looks almost like a garganelli maybe. A caramele. I see. There's another name for it. We, Jules and I, made it the other day, and it was, she

rolled the pasta, and you did great. You did so good. Baby, the pastas look perfect. Do you have a favorite, like, obscure pasta shape that people wouldn't know? I mean, this caramelli looks good. I like shapes that are in that similar vein. I love

casarecce, which is sort of like if you imagine, like, a flat square of pasta and then you start to like roll it up like you're rolling a joint, but then you roll it halfway back the other direction. And then it kind of twists. And it's one of the few mass produced shapes where not every piece in the package is identical. And so I like that variety. Strozopreti, which means the priest strangler, is very similar to casareche. And I love both of those shapes. They have nooks and crannies.

People always want to talk about tubes for holding sauce, but tubes don't hold sauce all that well. I think that nooks and crannies and twists and turns tend to hold sauce more effectively than tubes. Interesting. Mandili di seta is one of my—they call it like handkerchief pasta. It's just rough, torn. That's almost like we talked about the torn lasagna sheets. Yeah. But there was only like one restaurant in LA.

Yeah, the factory? It's just called pasta. No, not the, oh, the old spaghetti factory. No, no, the green handkerchief pasta. Yeah, it was covered in a pesto. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm looking at this. I haven't heard of this shit. It almost looks like, right, like, is it like lasagna but cut into squares without the ruffles?

It's not even cut, though. Just torn willy-nilly in the hands of a grandma slash, you know, a culinary school grad in the back of that kitchen tossing it in the water. But I love that. I love how it just coats the mouth. And also it reminds me of my favorite Vietnamese dish, banh cuon. And I think that's what I'm really after is I just love banh cuon. I think you just love Vietnamese food a lot. I love Vietnamese food.

All right, we got one more opinion. Cooking pasta like rice with the water barely covering it is goaded. The water boils quicker, the starch is more concentrated, leading to better adhered sauces. You don't need six cups of water to boil one cup of macaroni.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably true that we sometimes put more water than we need to. In my cookbook, I want to have standardized measurements. So I just told everyone for every pasta, for a pound of pasta, four quarts of water, two tablespoons of kosher salt, because that's just like easy measurements. But I think it's true. As long as it coats it well, it's fine. That being said said a lot of recipes do call for adding pasta water and if you use so little water then it may be a struggle if you need to get like a cup and a half or two cups of pasta water out once it's all cooked that could be a struggle that's a good

point there's totally there's a recipe going around on the internet's pasta a la sassina oh yeah the torched pasta at the bottom but you get oh this is in my cookbook spaghetti a la Sassina? Oh, yeah, the torched pasta at the bottom. This is in my cookbook, Spaghetti alla Sassina. This is one of the dishes that I went to Italy to research. So cool. I went to the restaurant where it was invented. That's cool. That's a really unique actual cooking technique on it, right? Yeah, so basically they take spaghetti, they put it in a spicy tomato sauce,

and you cook it down and cook it down until the sauce turns to a spicy tomato paste, and you keep frying it in the pan until it turns charred and crispy, crunchy. It is fantastic. I mean, I'm a big texture eater. So the fact that it's crispy and crunchy, or as the Italians would say, croccante, crunchy, is really special. And they only make it in the city of Bari. And I went and I interviewed this 80-year-old chef who was one of the inventors of it and it was super cool awesome god that's incredible we gotta go to Italy when are we gonna do our live laugh love trip to Italy together I don't know

I'm down whenever you never want to take vacation you're you just say you know what it is you need to take vacations with your fiance like three more times and then we can go on a trip that's a good point that's a good point I want to talk about pasta water real quick. I love pasta water. Well, here's the thing.

I think it's a scam. I hate it. I don't think we should even talk about it anymore. Because here's the thing that I found out. Do you remember when we made cacio e pepe? And I went in and I was like, I'm not going to practice this, but I believe that it'll work with my new technique involving a protein shaker. Oh, you should tell them about your new technique.

So cacio e pepe, I had tried to make it several times before using the pasta water to emulsify yada yada. But I started to think that the starchiness of your pasta water is so dependent on too many variables that how could you possibly adjust for that? And I surmise that all you're really after is starch and water. So I'm going to put some flour and some water and create a slurry. And I am going to finish my pasta in a floury water slurry that I shook in a protein shaker. And then I'm going to use the latent heat from that flour slurry, plus the particulate emulsifiers from the flour and use that to melt the cheese. And it was a perfectly emulsified, creamy cacio e pepe. It sure was. And right, the proof is in the pudding. Italians were really mad about that on the internet.

But they're like, the flour's raw. I'm like, you watched me boil this. What are we mad about that on the internet. They're like, the flour's raw. I'm like, you watched me boil this. What are we talking about? Is there any merit to that? Tell me I'm good. I think everything you're saying makes sense to me. I think that pasta water also has a nice flavor to it. It does have flavor from the pasta.

But in terms of the science of the emulsification and the thickening and the starch, I agree that there's more than one way to get that end result. There's a pasta water candle I really want from DS Endurga. Get the heck out of here. Yeah, it smells like pasta water. That's genius. I need that. I want that too now.

Do we have time for one more? No. Oh, we're supposed to wrap? We're done. Oh, do you hold up the sign? Yes. Oh, because it's on the screen, but Dan's face is on the screen. I'm learning so good. I told Jamie that you do not look at the little clipboard. Jamie, I'm so sorry. I don't look at the little clipboard.

That's okay. I look at it and I do this. I give her a harsh blink to know that I have received that information. All right, and then we're going to get one clean in. Dan, that's so interesting. Thank you all for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We got new audio-only episodes every Wednesday and a video version here on YouTube every Sunday.

If you want to be featured on Opinions or like Casseroles, hit us up at 833-DOG-POD1. Our number again is 833-DOG-POD1. And of course, make sure to check out Dan's brand new cookbook, Anything's Possible, 81 Inventive Pasta Recipes for Saucy People. That's us. And you can see Dan and a special guest on his tour March 15th through May 2nd.

More info at sporkful.com slash tour. Dan Responds is written in the script. Dan, thank you so much. It's been a long day, dude. Tell the people where they can find you. Well, you can find the Sporkful podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Anything's Possible, the book, wherever you get books.

You can find my pasta cascatelli in some stores around the country, or you can order it online at sfoglini.com. That's S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I dot com. Dan sure did respond. The script was right. I told you. There you go.

For real, Dan, I've been a huge fan of the Sporkful for a long time. I mean, you've been podcasting for 13, 14 years at this point? Yeah, since 2010. But honestly, man, you do incredible work over there, tell incredible stories, have incredible guests on. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here. No, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much. And I look forward to having you guys on the Spork Bowl one of these days soon.

Hell yeah, we'll be around.