Mine is orzo. It’s slippery and it should grow a spine and be either pasta or rice but not both.
Conchiglioni/Conchiglie, the ones roughly formed like a mussel. They tend to stick inside each other during cooking.
Spaghetti are sadly not rough enough for the sauces to stick to them.
Shells may be my least favorite too.
About spaghetti: not all pasta is made for every sauce, spaghetti are good for some, bronze cut even betterI know, but for that I can also simply use rough Linguine, or produce my own Spaghetti.
I’d have to say shells, particularly the “shells & cheese” size. I always have quite a few shells stick together and end up undercooked, and I don’t really encounter that challenge with other shapes.
I actually like orzo a lot, but I’ve always had it in dishes where it behaves like (and is possibly mixed with) rice. I think it adds a nice (creamy?) balance to some other carby things, such as a veggies. Trader Joe’s sells one that really like that has orzo mixed with spinach, sundried tomatoes, and feta(?) cheese.
i use shells a lot, even for bowls of just pasta and sauce (vs a plate of sauce over spaghetti noodles). it’s just easier to scoop 'em up with a spoon.
use plenty of water and stir the pot frequently. i only have a problem with them sticking together while cooking if i neglect to do those two things.
they’re great in pasta salads or mac & cheese when you’re using peas in whatever you’re making. some of the peas work themselves into the shells. it’s like they were made for each other.
Angel hair. Undercooked, undercooked, overcooked.
angel hair (Capelli D’Angelo) is fresh pasta to be had with a broth, so it shouldn’t may too much possible to have it undercooked or matter too much if it’s slightly overcooked.
I’m ashamed (as an Italian) to discover only now thanks to this post that “orzo” can be a pasta format and not just another cereal (it also means “barley”). I always heard the term “risoni” for it but “orzo” apparently is used as well. And I agree, it sucks.
In case you did not know there is a cylindric variant too called “tempestina” which is even more awful (mainly used for soups, or for small children). It’s uncommon to see grown adults eat them but, unfortunately, they exist.
But… the Convenient Format!
I’ve known the latter as just “pastina” and I agree with it being the worst.
I did not know this!
If it puts your mind at rest, I’ve only just heard about it now.
Bucatini, they are so needlessly hard to pick up for almost no gain over Spaghetti. Same for some Linguine that want to untwist from your fork and try to splatter you with sauce.
Buccatini. Still good, but its basically spaghetti with a weirder texture.
I don’t think I care about shape, as long as it’s made from durum wheat. Now, we have a lot of pasta here that’s made from regular baking flour, it’s still very common in EE countries, and it’s damn cheap. You must boil it for 40 seconds and not a second more, or it instantly clumps all together and turns into a wallpaper glue.
Oh that is NASTY.
My SO made gnocchi with whole wheat flour once and it was so very wrong.
Gnocchi is an abomination.
My spouse made whole wheat flour gnocchi once. Absolutely horrible.
How dare you?!? lol but have you tried garbanzo gnocchi?
ITT: people who apparently struggle to eat pasta
Large shells and tubes. It feels like noodles were not meant to be that big, like it’s unnatural. They always look so wet, and then it reminds me that all noodles are wet, but are at a proper size so you can ignore it.
Hah, you made me think of manicotti, which I loved as a kid (cheese tubes!) but can’t even stomach the idea of now.
Hilbert curve, it doesn’t leave any space for the sauce
Any made with super processed flour that extrudes poorly out the human. The textures and flavors of a whole grain pasta are far more versatile and a whole world most seem to never explore. A sprouted grain can hold sauce while adding complexity and texture instead of eating a blank canvas. The additional natural fiber will take longer to digest leaving you sated for far longer and feeling that much better in the days to come.
Any kind small enough to be inconvenient to eat with a fork.
Tagliatelle, and all thick noodles, bleurgh
I love orzo how dare youHonestly I’m a huge pasta lover so it’s difficult for me to say. Probably farfalle whenever I eat it raw. The middle parts are always a pain to eat because of the shape.
