Ethan Stowell’s New Noodle Company
Fresh pastas in shapes like casarecce and campanelle will be sold food specialty stores, all from hi
By Alicia Arter December 23, 2009
Although I make my own fresh pasta mounds for a total cost of about a buck, in January I’ll be the first in line to buy Ethan Stowell’s fresh noodles, from his new company Lagana Foods, created with his food associate Kaela Farrington. My flat noodles are easy to do with my old hand-cranked pasta machine, but shaped, extruded noodles are another beast entirely. I don’t have an extruder or the the pasta dies and I don’t have the know-how. Those harder-to-make-at-home noodles are the ones that Stowell will start selling soon and DeLaurenti’s in the Pike Place Market has already signed up to carry them.
The pastas are made with semolina flour and water and without eggs (yay for vegans and ovo-allergistas), and he will make and deliver them to order as requests come in from stores and restaurants. Nobody wants shelf-weary strozzapreti.
His pasta has been a draw at his restaurants (Union, Tavolata, How to Cook a Wolf and Anchovies & Olives) and I’ve never been quite able to duplicate his recipes at home. Now these $5-$6/pound fresh extruded beauties will be yours, mine, and ours. Here’s a starter list of pastas to come in late January 2010:
- Rigatoni – good old tube pasta
- Campanelle – shaped like calla lily with ruffled edges
- Casarecce – has an S or scroll shape
- Conchiglie – shaped like a conch shell
- Gnocchetti – it has ridges and a curved shell shape
- Lumache – shaped like a small snail shell
- Radiatore – looks like little radiators
- Rigatoni – a wide, ridged tube
- Strozzapreti – shaped like a rolled towel