A basic aglio e olio (garlic and oil) sauce – with a bit of chilli if preferred – is cooked in a huge pan, before lots of clams are added and sautéed until they open and flavour the sauce. Made in the same way as spaghetti con le vongole, using the sweet orange pulp (basically, the roe) of sea urchins, this dish is most popular in Puglia. Another unmissable Roman classic: in this case, egg yolk (some also use a small quantity of egg white) is the main ingredient, together with the ‘usual’ guanciale (some prefer bacon) and Pecorino cheese, sometimes mixed with Parmesan. Once again, ‘simple’ does not mean ‘easy’; the aim is to obtain a delicious and creamy sauce by skilfully mixing the grated cheese (and ground pepper) with the hot, drained pasta, stirring until it perfectly melts. Absolutely no cream or milk is added, according to the original recipe. The result should be a creamy, smooth and rich yellow sauce with the pork lending a nice crispy texture. One of the most typical pasta dishes from Bologna is called tortellini in brodo, referring to tiny parcels of meat-filled pasta served in a golden capon broth, sometimes with the addition of grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Amatriciana sauce can go both with long (spaghetti or the thicker bucatini, with a hole – buco – running through the centre) and short pasta, namely rigatoni (ridged pasta can better hold the sauce). The rich, onion-based sauce is slowly-cooked for hours, together with minced carrots and celery, chunks of meat and pieces of lard. Torchio. Both types of pasta look like flattened spaghetti and are a similar width, but tagliatelle will be a little thicker of a bite. Vermicelli Some use cream but it completely spoils the flavour of the urchins. Each pasta has its own unique purpose. Carbonara is usually made with spaghetti, rigatoni or penne, and its origins are uncertain: the name could refer to the Carbonari (‘charcoal men’, also the name of a secret society), but according to a popular opinion it could have been invented in Rome in 1944 by US soldiers with a craving for their beloved eggs and bacon breakfast after the allied liberation of the city. If you ask an Italian chef which single recipe is best at evaluating a cook's skills, they will tell you spaghetti al pomodoro. Are you comfortable with the idea of eating green pasta? If tomatoes are the staple of Naples and Southern Italian cooking, Pecorino cheese and guanciale (cured pork made from pig cheek) are the staples in Rome. Sometimes lard, milk and offal is added, too. Basically a richer version of spaghetti al pomodoro, puttanesca also includes capers, oregano and the delicious black Gaeta olives, which give the dish its unique, savoury taste. Grated Parmesan or Pecorino is often sprinkled over the pasta, and the pink sweet onions found growing in Campania are perfect for cooking this particular dish. 60. Both the name and the recipe could have actually originated in Genoa, introduced to Naples by the sailors coming from Liguria. It can also handle thick meat sauces, but it’ll do a cream or tomato sauce justice, too. Luciana Squadrilli introduces the thirteen most traditional and delicious pasta dishes found throughout Italy, including some well known classics and a few hardly heard of outside the country. For example, penne and fusilli can hold more sauces than spaghetti due to their hollow shapes. Move over penne – reinventing pasta with Italy’s best chefs, Spaghetti alla telline – spaghetti with wedge clams, From the sauce: the stories behind Italy’s famous pasta dishes. In Italian, all pasta type names are plural. Tagliolini is tagliatelle’s distance cousin. The two main versions of authentic, proper ragù, though, are from Naples and Emilia-Romagna. This is a classic ‘empty larder’ recipe, but by using a generous amount of great quality extra virgin olive oil, you can achieve a highly satisfying result. Usually short pasta or broken spaghetti is used for minestre, and while northern Italians usually eat it with more liquid, in southern Italy a thicker, creamier version is preferred, obtained by blending some of the legumes and slowly cooking the pasta with a small amount of water or broth until half-cooked and letting it rest for a short time. It is one of the most popular Roman recipes; a rich and flavourful pasta dish made with tomato sauce, small crunchy guanciale chunks and plenty of grated Pecorino cheese. Always considered (and cooked) as a course on its own and not as a basic carbohydrate to accompany meals as a side dish, pasta – served after entrées and before meat or fish courses – is yet another delicious example of typical Italian inventiveness. Starting from these two intensely tasty ingredients, a number of delicious pasta recipes were born. As the world's biggest producers and consumers – approximately twenty-five kilos per person every year, unexpectedly followed by Tunisians – Italians are probably the only people happy to eat pasta more than once every day. It’s easier said than done to get the right balance between egg yolk and white (if used), and you need to be fast when adding the egg and cheese mix to the cooked pasta when it is still very hot so the sauce will ‘cook’ without curdling. The final result is a thick, creamy sauce, where the onions have completely melted and the meat is soft and easily pulled apart. The curious name – which is an Italian word for prostitute – is said to refer to the fact that it was a popular dish in Neapolitan brothels. Some more modern recipes also include anchovies and chilli. It’s vital to add some of the pasta’s hot cooking water, which is rich in starch, to the dish to soften the cheese. Today though, there is no trace of a similar dish in Genoa, while pasta alla Genovese is a key feature of a Neapolitan Sunday lunch, when breaking the handmade ziti – long tubes of pasta resembling large macaroni which have to be cut into smaller pieces to cook and eat – is part of local tradition. The result is a creamy or grainy pale red sauce usually used with fresh egg pasta such as tagliatelle or fettuccine. This is northern Italy's response to spaghetti al pomodoro; the typical, not-too-thin egg pasta is seasoned with a rich, slowly-cooked tomato sauce (with or without meat; in the former case you would call it a ‘quick ragù’) and flavoured with a generous amount of freshly grated Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese. Once the pasta – usually spaghetti and always a long variety – is cooked and drained, it is added to the clam sauce and quickly mixed in with finely chopped parsley. Pesto sauce is usually used to season long pasta such as spaghetti or trenette (similar to spaghetti but with an elliptical instead of round shape) or with short pasta such as trofie. In fact, in some parts of Italy, cooks refer to tagliatelle as fettucine. Preparing a perfect cacio e pepe is an art only a few can truly master. A real symbol of Neapolitan cooking, ragù is the alternative to pasta alla Genovese for Sunday dinner.