Quick Calamari Pasta
In one of my favourite parts of Tuscany, not the cypress-studded hills of Chiantishire, but by the coast, up a steep and squiggly lane behind Porto Santo Stefano, is a restaurant called La Fontanina. And there, I ate this, or rather its inspiration: a flat bowl of calamari shaped pasta, almost indistinguishable – until that first tender bite – from the actual squid rings which, glistening with garlic-infused wine, comprised the sauce. I thought about this when I came back, but it wasn’t until, in a favourite deli (some years on from that first sampling), I stumbled across a packet of pasta called “i calamari” – in a powder-blue paper packet, made by Voiello, shape no. 142 – that I determined to make it myself. It’s silly really, as the heavenly taste doesn’t rely on the culinary pun, but the delight we get from food is complex. I have since found an online source for the calamariform pasta but the more universally stocked De Cecco range does have a mezzi rigatoni shape that would stand in respectably; and, of course, you are free to use any pasta shape – I sometimes feel a counter-intuitive pull towards fusilli. For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.
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