What kind of cheese do you like to put on your pasta ?

What kind of cheese do you like to put on your pasta ?


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Beyond individual taste, much depends on the type of recipe and how much you want to be faithful to traditions. In my home, for recipes with puff pastry, tagliatelle, cappelletti or passatelli in broth and obviously for risottos, Parmesan (or Grana Padano in second choice) is a must.
For other recipes, however, Parmesan or Grana may not be suitable (or not sufficient on their own). For example, the "pizzoccheri" of Valtellina, which are a specialty from northern Lombardy (boiled buckwheat scraps, then cooked and seasoned with garlic, butter, cabbage and potatoes) require a creaming with Parmesan cheese but mostly from Casera, a semi-fat cheese typical of the valley, semi-cooked and semi-hard, of cow's milk. (It is also used for the "sciatt" dough, precisely small balls of Casera cheese battered with 00 flour and again with buckwheat, then fried in a pan.)
If you cross the northern Apennines, as you go through central Italy, especially in the interior of Tuscany, Marche, Umbria and Lazio, Grana and Parmigiano progressively give way to Pecorino cheese (of which there are a thousand variations, more or less seasoned, more or less tasty and spicy) which is actually required to cook decently pasta recipes like Carbonara, Gricia, Amatriciana.
There are also first courses that may require less obvious combinations, but very successful. The so-called "smoke and champagne" risotto was conceived probably about 50 years ago in Milan by chef Pino Capogna and was made known to the public by Ugo Tognazzi in his famous book. It combines northern and southern culinary traditions: in fact it's a parmesan risotto, simmered with champagne (or more modest sparkling wine / brut), in whose creaming, in addition to the Parmesan cheese, there must be some diced smoked Provola, a small milk cheese vaccine, of spun paste exposed to the smoke of straw, which is a dairy specialty originating from Campania :)

That's a great explanation so that people understand that Italian cooking is not about just one cheese.

As I said above, probably partly because the Lunigiana is suspended between Emilia and Toscana, for things like fillings for pasta or stuffed veal breast, even stuffed mushrooms, my mother always mixed Parmigiano and our own Pecorino. I do think it also had to do with her sense of taste, as she thought it just tasted better, as do I. On the pasta itself, though, it was always grated Parmigiano.

I'm also one of those people who love recipes like Carbonara, Gricia and Amatriciana, and I think they'd be spoiled if you didn't use Pecorino. Also, one of my favorites is cacio e pepe...such a deceptively simple recipe but so difficult to do correctly...absolutely no cream, yet look how creamy and silky.

cacio-e-pepe-4.jpg


Maybe you have to grow up with more strongly flavored cheeses to appreciate them. I've heard Americans call some French and Italian cheeses "stinky", or Pecorino "funky". I call them delicious. :)
 
I am definitely not a refined person. I just crudely crumble high quality feta cheese in the pasta, good enough.

I am glad though people are trashing America. The food is horrendous here, an embarrassment for a global power. All ingredients are junk quality.
 
How do you grate mozzarella on pasta ??
As an Italian i find this quite weird as our mozzarella are creamy you can't grate it.
Also Italians just put grated pecorino or parmesan on pasta, other cheeses don't make sense for us. We also use sliced parmesan just for carpaccio, bresaola or some salads.
 
for me, the best two in italian cheeses ( but, I like many types )

Fontina and Montasio cheese
 
How do you grate mozzarella on pasta ??
As an Italian i find this quite weird as our mozzarella are creamy you can't grate it.
Also Italians just put grated pecorino or parmesan on pasta, other cheeses don't make sense for us. We also use sliced parmesan just for carpaccio, bresaola or some salads.

Fairly certain that the user who grates mozzarella is a bot.
 
I am not in favor of grating too much Parmigiano Reggiano on the pasta. Just a tiny bit so it does not overwhelm the pasta. My favorite Italian cheeses are a medium Pecorino and Fontina. Combine them with olives and pepperoncini, some prosciutto, crusty bread and a glass or two of white Italian wine and I am in heaven.
 
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i never grate grano pardano on any seafood pasta or risotto

I only grate grano pardano on pasta dishes with sugo and rarely ever on pasta dishes with ragu
 
I've tried pasta with different types of cheese, but parmesan is the best. It's my fav one actually
 

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