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Fennel and Potato Cappelletti | Cappelletti di Finocchio e Patate

Fennel and Potato Cappelletti | Cappelletti di Finocchio e Patate

I’m not going to say that we ran out of fresh ingredients due to poorly-timed lockdown grocery deliveries, but if that had hypothetically happened, this would have been the perfect pasta solution. This week’s cappelletti is made with a fennel seed dough, and a simple, comforting filling of roasted potato and fennel. We served them up with crispy potato skins, a delicious agrumato, and a scattering of crushed pink peppercorns. Sometimes it takes a pantry emergency to remind you that the simple food is often the best!

Smoked Rye Tonnarelli Carbonara

Smoked Rye Tonnarelli Carbonara

We’ve been making all kinds of creative pasta lately, with unusual ingredient lists, playful dough colourings, and fiddly shapes. Well, this week we’re going back to basics, and cooking up a crowd-pleasing carbonara. To add a little Pasta et Al spin, we’ve made our tonnarelli with half rye flour, and smoked it briefly before tossing it through the sauce. It’s a creamy, cheesy, smoky smile-bringer.

Cassava Leaf and Rendang Fagottini Potstickers with Terong Balado and Sambal Ijo

Cassava Leaf and Rendang Fagottini Potstickers with Terong Balado and Sambal Ijo

Selamat pagi para pemasak dan para pecinta makanan! This week we’ve crafted something extra special and delightfully different, a fusion of cuisines that is particularly close to my heart. And is quite possibly one of the tastiest things that I’ve ever cooked! My roots might be in Italy, and my home in Australia, but Indonesia is where I really grew into myself. So I’m very excited to present our latest creation: fagottini made with cassava leaf dough and cooked as potstickers, filled with slow-cooked beef rendang, and served with green sambal, chilli eggplant, and toasted coconut.

Rigatoni with Veal and Eggplant Meatballs in Tomato Sauce | Rigatoni al Pomodoro con Polpetti di Vitello e Melanzane

Rigatoni with Veal and Eggplant Meatballs in Tomato Sauce | Rigatoni al Pomodoro con Polpetti di Vitello e Melanzane

Ah, rigatoni. For all of the incredible shapes and fillings out there, all of the carefully handcrafted pasta that we obsess over, there’s just something indescribably special about these chewy, ridged, extruded tubes. Even as a kid, I remember secretly hanging out for the dried supermarket rigatoni, despite always having a freezer full of fresh pasta. A big bowl of rigatoni with thick tomato sauce and a huge mound of grated cheese can fix just about anything.

Saltbush and Squid Ink Tagliolini with Crab and Finger Lime

Saltbush and Squid Ink Tagliolini with Crab and Finger Lime

Back before parenthood and pandemic, when we were able to fly around the world, or jump in the car on a whim and just drive, I’d get to the ocean as often as I could. For a while there I was diving almost every weekend, and became quicker at jumping into a wetsuit and slinging on a tank than pulling on my socks and shoes.

Dark Rye Fileja with Onions

Dark Rye Fileja with Onions

It’s time to go back to basics, and it doesn’t get much simpler than flour, water, and onions. This week we’re tapping into our roots with the perfectly imperfect Calabrese fileja. Although we make all kinds of pasta these days, and tend to use egg doughs more often than not, a lot of the pasta that we made and ate growing up was just flour and water. In fact, most of the food that we enjoyed was really cucina povera, imported to Australia relatively unchanged from how it was cooked by generations before us back in Italy. For me, something about that connection always makes these dishes a little special.

90s Print Triangoli with Ricotta and Saltbush

90s Print Triangoli with Ricotta and Saltbush

Some Sundays I wake up and know exactly what type of pasta I want to make. Other times it takes a strong coffee and a rummage through the fridge. This weekend though my inspiration had run dry. Life’s been busy and days have been long. I’ve just been trying to get up that great big hill of hope for a destination. It’s time for a little healing nostalgia. This week we’re serving up 90s print triangoli.

Capunti with Broccoli and Black Beans

Capunti with Broccoli and Black Beans

Pasta that looks like beans! This week’s capunti are made with a classic flour and water dough; no pasta sheets, no filling, just hand-shaped pods of goodness. You might remember that way back we made casarecce and pici with similar doughs. Like them, the lack of egg in our capunti makes for a creamy, smooth texture. Poke a few little hollows in the middle to catch the sauce, and you’ve got a simple and tasty little pasta.

Beef and Beetroot Cappelletti with White Beans and Roasted Vegetables

Beef and Beetroot Cappelletti with White Beans and Roasted Vegetables

We’re finally, reluctantly, ready to accept that the temperature’s cooling down for another year. At least where we are. And that means it’s time for some seasonal pasta. This week we’ve got beetroot-striped beef-filled cappelletti sitting on top of a thick white bean and roasted garlic purée, with some cute roasted baby root vegetables to accompany them. It’s roast-themed pasta! And it’s actually, seriously, delicious.

Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Capsicum and Homemade Tuna in Oil | Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Tonno e Peperoni Rossi

Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Capsicum and Homemade Tuna in Oil | Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Tonno e Peperoni Rossi

This week we’re bringing you a family classic, a simple and delicious dish that was on regular rotation when I was a kid. Tuna and capsicum pasta can be as straightforward as a couple of capsicums, a tin of tuna, and some dried pasta. Despite this simplicity, or perhaps because of it, it makes for an unexpectedly satisfying meal and a perfect option for a quick dinner.


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Fennel and Potato Cappelletti | Cappelletti di Finocchio e Patate
Smoked Rye Tonnarelli Carbonara
Cassava Leaf and Rendang Fagottini Potstickers with Terong Balado and Sambal Ijo
Rigatoni with Veal and Eggplant Meatballs in Tomato Sauce | Rigatoni al Pomodoro con Polpetti di Vitello e Melanzane
Saltbush and Squid Ink Tagliolini with Crab and Finger Lime
Dark Rye Fileja with Onions
90s Print Triangoli with Ricotta and Saltbush
Capunti with Broccoli and Black Beans
Beef and Beetroot Cappelletti with White Beans and Roasted Vegetables
Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Capsicum and Homemade Tuna in Oil | Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Tonno e Peperoni Rossi
Pasta et Al - The Pasta Drawer
Although we have a huge variety of pasta shapes on rotation, malloreddus has always been one of little Al's top two 🏆 

These are made with dark rye and wholemeal spelt flours (and warm water), rolled into thin ropes, cut into short lengths, and formed with a bench scraper against a gnocchi board. 

PS. We normally start with a ratio of very roughly 1:1.6 water to flour (ie. to serve four, 360 g flour to 220 ml water), but some flours are thirstier than others, so be prepared to add more water or flour as you go. You want your pasta ropes just moist enough to grip the board without sticking 👌 

#pastaetal #malloreddus #gnochettisardi #freshpasta #homemadepasta #howtomakepasta #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca
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✖️Tomato Day 2025!✖️ 

Exported from Calabria in the 50s, alive in Perth seven decades later 💪🍅 

And basically the main reason we bought a house with excessive expanses of concrete. 

#pastaetal #tomatoday #passata #tomatosauce #homemadetomatosauce #salsa #pastasauce #fcba #agfg #cookgoodfoodau #italymagazine #f52grams #f52home #buzzfeast #makeitdelicious #foodblogfeed #chowhound #calabriafood #eatcalabrisi #littlehands #kidscook #kidsinthekitchen #littlechef @sbsfood @love_food @foodblogfeed
Every family seems to do Tomato Day differently, and we'd probably all say the sauce tasted wrong made any other way. But for us... 

Tomatoes are sorted and washed, then cored, before being layered in salt. This is normally done in a draining crate, with tomatoes wrung out in clean sheets to remove as much water as possible. This is probably the most time-consuming part of the whole day, and starts before sunrise with a pot of strong coffee!

From there, we start passing them through the machine, which produces a strained juice and a whole heap of pulp. That pulp goes through 1-2 more times to extract every last bit of goodness. 

While that's happening, all bottles are cleaned and dried in the oven to sterilise them (this year this was actually done in advance, sealing the tops until Tomato Day), and a couple of fresh basil leaves are dropped into each. 

Then it's all bottled and loaded into giant pots over giant gas burners (replacing the old 44 gallon drums over wood fires), with hessian sacks and towels packed in to stop them rattling against each other. 

Once at the boil, they stay on the heat for around three hours, then are left to cool in their pots overnight. And then, in the morning, tomatoey glory! 

Who else is still doing Tomato Day?

PS. You can get all of that as a proper recipe on our blog now (link in bio) 🍅

#pastaetal #tomatoday #passata #tomatosauce #homemadetomatosauce #salsa #australiantomatoes #traditionalfood #pastafresca #littlehands #kidscook #kidsinthekitchen #littlechef
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It's not really about the tomatoes ❤️

A little recap of Tomato Day 2025 is up on our blog now. Link in bio 🍅

#pastaetal #tomatoday #passata #tomatosauce #homemadetomatosauce #salsa #australiantomatoes #traditionalfood #pastafresca #littlehands #kidscook #kidsinthekitchen #littlechef
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Tomato Day 2025 🍅

After a week spent tidying the garage and hosing down the concrete, we've smashed out another year's worth of tomatoey goodness. And here are some pics!

Left to right: kicking off just before sunrise; coring tomatoes on the old milk crates; our esteemed triumvirate supervising us over morning tea; the boys in charge of the machine; bottling the passata; the operation in full swing.

Shout out to @napoli_mercato for the pomodori 🙏

You can read more on our blog (including the recipe)! Link in bio ❤️

#pastaetal #tomatoday #passata #tomatosauce #homemadetomatosauce #salsa #australiantomatoes #traditionalfood #pastafresca #littlehands #kidscook #kidsinthekitchen #littlechef
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Tomorrow must be Tomato Day 🕺🪩🍅

#pastaetal #ravioli #spinachpasta #greenpasta #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #acquafarinamarcato #agfg #cookgoodfoodau #feedfeed #f52home #buzzfeast #makeitdelicious #foodblogfeed #chowhound #bbcgoodfood #forksnroses #foodartblog #chefsalert #foodstarz
Little throwback to these cocoa-spiralled fagottini, filled with smooth ricotta and roasted walnut paste ꩜
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#pastaetal #fagottini #spiralpasta #freshpasta #acquafarinamarcato #pastafresca #pastafattaincasa #pastafattaamano #cocoapasta
These tasty, fluffy, grain-free and dairy-free gnocchi are yours for the making. Recipe link in bio 🍝

#pastaetal #grainfree #grainfreepasta #dairyfree #dairyfreepasta #glutenfreepasta #glutenfree #gf #gnocchi #pastaia #pastaio #pesto #broccolipesto
The bits and pieces from our grain-free and dairy-free gnocchi: broccoli pesto, and fried breadcrumbs 🥦

For the pesto (serving 4), simply blend up 1 large head of blanched broccoli, 1 large handful of basil, 40 g of pine nuts, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 big tbsp of nutritional yeast, 1 tbsp of pumpkin seeds, the juice of half a lemon, and 200 ml of extra virgin olive oil, seasoned to taste 👌

And the breadcrumbs (grain-free 'breadcrumbs') are just gently fried, then mixed through chopped parsley and crushed pink peppercorns.

Full recipe up on our blog (link in bio)!

#pastaetal #grainfree #grainfreepasta #pesto #broccolipesto #broccoli #dairyfree #dairyfreepasta #glutenfreepasta #glutenfree #gf #gnocchi #pastaia #pastaio
Our littlest pastaio busting out some of this week's gnocchi 😍 

#pastaetal #grainfree #grainfreepasta #dairyfree #dairyfreepasta #glutenfreepasta #glutenfree #gf #howtomakepasta #pastashapes #gnocchi #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca
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✖️Grain-Free & Dairy-Free Pan-Fried Gnocchi with Broccoli Pesto✖️ 

The past few years have been a wild family ride through chronic health issues, and we’re still just doing what we can to hang in there. Although I’m the main culprit behind our current dietary requirements, pasta night has evolved by necessity to include three different pasta doughs and at least two sauces (an every-burner-on-the-stove kind of situation). 

We’ve had great success adapting everything to GF (as you would have noticed in recent posts), and dairy-free is not too hard either (choking back your tears at not being able to drink grated pecorino straight from the bag when no one’s looking), but grain-free is a little trickier… 

So we’ve made things easier for ourselves by adding gnocchi to the menu! As long as nightshades (or things that grow underground if you’re staring down mould-free/low-amylose diets) are not causing you any problems, potato is your friend. This recipe does include nuts, for the flavour more than anything else, but you can easily substitute it with more of the other dry ingredients. 

These gnocchi use a mix of potato, almond flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, egg, nutritional yeast, and xanthan gum (with the usual oil, salt, nutmeg). They’re not too heavy, have a nice chewiness to them, and fry up perfectly. Served with a simple broccoli pesto and grain-free breadcrumbs 👌 

I do want to stress that I’m not recommending any particular diet, just providing options. For me, it’s been a long adventure through countless doctors’ offices, hospitals, pathology labs, etc that’s brought me to this point. I think we’ve all come far enough now to know that GF is not a fad or tied to any one diagnosis, allergies are diverse and debilitating, and the only way that we should ever receive anyone’s ‘unusual’ food order is with compassion. I hope that these kinds of recipes make life a little easier or more interesting for someone out there, and are just as delicious for everyone else! 

You can find the link to the full recipe in our bio 🍝 

#pastaetal #grainfree #grainfreepasta #dairyfree #dairyfreepasta #glutenfreepasta #glutenfree #gf #gnocchi #pastaia #pastaio
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Cheeky batch of capps 👀

To make these guys, start with a zig-zag edged square of around 6-8cm, drop a dollop of filling into the middle, and then fold in half to form a triangle. Poke the inner edge of the filling to create a dimple, and then bring the outer corners of the triangle around to slightly overlap. Pinch the overlap to seal in place 👌

#pastaetal #pastatutorials #pastashapes #cappellacci #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #acquafarinamarcato #agfg #buzzfeast #makeitdelicious
A little afternoon arrangiarsi. We had a heap of almost-finished flours in the cupboard, so this Sunday’s pasta is spaghetti made from Khorasan, spelt, two different wholemeal ryes, wholemeal baker’s, and a gluten-free mix (maize, rice, tapioca). Yes, @fortytwocakes is a baker.

We turned to our trusty KitchenAid for this one. As usual, there’s no real recipe, though it is based on the extruded pasta recipe from our book. So for four people, that’s 560 g of flour, 180 ml of water (measured on top of two whole eggs), and a teaspoon of salt. Note that with all of these wholemeal flours, we added a fair bit more water until it clumped together like buttered breadcrumbs.

I may have tried the odd piece of raw pasta, and can confirm it’s delicious. Now all packaged up and ready for lap-transport to Nonna’s, where we’ll be serving it with a carbonara sauce featuring some sneaky frozen Christmas ham leftovers… 🍝

#pastaetal #arrangiarsi #spaghetti #wholemealpasta #pastashapes #homemadepasta #pastamaking #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca
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✖️Cocoa-Striped Cappellacci✖️

A fun favourite, filled with a simple mix of cheeses and potato. Perfect in a light butter sauce 👌

#pastaetal #cappellacci #cocoapasta #stripedpasta #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #acquafarinamarcato #agfg #buzzfeast #makeitdelicious #foodblogfeed #chowhound #bbcgoodfood
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When simple is best 👌 

#pastaetal #pappardelle #reginette #longpasta #pastashapes #homemadepasta #pastamaking #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #acquafarinamarcato
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✖️Dark Rye and Rosemary Sorpresine✖️

One of our most delicious doughs yet! This was 50% dark rye flour, a blend of maize, rice, and tapioca, and finely chopped rosemary mixed throughout. Served up in a simple minestra, straight out of the book (page 103)👌

It’s tricky weather for pasta making in Perth at the moment. Due to the heat (or air-conditioning blasting away to counter the heat), pasta sheets are drying as soon as they hit the board! So it’s all a mad rush of cling wrap, tea towels, and water spritzing (these ones needed a dab of water on every square). What are you all cooking up as 2024 comes to an end?

Incidentally, we’ve had a few queries about cutters lately. This fantastic brass cutter is one of my favourite pasta tools, and (if you’re in AUS/NZ) you can pick one up in our store. They’ve been selling fast over Christmas, so get in now! Link in bio or via this post 😊🍝

#pastaetal #sorpresine #pastaia #pastaio #ryepasta #pastafresca #handmadepasta #foodblog #pastashapes #pastablog #foodblogfeed #pastacutter #pastatool
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#pastaetal #happyholidays #christmaspasta #christmas #festiveseason #buonnatale #ravioli #farfalle #garganelli #corzetti #agnolotti #cappellacci #caramelle #fagottini #funghetti #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #acquafarinamarcato #agfg #cookgoodfoodau #feedfeed #f52home #buzzfeast #makeitdelicious #foodblogfeed #forksnroses #foodartblog #chefsalert
42°C and the ravs are rolling. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas... ☀️🍝 

#pastaetal #christmaseve #christmaspasta #ravioli #spinachpasta #greenpasta #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #acquafarinamarcato #agfg #cookgoodfoodau #feedfeed #f52home #buzzfeast #makeitdelicious #foodblogfeed #chowhound #bbcgoodfood #forksnroses #foodartblog #chefsalert #foodstarz
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Garganelli with our littlest pastaio 💪

This tasty dough is half light rye, with a blend of maize and tapioca starches, and rice and maize flours.

Counting down to festive pasta…

#pastaetal #garganelli #pastaia #pastaio #pastafresca #handmadepasta #foodblog #pastashapes #pastablog #foodblogfeed #howtomakepasta #ryepasta
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✖️Christmas Sale✖️

’Tis the season for pasta-making savings! For the next 5 days only, get 25% off everything in the Pasta et Al store!🎄

We’ve never had a sale as big as this, and we might not until next Christmas. So head on over via the links in this post, or in our bio, and use the code LABEFANA at checkout to save on books, cutters, moulds, and bundles!

We might be a little biased, but there’s pretty much no gift as good as pasta paraphernalia 🎁🍝

Please note that we can only ship to Australia and New Zealand, and can only guarantee delivery before Christmas for parcels shipped within Australia up until and including the 13th of December (apologies and much love to our international pals). Offer ends 12th December.

#pastaetal #christmaspasta #christmassale #pastashop #cookbook #pastafresca #pastafattaincasa #pastafattaamano #pastatools #raviolimould #pastacutter #freshpasta #pastabook
Pasta et Al Book & Pasta Cutter Bundle
Wooden Ravioli Mould
Fluted Brass Pasta Cutter
Pasta et Al: The Many Shapes Of A Family Tradition