Dan Pashman created a new shape of pasta, and his new cookbook expands pasta's possibilities

Food writer and podcaster Dan Pashman made the unusual step a few years ago of creating an entirely new shape of pasta. The obvious next step? Writing a cookbook to highlight it.

Pashman’s “Anything’s Pastable” features dishes using 34 different pasta shapes, but especially features his cascatelli, a graceful, ruffled-edged curved shape that resembles a quotation mark. Time magazine declared cascatelli one of 2021’s best inventions.

Pashman came up with the idea of writing a pasta cookbook after he noticed that many of cascatelli’s fans were sending him images of them eating it in very traditional ways. Maybe even boring ways.

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“A huge percentage of the photos I was getting were just tomato sauce, meat sauce, mac ‘n’ cheese. Maybe a few party animals made pesto,” he says. “It just made me a little bit sad. Those are all delicious, but there’s just so much more.”

So Pashman — a James Beard Award winner and Webby Award-winning podcaster behind The Sporkful — got to work creating mind-bending pasta dishes, from Tortellini in Kimchi Parmesan Brodo to Gnocchi with Bacon and Sauerkraut.

Classic sauces get new twists

This is not a traditional pasta sauce book by any means and Pashman even avoids making any classic marinara. Instead, there are flavors from places like India, Thailand, the Middle East, North African, Mexico, Japan and Peru.

He even makes a pizza out of fettuccine — a pasta pizza.

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“When I go to make a cookbook or make pasta, it’s not my instinct to limit myself to only the classic Italian dishes that I grew up eating. It’s also all the other things that I love to eat,” he says.

Pashman dreamed up many of the dishes — the pasta pizza came to him while he was driving — and leaned on a half dozen recipe developers to offer their takes, suggestions and refinement.

The book is a clever mix of possibilities, like Mac ‘N’ Dal, which combines lentils and pigeon peas with cumin, coriander, turmeric, yogurt and lumache pasta. Or Linguini with Miso Clam Sauce, a saucy take on a classic. Another dish adds chili crisp to cacio e pepe. Or Tangy Labne Noodle Kugel with Persimmon Relish — your grandmother may have to look away.

“On the surface, I understand that this cookbook will look to a lot of people like somewhat radical,” he says. “But it’s a natural extension of the coming together of different cuisines in America.”

Italian food doesn’t stay the same either, he notes.

Despite the “stereotype of Italians as being sort of closed to any kind of change in tradition, the fact is that Italian pasta culture has been changing and evolving all the while,” he says. “As long as there are humans cooking in kitchens, then there will be new ideas and things will change and evolve.”

An analytical approach

Pashman — a deliberate and even obsessive home chef who has long analyzed everything from various salts to different cheese-grating methods — attacked the book in the same way.

“I approach food very analytically. I come from a long line of lawyers, and it’s always kind of my instinct to break a dish of food down to its component parts,” he says. “When you start to do that, you see there are a lot of similarities across cuisines.”

For one dish, he started with bolognese, Italy’s great meat sauce. Then he thought about other ground meat dishes. He remembered larb, a Laos meat salad. He reached out to recipe developer James Park and the two kept refining until they came up with a ground meat sauce for his cascatelli with mint, lemon juice, chili and fish sauce.

Park, the author of the cookbook “Chili Crisp,” contributed to five recipes in Pashman’s book, and said the process “allowed me to push the boundaries of what pasta can be.”

“Food is a really safe and exciting playground where you can be free and combine so many different inspirations into one amazing dish. Dan really allowed me to go full force with my wild, exciting ideas,” he says.

Choose what feels good

Pashman organized “Anything’s Pastable” in an intriguing way — by mood. “Adventures in Texture,” “Flavor Bombs Not Belly Bombs” and “Thick and Hearty, Warm and Toasty” are some of the sections. He made one for pasta salads and another for baked dishes.

“If you open up this book, I want you to be thinking, I’m in the mood for this type of pasta dish, and you should be able to find the chapter that’s going to give you that,” Pashman says.

Many of the dishes are designed to showcase cascatelli, which he designed with three goals: To have a shape with forkability, toothsinkability and sauceability — all terms he invented.

His signature paste endures as a favorite in the Pashman home. He says the family initially ate so much cascatelli that they burned out on it, but a few weeks ago returned after Dan made it with arugula pesto.

“Both my kids were like, ‘Wow, we missed cascatelli.’” he says.

“So that made me feel good.”

CACIO E PEPE E CHILI CRISP

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Serves: 2-4

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon coarsely cracked black peppercorns (see tip)
• 2 teaspoons cracked Sichuan peppercorns (optional, see note)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons Lao Gan Ma chili crisp, plus more for serving
• 1 pound mafalde pasta (a.k.a. mafaldine or riccia; or use bucatini, pici or cascatelli)
• 1 cup (4 ounces) finely grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring 4 quarts of water and the salt to a boil in a large pot.

2. Toast the black and Sichuan peppercorns, if using, in a large, high-sided skillet over medium-low heat, shaking the pan frequently, until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes; transfer to a bowl, reserving the skillet.

3. Melt the butter in the reserved skillet over medium-low heat. Add 2 teaspoons of the pepper mixture and cook, stirring, until the butter just begins to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chili crisp and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chili flakes become fragrant and sizzle, 2 to 3 minutes; remove the pan from the heat. (At this point the sauce can sit, covered, for up to 2 hours.)

4. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook for 1 minute less than the low end of the package instructions. Meanwhile, place the Pecorino in a large heatproof bowl and set aside. A few minutes before the pasta is done, transfer 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water to the bowl with the Pecorino and whisk until no lumps remain.

5. Use tongs to transfer the pasta directly to the skillet and place it over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until any water has evaporated and the pasta is evenly coated with the chili mixture, 1 to 2 minutes.

6. Immediately transfer the pasta to the bowl with the cheese mixture, scraping out the skillet. Add 1/4 cup of the pasta water and use the tongs to rapidly toss everything together until the pasta is well coated and the cheese is dissolved. (There should be extra sauce pooling in the bowl at first, but it should all cling to the pasta after 1 to 2 minutes of stirring. If the sauce looks too thick after 1 minute, add more pasta water 1 tablespoon at a time until smooth and creamy.)

7. Transfer the pasta to a serving dish or individual bowls, sprinkle with more Pecorino and the remaining pepper mixture, and serve with more chili crisp, if desired.

TIP: Use a mortar and pestle, rolling pin, or the bottom of a pot or pan to crack whole black peppercorns (and Sichuan peppercorns, if using) into chunks. You want them coarser than if you had ground them in a pepper mill or spice grinder.

NOTE: You don’t have to use the Sichuan peppercorns to get great results, but they do add a depth to the heat that I think takes this dish to the next level.