Idea
The basic rule for choosing pasta for the sauce (or vice versa) is how much sauce the pasta can carry. In general, the more sauce it can carry the better. Of course, we want to avoid lumps on the plate and on the fork.
- Long pastas such as spaghetti mix well with olive oil based sauces. Those sauces lubricate the pasta. Therefore, there should be no/less lumps on the fork. Furthermore, small gaps among the pieces of pasta slow down draining of sauce to the bottom of the plate. The slimmer the pasta the less draining there is.
- Strand pastas like tagliatelle go well with creamy sauces. These pastas have larger surface than therefore can carry more sauce.
- Shaped pastas such fusilli (twists) and conchiglle (shells) should be used with thick chunky sauces, such as meat sauces and sauces with chunks of vegetables. These chunks can often get stuck in the crevices on the pasta. The crevices on the pasta should be about the same size as the chunks in the sauce.
- Tubular pastas like penne can be combined well with thick sauces since they can take in lot of the sauce in the hollows.
Pastas can absorb water from the sauce. Pasta still needs to be hot, i.e. this may happen right after removing the pasta from boiling water. You can take advantage of this to give more flavor(s) to the pasta. Cook pasta 2-3 minutes less than recommended. Then mix with water rich sauce. The flavors from the sauce will be soaked by the pasta while the pasta gets done. The sauce will get thicker, too. Pasta does not absorb oil and fat from the sauce.