Angel hair

rosemary
May 23
6 min read

“Angel hair just lands on your chin like the strands of a wet mop.”

Bon Appétit

"The thin strands absorb sauce like few other pastas can—and eating angel hair offers a textured mouthfeel that is delightful and unique."

Martha Stewart

Raphaël's cherubs - baby angels - are so cute, and the expressions on their faces are so appropriate to the topic in hand - that I just couldn't resist. And their hair is squiffy rather than curly, although the curls are beginning to form on the older one. It's really not angel hair but it's getting there.

The topic in hand is angel hair pasta - or capelli d'angelo as the Italians call it - the thinnest kind of pasta and actually - fun fact - angel hair - the Italian/American version is thinner - 0.78 to 0.88mm - than capelli d'angelo - 0.85-0.92. More or less the same though. Then there's tagliolini 2mm or vermicelli - 2.04mm-2,14mm. Which is all very precise. Does anyone check these things? Are there actual rules or is it just a guide? And somewhere in there there is capellini or is that just another name for the same thing? It is so fine that it is mostly sold in little nests - long strands would be too delicate. And the reason I am writing this is because I have some of those little nests waiting to be used in one of my pasta jars and I don't really know what to do with them other than add them to soup. So I decided to investigate.

Before I get to those possibilties just a tiny bit about origins. Some say they date back to the 14th century - just a little earlier than Raphaël's cupids. And they probably do, although consider - there were no machines back then. They would have been made by hand - as you can too - you fold your sheet of fresh pasta into a roll and then cut into strips about 1mm wide - as Rachel Roddy says -"congratulations, you have a steady hand." And I guess those nonnas from way back then, may well have had a steady hand.

However capelli d'angelo were

"first recorded in Rome as early as the 17th century as a specialty of convents. It was made by rolling an egg-based pasta dough out into a thin sheet, then cutting it into even thinner noodles. Nuns would send the pasta in broth to new mothers in ailing health, as it was easy to digest. It was food for infants, too, since it didn’t require much chewing." Priya Krishna/Taste

Since then and particularly in modern times, it has gone in and out of fashion. - currently it seems to be 'in' as this amusing passage from Chef's Mandala explains:

"Why did angel hair pasta recently become so popular?

It is easy to cook. So the most obvious answer is that people are lazy! Or perhaps that people today have a shorter attention span then a goldfish? While these explanations might involve the fewest assumptions, Occam’s razor isn’t always right. For example, people today work longer hours then ever before, right? Wrong. It actually turns out that at the turn of the 20th century people were averaging 60 hour work weeks. And this was a big improvement over the 70 hour work weeks a century before. By 1988 this average in the States had dropped to under 40 hours a week. As technology has continued to increase efficiency, less labor was needed to maintain higher levels of output. So why is it that your partner and you never have any free time, and even a “30 minute meal” is tough to coordinate? One argument is that some Americans deliberately work more because building wealth is the closest thing they have to fun. Another theory is that we do have more free, time, but you’re wasting time reading articles like this one! Whatever the answer is, angel hair pasta cooks the fastest and if you’re starving and short on time, it gets the job done."

The very speed of the cooking, however is it's main problem:

"the pasta shape is often criticized for its tendency to become a goopy, overcooked mess. The noodles are so thin, even a few seconds too long and it’s game over." Rachel Perlmutter/Kitchn

"capelli cooks VERY rapidly. So if you want an al dente dish, you need to treat it like a bank robbery. Pay attention, don’t take your eyes off the pasta hostages and get (the pasta) in and out as quickly as possible!" Chef's Mandala

“I will tell you, I am not a lover of angel hair pasta. “It is a pain in the ass to cook. It gets clumpy because the noodles are so thin.” Giada de Laurentiis

Two minutes tops they say to cook it, and keep your eye on it, and I would also imagine keep stirring it with something with prongs, to separate the strands. And also on top of that:

"angel hair’s fine strands can struggle to hold onto sauce. Instead of the harmonious marriage of pasta and sauce that foodies dream about, you’re often left with a pile of sad, sauce-less noodles and a pool of sauce at the bottom of the bowl." Crush

To avoid that you cook your pasta until almost al dente - keep testing - and then do the mix the sauce with the pasta thing, including perhaps a bit of the pasta water.

But enough of the gloom. Amongst many others it's one of Guy Grossi's favourite pastas. So what did I find? Shellfish, particularly prawns and crab, topped the list of those 'pasta hostages'. Crab fideos - Thomasina Miers/The Guardian; Prawn and spinach angel hair pasta with prawn oil - Valli Little/delicious.; Capelli d'angelo with prawns and lemon - Rachel Roddy - there's a video with this one. I have to say these all look fantastic, but alas for David's dislike of prawns!

Then there's fish - Tuna and caper pasta with crispy breadcrumbs - Phoebe Wood/delicious. and Hot smoked salmon pasta - Jamie Oliver/delicious.

Vegetables were a favourite: One pan angel hair pasta with tomatoes and burrata - Alice Zaslavsky/The Guardian; Easy angel hair pasta - Cooktoria; Angel hair pasta with ricotta, spinach and artichoke - Phoebe Wood/delicious.; Drunken angel hair with leeks and cream - Kerry Saretsky/Serious Eats - which I found particularly interesting because the pasta was cooked in almost a whole bottle of white wine - a cheap one - a mix of leftovers from several bottles - with more wine in the sauce; and Angel hair pasta with saffron - Olive Magazine - which featured peas and prosciutto although they were a bit confused about the pasta - the ingredients listed it as vermicelli.

There were not many that featured meat except for the odd bit of prosciutto, pancetta, salami or bacon here and there. There were a few with chicken but mostly I agreed with those writers who said that you need a light sauce, but I'm including this one - Angel hair with chicken and cherries - Mary Ann Sander/Taste of Home, mostly because of the cherries - dried cherries. Can you get dried cherries here?

I haven't included angel hair versions of all of those supremely simple and wonderful dishes - cacio e pepe, aglio e olio, al limone, and so on, but certainly any pasta dish with a very simple sauce - heaps of herbs perhaps, cheese and butter - is a perfect candidate for angel hair.

One of the most common uses of angel hair however is in soup, or broth so here to conclude is Nigel's Angel hair noodles with chicken broth, lemon and chives which probably looks marginally unappetising, but I'm guessing is soothing.

I wish I could go for Rachel Roddy's prawn recipe, but I really can't so maybe the drunken one is the way to go. I do like my white wine, and Aldi has some pretty cheap and wondrous white wines. Try their Pinot Grigio.