Tinned tomatoes & pasta from the supermarket
- 15 hours ago
- 4 min read
This is really a bit of a cheat post in that I'm just reporting on some reviews I found of those basics of just about every kitchen - tinned tomatoes and pasta. How did I even come to be looking at them? Well I think I had recently bought a packet of Cucina Matese pasta from Coles and since I had heard from somewhere that this was actually a Coles brand, rather, than an Italian brand I decided to look into it and somehow - first came across this Australian supermarket tinned tomatoes taste test from Nicholas Jordan in The Guardian.
As you can see he tested a whole lot of brands - some of which can only be found in more specialist grocers than the big three. During the test - done with a panel of six:
"we tasted 26 cans of diced, chopped or pulped tomato. We tried them all blind, twice: straight but heated through, and cooked into a sauce. The sauce was a simple tomato base. All 26 were fastidiously prepared in the same pan with the same timings and ratio of ingredients: a tablespoon of olive oil, 4g garlic, a quarter-tablespoon of salt and eight oregano leaves."
And the results?
"The exceptional products never came. Some were generally more enjoyable than others, but the margins were tiny. ... And this is just talking about the tomatoes straight out of the can. Every single cooked version I tried, I liked. Every single one."
Indeed: ‘One reviewer, who has been to more taste tests than anyone bar me, wrote only: “It’s a tomato. I’d eat it.”’ Nicholas Jordan
Some of the other things he commented on of note are:
not one of the tasters voted a San Marzano tin the best - San Marzano, supposedly being the king of Italian tomatoes.
Whether the tomatoes are diced, left whole or pulped made little difference.
Australian vs Italian tomatoes - not much difference but the Australian ones were generally sweeter.
About 40% of every can is tomato juice.
Diced tend to have some kind of firming agent in the mix
So what came out top? Well for him it was SPC diced and Villa Rossi diced - but that's not available everywhere and besides he added a proviso:
"Here on in, I will be buying this, SPC or whatever is on special. I won't buy Leggos or Ardmona diced"
There is actually a proper scorecard however, and on this the top six are Woolworths Macro (7.86); SPC (7.57); Aldi Remano (7.14); Coles (7.11) and Woollies (7.01) - below - the top three
Pasta
The pasta thing was a lot clearer however. Well in terms of what you should be looking for. My sources here were a Facebook video from Vincenzo's Plate - The right pasta brands to eat like an Italian - an Australian site I think. It was pretty detailed and longish. It included various 'artisan' Italian brands that you might have difficulty finding, but his top three were La Molisana - available in Woolworths, Rummo and Garafolo - which I've seen somewhere. Vincenzo was overall not a fan of Australian pasta.
My second review was from Danielle Alvarez - well-known Australian chef - on the Broadsheet website - Supermarket spaghetti tested and rated - and as you can see from the title she focussed on what was available in supermarkets, and so many of the brands mentioned by Vincenzo were not included. But interestingly she too chose La Molisana as her top choice - also followed by Garafolo - then San Remo and Cucina Matese. Her worst brand was Woolworths home brand.
I did not show the San Remo brand above because, as well as Vincenzo - I also saw many others, elsewhere telling us that San Remo was not good - which is because of the couple of things I learnt from my tiny bit of research into what makes good spaghetti. Namely:
The whiter the better. This indicates that the pasta has been dried slowly and at a low temperature. The more golden in colour the higher the temperature and the shorter the time taken to dry it.
It should have been put through a bronze die. This makes the texture of the pasta rougher, which means that the sauce will cling to the pasta better. It may also look a bit floury.
The quality of the water used in the making of the pasta is most important. I remember being told that the DelVerde pasta from Abruzzo was so good because the water used, came from a pure mountain stream - and it does - we saw the stream - and the factory nearby. Ditto I believe for the La Molisana brand - from nearby Molise.
The bronze die pasta does cost more, but not hugely more in some cases. The Coles Cucina Matese brand, for one, is just a little more.
Having read these reviews I have to say I was quite pleased to discover what I have always thought - that you don't always have to pay a fortune for good stuff. Particularly with the tinned tomatoes. For example I remember I once lashed out and bought a tin of the Mutti San Marzano tomatoes - and honestly I couldn't tell the difference.
When it comes to pasta however, I do think that if you do buy one of those better brands, it does indeed taste better. Last night we had pasta and I used some DelVerde tagliatelli which I bought when Coles was stocking that brand. Alas they no longer do. And yes it is indeed more expensive, but worth it every now and then. Generally I just buy what's on special, with a leaning towards the cheaper brands. From now on I will pay attention to colour however.
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May 30
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