Sam Mills has a fairly good selection of corn pastas. In this case, I am looking specifically at the Lasagne corte, which is essentially tiny lasagna noodles.
I am picky when it comes to GF products. I am an insatiable consumer of bread and pasta products before going GF and I am not satisfied by products that are close to the real thing. I am not so unrealistic as to think that I will aways find products that can match their glutenated counterparts, but I expect food, even GF food, to taste good, have an appropriate texture, and not be visually unappealing. It's a lot to ask, but I will continue to ask for this - we deserve nothing less!
Pasta in the GF world is one of those sticking points with me (like donuts). I have yet to find a rice pasta that actually tastes good and cooks properly, although I've found a few that I can tolerate. I was excited when I first learned about corn pastas last year. They are generally thicker and tougher than wheat pasta, but have good flavor and cook nicely (although they do require extra cooking time).
I purchased several Sam Mills' corn pastas on the same day, but I wanted to start my reviews with this one because it fits a very specific need that I had.
Like most corn pasta, this is a somewhat thick pasta. Although the noodles are only only about 1/2" wide and 1" long, they are close to the thickness of a full sized lasagna noodle. The flavor is mild but pleasant. They have a good mouth feel although they are not as pliable as I would like (probably due to thickness). They are durable when cooking and they work well with a little marinara and cheese over the top. I am sure they would do well in a lasagna casserole (which I plan to try). I was really surprised that I enjoyed them with just butter. Like eating an untoasted slice of GF bread, it is rare to find a GF noodle that is tasty with nothing but butter.
What made me truly happy with them was that they make a great noodle for soups. They don't cook apart and keep their texture in the soup. The corn flavor is a nice compliment to most soups I've tried. Although I wish they were not quite so thick, or they were larger to offset the thickness, overall this is a good product. I give it 3 1/2 stars (out of 5) only because the noodles are tasty just buttered. This is currently my favorite brand of GF pasta and I have several other forms that I will review some time in the future.
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