If there’s one thing we kind of enjoyed about Circuit Breaker, it’d be all the food delivery options that suddenly became available. Think about it. Whether we felt like trying food from high-end restaurants, cold brew coffee from cafes, or burnt cheesecakes from bakeries, all these just required a couple of quick clicks before they arrived on our doorstep.
While the F&B industry has been hit quite hard by the coronavirus outbreak, it’s truly commendable to see how dining establishments have adapted, even banded together, to find innovative ways to serve hungry customers. DIY Pasta Kits are definitely one such innovation that we can continue to enjoy.
Popular dine-in restaurants such as Pasta Bar, Bar Cicheti and Buona Terra, all famed for their fresh, handmade pasta, are looking to bring that elevated experience to you, by introducing Pasta Kits that you can whip up at home. They’ve prepared the pasta and sauces — all you have to do is cook the pasta, warm the sauce in a pan, and then toss them together for a comforting, but quality, at-home meal.
Handmade pasta, made with flour and eggs, is often highly prized for its delicate, al dente texture, which will appeal to pasta fanatics anywhere. These fresh pastas absorb more of the sauce too, especially when compared with store-bought dried pasta, for that rich feel on your tongue. Yes, they are artisanal, and making your own pasta at home may be inconvenient, which is why we’d highly recommend these ready-made DIY kits if you’re looking to show off your Masterchef skills without the fuss.
1. Pasta Bar
For the folks who miss being served fresh-off-the-pan tagliatelle with 24-hour braised beef ragu at Pasta Bar, there’s a similar option here. One of our favourite fresh pasta joints is serving up Cook At Home Packs that feature their handmade pasta shapes, made daily using a variety of semolina and ’00’ flours, combined with whole egg, egg yolks, and water. Don’t worry, the kits are not even that complicated. Choose from pasta options of Tagliolini, Rigatoni, or Tagliatelle, as well as your sauce — either the same hearty 24-hour Beef Ragu, San Marzano Tomato Basil, or Pesto Genovese. The cooking process just requires boiling the pasta, simmering the sauce in a pan, and then tossing them together, and voila, chef-quality pasta at home.
From $40 for 2. Order online here.
2. Bar Cichetti
Bar Cicheti is another of our favourite food haunts, and you can tell they really love their pasta by the variety of shapes they’re offering, and how each type of pasta is paired with its appropriate sauce. There’s the classic Tagliatelle, of long, flat ribbons served with either Lamb Ragu, Beef Bolognese or Arrabiata; or the more unique wide Pappardelle with Lamb Ragu and Porcine, or Beef Bolognese. As you can see, both these varieties are suitable for hearty, meaty sauces. The Casarecce, on the other hand, a short twisted design, goes with either Arrabiata or Basil Pesto, while the Scarpinocc style is stuffed with spinach, mascarpone and ricotta, and finished with burnt butter sage, balsamic and chopped pine nuts. Each order comes with 1 serving of fresh pasta and accompanying sauces, condiments and simple instructions. On top of a quality dine-in experience, you’ll also obviously be getting an education on pasta and its traditional origins here, something we can definitely appreciate.
From $15. Order online here.
3. Buona Terra
The Italian restaurant helmed by Chef Denis Lucchi is bringing us their newly-launched Home Cooking Series, where we get to indulge in fresh housemade pasta and signature sauces with their ready-to-cook pasta kits. That’s right, we now get to recreate some of the restaurant’s menu items right in our kitchens — in just 15 minutes too. There’s also a short demonstration video by the chef if you need some visual aid. Each pasta kit comes with a choice of either housemade Tagliolini, Tagliatelle or Pappardelle, along with either Amatriciana, Al Pesto, Crab and Fresh Sicilian Tomato as your sauce. Prepared and assembled upon order, the kits are also packed with essential ingredients such as rock salt, cheese, and olive oil sourced personally by Chef Lucchi from his hometown of Brescia, North Italy, which adds a nice personal touch.
From $32. Order online here.
4. Amò
We’re used to hitting up the restaurant for fresh pizza and pasta, though honestly, ordering one of their ItaliAmò Pasta Kits sounds like a good idea too. Each kit is packed with artisanal pastas and homemade sauces for a restaurant-quality dish, with 4 easy options that include Comforting Carbonara, Luxurious Truffle, Hearty Beef Bolognese and Classic Amatriciana. The first two in particular, sound most enticing. Their Carbonara is a silk, rich sauce made with fresh eggs, cream and a sharp pecorino cheese, while the Truffle Pesto infuses fresh mascarpone and cream for a fragrant take on Italian fare.
From $17. Order online here.
5. Noodfamous
If it’s homemade pasta you’re craving for, well, it can’t get more homemade than the ones from Noodfamous. The small home business started out sending pasta parcels in brown paper bags, each containing about 450g of either fresh linguine or tagliatelle for about 4 servings worth, while you can also opt to sneak in a handwritten note, recipe, poem, dad joke, riddle; even a motivating / discouraging quote. Not even kidding! So what if it’s just pasta without the sauces here, you can easily whip those up at home. That authentic quality though, is hard to beat. If you follow them on Instagram, you’ll also be privy to limited edition pasta batches, such as the Freedom Fettuccine, where cut parsley is rolled into laminated sheets of eggy pasta.
Recently, they’ve also been making regular announcements on a Pride x Pasta collaboration with Pasta Singapura, where themed pasta kits that include pink pasta, in support of Pink Dot with bow-shaped farfalle stained with pink beetroot, or colourful Tagliatelle pasta dyed with beetroot, tumeric and matcha. Those seem to be limited edition offerings, though there’s an upcoming virtual pasta making workshop on Sunday (28 June), which includes a DIY kit of handmade Pappardelle with an anchovy roasted tomato sugo. Each kit serves two and starts at a $40 donation to their project, where 100% of the proceeds will go to LBTQ organisation, Sayoni, so you can eat good, and do good at the same time.
From $24.90, serves 4. Head over to Noodfamous’ Instagram and leave a DM for enquiries.
Banner Images: Noodfamous / Pasta Bar.
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