Spaghetti is one of the trickier things to portion properly. It never looks like enough before it is cooked and is almost invariably more than you could, or should, eat at one sitting. A Swedish design company, Superdupia, has come up with a very creative way to get the proper portion sizes. Their Spaghetti Book is spiral-bound, made of plastic and full of holes. Each of the holes is measured to fit a specific amount of dry spaghetti (1 serving, 2 servings, etc), making it easy to get just the right amount every time you cook. It might also have some appeal for parents with small children, who can help "cook" by measuring out the pasta using the fun shapes.
The book is $21,
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-05-2007 @ 1:46PM
LeisureGuy said...
Even simpler and for little more money ($30), get a high-quality kitchen scale. A serving of pasta is 2 oz, so just weigh and go. The scale at the link satisfies my own criteria: digital readout, accurate to 0.1 oz (none of this 1/8 oz nonsense). I use my scale constantly, BTW---one of the most useful of my essential kitchen tools.
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1-05-2007 @ 1:53PM
LeisureGuy said...
Hmm. Links didn't work.
1. High-quality kitchen scale:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bakers-Catalogue-Escali-Digital/dp/B000EB9I30/sr=1-4/qid=1166558472/ref=sr_1_4/002-2348786-5079222?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen
2. Essential kitchen tools:
http://leisureguy.wordpress.com/2006/12/19/to-use-fitday-indeed-to-cook-have-these-on-hand/
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1-05-2007 @ 3:51PM
SteveC said...
I always just grap a bundle of dry spaghetti in my hand which is about the diameter of a U.S. quarter for each serving, and have been doing that the last 20 years. Don't need a fancy gadget to do that, as I have a pretty good idea how big a quarter is.
Granted it makes probably too large a serving, but I love me some pasketti.
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1-05-2007 @ 4:18PM
FoodieBride said...
I put a tall glass on the kitchen scale, zero out the weight, and then weigh-out the spaghetti in the glass. That thing is destined for the gadget graveyard (the back of some little-used kitchen drawer).
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1-05-2007 @ 4:28PM
pickleman said...
Uuh, last time I checked books were for reading .Yeah that's right, they still are. Just grab a bunch of spaghetti with your hands. Even aliens can tell how much the amount they need is.
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1-05-2007 @ 11:39PM
calamari said...
$21 to do the same job as a $1 plastic spaghetti sizer that'll take up a fraction of the storage space?
Okaaaaayyyyyy. It's wonderful how Design simplifies our lives, isn't it?
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1-06-2007 @ 12:54AM
Lemons said...
And how about measuring penne or linguini or the multitude of other shapes?
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1-06-2007 @ 1:45PM
calamari said...
One of the great mysteries of the foodie universe is why we're supposed to believe that roasting a chicken is dead easy while making pasta is a delicate, difficult task.
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1-06-2007 @ 3:59PM
Trip said...
Yet another gimmicky single use tool. I vote for the multi-purpose kitchen scale. I figure 3 to 5 oz. pasta per serving. (SteveCs’ method also works well for spaghetti.) I wish recipe writers gave weights more often. Wouldn't it be easier to weigh flour? What's a large onion? I consider my scale essential.
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1-07-2007 @ 12:29AM
justme said...
Um, am I the only one here who never bothers to measure the spaghetti or any other pasta? I just dump in a half a box or a box, depending on how much I need to make. Plus, I like to have leftovers!
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