Occhi di passero
Thick rings.
Name. Sparrow's eyes. The tiny ring with a hole looks like a small bird's eye.
What it is
Occhi di passero are small round rings of dried pasta with a hole in the middle. Wikipedia lists them as thick rings. Factories make them from durum wheat flour and water in several sizes. Oretta Zanini De Vita's Encyclopedia of Pasta notes that the diameter decides the use. The smallest go into broth. Larger rings are served dry or in bean soups.
The Encyclopedia of Pasta records the shape as widespread, with no single home region. It lists other names: occhi di elefante, occhi di giudeo, occhi di lupo rigati and occhi di pernice. Cook the small size in broth. Use the larger size in pasta e fagioli, pasta e ceci or a simple tomato sauce.
What it is served with
Pairs with: In brodo · Pasta e fagioli · Pasta e ceci · Minestrone
Nutrition
Per 100 g of dry semolina pasta. The shape does not change these numbers. The dough does, so a whole wheat or egg version of this shape reads differently. See every dough.
| Per 100 g | Energy | Protein | Carbohydrate | Fibre | Fat | Sodium | Iron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | 371 kcal | 13.0 g | 74.7 g | 3.2 g | 1.5 g | 6 mg | 3.3 mg |
| Cooked | 158 kcal | 5.8 g | 30.9 g | 1.8 g | 0.9 g | 1 mg | 1.3 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 235 g cooked, 371 kcal and 13 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.3 times its weight in the pot.
No occhi di passero? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look.
Other names
occhi di elefante, occhi di giudeo, occhi di lupo rigati, occhi di pernice.
Sources
- Encyclopedia of Pasta (Zanini De Vita) via ckbk: Occhi di passero (profile: origin, form, use)
- Wikipedia: List of pasta (profile: origin, form, use)
- USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169736, Pasta, dry, enriched; FDC 169737, Pasta, cooked, enriched, without added salt), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Occhi di passero, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.