Piombi
Spheres slightly larger than acini di pepe.
Name. Piombi means leads, as in lead shot. The name describes small round pellets of pasta.
What it is
Piombi are small solid balls of dried durum wheat pasta. They are a little larger than acini di pepe and about the size of a pea. Makers form them by rolling dough into spheres, a process close to couscous production. English speaking retailers call the shape pearl pasta. The North African maker Dari sells the same shape as petits plombs, made from durum semolina, with a cook time of about 15 minutes.
No fetched source names an Italian region of origin. Piombi belong to the soup pasta group. They also go into salads, cold dishes and risotto style preparations. The beads are dense and filling, so light dressings suit them better than rich sauces.
How to cook piombi
15 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
15:00
Start when the water returns to the boil.
Water and salt
- Pasta, dry
- 400 g
- Water
- 4 L
- Salt
- 40 g
100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.
The steps
- Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
- Add the piombi. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Or cook it in the broth it will be served in, and do not drain it.
- Bite a piece at 14 minutes. A hairline of white at the centre is al dente.
- Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
- Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.
Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.
What it is served with
Pairs with: In brodo · Minestrone · Pasta salad
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
1 brand, 1 product page.
| Brand | Product | Cook |
|---|---|---|
| Dari | Piombi (Petits Plombs) | 15 min |
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 piombi? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look.
Other names
Pearl pasta, pearl pasta, petits plombs.
Sources
- Piombi (Petits Plombs), Dari (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- RecipeTips: Pearl pasta (profile: origin, form, use)
- Delighted Cooking: What is pearl pasta? (profile: origin, form, use)
- Dari: Piombi (profile: origin, form, use)
- Wikipedia: List of pasta (profile: origin, form, use)
- Cook time: Dari Piombi (Petits Plombs): 15 min.
- Photograph: Pearl Pasta.jpg, Elcochan (talk) (Uploads), CC0.
- 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.
- Piombi (pasta), Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.