Stortini
Smaller version of elbow macaroni.
Name. Italian for little crooked ones, from storto, meaning bent or crooked. The name describes the small curved tube.
What it is
Stortini are a very small bent tube, a miniature version of elbow macaroni. They are made from durum wheat semolina and water and cut short after extrusion. Garofalo gives a length of 13 mm and a wall thickness of 1.5 mm for its number 19. De Cecco lists the shape as number 72 in its range of tiny pasta for broth. Both brands note that the shape was made with children in mind.
No source names a region of origin. Garofalo names one Neapolitan tradition: stortini dressed with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. The shape is otherwise a soup pasta. De Cecco suggests clear broths and consomme with croutons or thin strips of vegetables. It also works in creamed soups and purees. Pastificio Setaro suggests pureed soups and pasta salads for its stortini piccoli.
How to cook stortini
5 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
5:00
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 stortini. 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 4 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 e fagioli
Classic plates: stortini con olio e parmigiano, minestra di stortini e porri.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
2 brands, 2 product pages. Cook times run from 5 to 8 minutes across brands, so read the box, not a rule.
| Brand | Product | Cook |
|---|---|---|
| Garofalo | N.19 Stortini | 5 min |
| De Cecco | Stortini n. 72 | 8 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 stortini? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look.
Other names
stortini piccoli.
Sources
- N.19 Stortini, Garofalo (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Stortini n. 72, De Cecco (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Pasta Garofalo: N.19 Stortini (profile: origin, form, use)
- De Cecco: Stortini n. 72 (profile: origin, form, use)
- Monsieur Marcel: Pastificio Setaro Stortini Piccoli (profile: origin, form, use)
- Wikidata: stortini (profile: origin, form, use)
- Cook time: Garofalo N.19 Stortini: 5 min.
- Photograph: Stortini 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.
- Stortini, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q11686754, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.