Gabriel Rossi has been rolling out pasta by hand since he was old enough to use a stove. One of his first childhood books was an Italian cookbook, and he remembers mixing an egg dough recipe by hand to create a bowl of slightly lumpy fettuccine Alfredo at age 10.
Rossi and his wife, Annette Solis, are the creators of Bombaci Pasta, a Bend company making traditional pastas by hand, stuffed with locally sourced ingredients. Cheeses and flour are shipped from Italy, while the fillings come from purveyors such as Pitchfork T ranch in Sisters and Agriculture Connections in Bend.
“It’s where tradition meets Central Oregon,” Rossi said. “We use traditional shapes, but the fillings can be really fun and unique.”
The stuffed pastas, which come in the shapes of tortelloni, anolini, pansotti and agnolotti, are made by hand with an egg yolk rich dough that yields a rich, buttery texture and color.
More traditional noodle shapes like rigatoni, capanelle and clamshells are pushed through an extruder, similar to a giant Play-Doh machine, Solis said. These are made with semolina dough and water, offering a firmer texture.
Bombaci Pasta colors some of its pastas with real food dyes. (Courtesy Annette Solis)
The couple also loves to play with color, tinting its pasta with real food dyes that sometimes offer a hint of what’s to be found inside the stuffed pastas.
“Sometimes it is just aesthetic, but it’s usually correlative to what the filling is. We might use a blue spirulina powder to color the dough blue because it has blue cheese in it,” Rossi said. The colors also sometimes come from beetroot powder or squid ink, Solis added.
The types of pasta Bombaci offers change seasonally and from week to week. During the winter months, hearty fillings are more commonly composed of seasonal produce such as radicchio or citrus. A staple that can be regularly found on the menu this time of year is the mushroom agnolotti, a ravioli-like vessel filled with cremini mushrooms, gruyere cheese and confit garlic. Another is the radicchio and pecorino cappellaci, made with a hat-shaped pasta.
Inspiration for the home cook
Each pasta has its own page on the company website, complete with easy and more complex pairing ideas. The mushroom agnolotti for example, may be simply enjoyed with melted butter or paired with ingredients like pancetta, crab or goat cheese, according to the website.
Bombaci Pasta makes stuffed pastas by hand with Italian flour. (Courtesy Annette Solis)
There are no recipes, just inspiration, Solis said. “We always want to encourage people to learn to cook at home and how to pair sauces.”
Customers are sometimes more intimidated by the stuffed pasta, which are actually easier to prepare than the traditional noodles because they are already almost a complete dish, Rossi said. In such cases, a sauce might not even be called for, just a roasted vegetable on the side like cherry tomatoes, eggplant or fennel, he said.
Rossi always recommends adding a splash of pasta water to any pasta, a tip instilled in him through his Italian heritage. The starch from the water acts as an emulsifier that helps the sauce stick to the pasta, creating a smoother, richer texture.
Art of the perfect dough
In a dry and variable climate, it’s especially tricky to get the dough just right, Rossi said. It involves working fast after the dough is rolled out and adding the correct amount of water, which varies based on the humidity in the air.
Rossi maintains that Bombaci’s pastas are just as good, or possibly better, than what is available in Italy.
Annette Solis of Bombaci pasta forms mushroom agnolotti by hand. (Courtesy Gabriel Rossi)
“It’s not magic. It’s just using good ingredients and paying attention to details and doing it right. It can be done here just as well,” he said.
Perhaps one day the husband and wife duo will have a small pasta shop in Bend, where customers can watch them rolling out dough in the mornings and walk out with everything they need to make dinner.
But as of now, the handmade pastas may be pre-ordered online for pickup at Bend Roots Mercantile or purchased directly from stores such as Central Oregon Locavore, Newport Market and Farewell Market in Bend and Rainshow Organics in Sisters.
Details
What: Bombaci Pasta
Location: Available online, at farmers markets and in stores, see website for more details
Contact: bombacipasta.com
Price Range: $8-$20 for a serving size that feeds one to two people
Cuisine: Pasta
Dining and Cooking