Baked to perfection

Looking for an inexpensive way to offer customers value-added comfort food? Consider baked pastas, which are also “the best way to accomplish better taste and presentation,” says Fernando Cruz, executive chef at The Hotel at Auburn University, in Alabama, who serves braised rabbit cannelloni and meat lasagna. Baked pastas also “make things easier when executing the dish à la minute, as you can preportion the dishes ahead of time, ensuring incredibly accurate yields for every batch.” This also provides operators with increased cost control (read: higher profit margins).

Ida Shen, director of culinary and catering at UC Berkeley, also offers a range of baked pastas, from classic lasagnas and pasticcio to vegan and vegetarian bakes. “Pasta is popular in almost any form, but baked pasta dishes look more put together than a tossed one, as they have a value-added look to them,” Shen adds. “They’re also a great way to market a vegetarian dish and they help in lowering the costs for animal proteins because [you can stretch] the protein.”

Plus, “baked pastas have a comfort factor to them and usually feature cheese as an ingredient, which everyone loves,” adds Mark Kowalski, executive chef of Culinary Support Services at Penn State University, in State College. “We offer a wide variety of lasagnas, stuffed pastas and baked pastas with many different flavor profiles, and we try to incorporate different ingredients into the sauces and the pastas to make them unique.” Kowalski cites baked ziti and butternut squash, bacon and kale three-cheese pasta as most popular.

Baking in hearth ovens

One way to achieve great baked pastas is with a hearth oven. “We have two, which gives us a lot of flexibility,” says Cruz, saying temperature control is paramount. “You have to know your hot spots—hearth ovens cook a lot faster than traditional ovens—so play with the oven and familiarize yourself with it.” Cruz also heeds cleanliness. “You don’t want the surface to have burned flour or cornmeal on it because it can ruin the flavors of other items.”

Similarly, Kevin Cruz, executive chef of Culinary Services at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, makes nearly 1,400 baked pastas, like smoked Gouda mac and cheese and Buffalo chicken pasta bake, in a hearth oven each week.

“The fire adds that little bit of show as it caramelizes the natural sugars in the cheese to create that delicious crisp and color on the top,” explains Cruz, who says the cooler months have the highest baked pasta sales. “Hearth-baked pasta [dishes] are the ultimate comfort food, you can provide them at a minimal cost, and the flickering of the flame in the oven excites the presentation even more.”

Noodles

To ensure you have a delicious baked pasta dish, start with great ingredients. “Have respect for the ingredients and don’t mess with them too much; the simpler, the better,” says Auburn’s Cruz, who makes his pasta from scratch. “There are great fresh pasta products on the market but nothing like homemade; and making pasta is a simple process that can be learned very easily—you just need flour, eggs and salt.” Cruz, who often freezes batches for future use, recommends parboiling the pasta first to ensure proper cooking during the baking process.

If you don’t have the resources to make pasta from scratch, you can also use dry pasta, like UC Berkeley’s Shen does. She recommends boiling the noodles in plain water to limit sodium and shocking if holding the pasta for future use. “Don’t overcook the pasta during the boil—keep it al dente so that when it absorbs the sauce, it still keeps its integrity,” she says.

Similarly, Kowalski cautions chefs to evenly blend all ingredients together so that each portion contains the same flavors and isn’t missing a component of the dish. “We pay special attention to this when we test the recipe and make adjustments as needed before it goes on the menu,” Kowalski says.

Michigan State’s Cruz offers a daily pasta bake using 10 different shapes of pasta to make more than 25 dishes that are rotated in a four-week cycle. He also does extensive recipe testing with his culinary team.

Presentation

Presentation goes a long way in selling baked pastas, so consider using smaller, individual pans, as Shen does, who bakes pastas in 2-inch hotel pans, ovals, squares and 8-by-10-inch pans with handles. “Smaller pans with different shapes and handles look less institutional and more upscale,” Shen says.

Likewise, Kowalski prepares the pasta before transferring to decorative Bon Chef pans and baking, and Auburn’s Cruz serves his cannelloni in small cast-iron skillets hot from the oven. The added benefit of individual pans is the ability to “keep the pasta piping hot and oozing cheese,” adds Cruz, who plates baked pastas in single-serve oval casserole dishes. The speed of service means Cruz can feed almost 3,000 people for lunch with items that were batch cooked beforehand—all in front of the customer.

However, even if you decide not to portion baked pastas individually, size is still important. “You must ensure the vessel is the proper size, because if it’s too big the pasta will spread out during the cooking process and will not hold the desired shape,” Cruz warns.

“Another important aspect is a nice, golden brown, bubbly top when it comes out of the oven, which really enhances the taste and presentation,” Kowalski adds.