Food

Fresh pasta, cooked and on the table in just four minutes

Shelf Help: These stuffed pasta parcels will make a tasty meal straight from your freezer to your plate

Ottimo Fresh Frozen Pasta: quick and delicious. Photograph: Clare Wilkinson

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Marie Claire Digby
Tue Oct 11 2022 - 05:00

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What is it? Ottimo Fresh Frozen Pasta (€3.50, 300g)

What’s good about it? The makers, frozen food giant Green Isle, claim it is the only frozen fresh pasta on the market in Ireland. It comes in three varieties, four-cheese ravioli, spinach and ricotta tortelloni, and mushroom ravioli, all of them suitable for vegetarians.

How do I use it? It cooks in a pot of boiling water in four minutes from frozen. I tried the four-cheese variety and was impressed. I topped the cooked pasta, which was pleasantly toothsome, with melted butter, grated Parmesan and black pepper and it made a quick, tasty WFH lunch. There were 20 substantial pieces of pasta in the bag and five was enough for me for lunch, though the pack says it serves two.

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Where can I buy it? In the frozen food aisles of supermarkets nationwide.

The fresh pasta goes from freezer to pot.

Sustainability credentials? Hmm... well, it cooks quickly so it won’t add too much to your energy bill. The pasta is made in Ireland, using durum wheat semolina of both EU and non-EU origin, and the same applies to the sourcing of the cheese in the filling.

Anything else? I’m not going to pretend this isn’t a highly processed food – the long ingredients list for the four-cheese filling dispels that notion. But the texture of the pasta was really good, and for an occasional quick, convenient and inexpensive lunch or dinner, it has a place in my freezer.

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