Candele Lunghe are a traditional pasta shape from southern Italy which historically was very popular in the Naples area. The name and shape comes from the candles that were carried during religious processions.
Candele, like Ziti e Zitoni, need to be broken up by hand into irregular pieces before being put in the saucepan to cook.
Candele are excellent for making elaborate oven-baked dishes.
This pasta goes really well with vegetable sauces, prepared with tomato sauce with olives and capers or enhanced with courgettes, aubergines, peppers and other vegetables.
Available in 500g pack.s
Mafaldine are part of the long, curled, dried pasta family due to their ribbon shape with curled edges on both sides.
They are also known as "Reginette" or "Reginelle" and come from the Naples area where they were once called "Fettuccelle Ricce". They were dedicated by the people of Naples to Princess Mafalda of Savoy and renamed Reginette (from the Italian word "regina" meaning queen) or Mafaldine in her honour.
Once curled pasta, like Mafaldine, have been cooked, they have a distinctive, uneven consistency which differs on the smooth and curled parts.
Another characteristic of this type of pasta is that the curled part can retain more sauce that the smooth part.
It is a fairly versatile type of pasta, so the sauces recommended for Mafaldine are: Neapolitan ragù with ricotta, game sauces, fish sauces made from shellfish and seafood or white sauces made from soft cheeses with the addition of curry, saffron, horseradish or ginger.
Available in 500g pack.s