The best shapes for pesto trapanese
Sicily's pesto: almonds in place of pine nuts, raw tomato pounded into the paste, and less cheese than the Genoese version. The tomato makes it coarser and considerably wetter, closer to a raw sauce than a paste.
Sicily's tomato-almond-basil pesto, coarser and wetter than the Genovese. It sits in channels and curls, busiate is the home pairing, casarecce the supermarket stand-in.
Canonical: busiate, casarecce.
The long twist works like a spring.
Each piece is a narrow ribbon rolled in on itself, so the cut carries an open channel down its length and a loose s curve at the ends.
The curved body cups sauce on the outside while the open split traps smaller bits and liquid along its channel.
What we would not put it on
Fine strands. The tomato pulp weighs them down and the almond grit slides off rather than holding to the surface.
Want it the other way around? Start from a shape in the Pairing Finder.
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From the Almanac
Updates from Pasta Almanac, when there is something worth sharing.