Product: DeBoles Gluten-Free Rice Plus Golden Flax Angel Hair Pasta – $2.69+
Ah…gluten-free pasta.
It can be just as good as the full-barrel pasta. Or it can be…beyond disappointing. I always hope for the best and tonight when I got it into my head to make an angel hair pasta dish with some vegan and gluten-free scallops on top. I happened to have some gluten-free angel hair pasta in my pantry, however, so this wasn’t going to be an issue. The most difficult part of dinner prep was going to be making the garlic sauce.
Upon arriving home, the gluten-free angel hair pasta was pulled out of the pantry and I got some water boiling in my large pot on the stove. The pasta that was debuting in my kitchen was none other than DeBoles Gluten-Free Rice Angel Hair Pasta…now with Golden Flax. I have had DeBoles pasta before…and it’s been…okay. Nothing to really scream about. But…decent enough to get by.
While I got the water boiling, I prepped some asparagus to roast as a side dish and got that in the oven. Then, I got the gluten-free and vegan breaded scallops set on their baking sheet for when they would join the asparagus in the oven. By then, my water was boiling, so I got the scallops into the oven and then got out the ingredients for my sauce and put the skillet on a burner to warm up.
It was now time to add the noodles to the boiling water. I opened up the box of DeBoles Gluten-Free Rice Plus Golden Flax Angel Hair Pasta and poured it into the water. The boiling water immediately calmed, and I gave the pasta a stir until everything was covered by the water. A rolling boil returned and I went ahead to focus on making my garlic sauce, giving the noodles a stir every now and again.
As the pasta began to soften, I noticed how brittle and delicate these noodles were going to be. When I would stir the noodles, they would occasionally split or break apart into smaller noodles. Okay…that’s fine. My mom used to split the noodles in half and cook spaghetti like that. I just…was hoping for something that would really hold up.
I cooked these to the perfect al dente (about 9 minutes), then drained them. I shook out the excess water and went to put the noodles into the skillet to mix with the sauce. And that was when I poured them into the skillet that I noticed just how gummy and sticky they were. They clumped together terribly. I was not happy. I poured a little more olive oil into my garlic sauce in hopes that it would help de-stick the noodles, but it didn’t. They just became this massive clump of gluten-free rice noodle pasta. I was livid. Honestly. No good at all.
But the pasta was all I had to work with…so I had to use it, despite it all being one ball of noodles now. I managed to scoop up four servings and place two in Pyrex containers for the following night…and the clumpy noodles that were left went into bowls for dinner. Over the top went the vegan and gluten-free breaded scallops from Sophie’s Kitchen. And then I gave mine a hit of crushed red pepper flakes, where my roommate took freshly grated Parmesan.
Dinner was…served, I guess. The image of it in my head seemed a lot better than the actual result. Stupid pasta. And, just as it appeared, it tasted. Not mushy, but gummy. The noodles broke as you tried to lift them from the bowl, perhaps due to the weight of the other noodles now stuck together…or the fact that this pasta was very delicate. I was not pleased. They tasted fine…the texture was great. But they just didn’t cook up properly, despite me doing everything right.
As for the bowls of noodles in the fridge…when reheated, I went ahead and left the lids off the Pyrex, hoping it might take some of the gumminess out of the noodles. Is it weird that I preferred the noodles on the second day as opposed to the first. My plan did work, although they were still a clump of really short noodles, instead of single long strands of angel hair pasta that could be wound around a fork. Suckage. But…like I said…at least they taste good.
Nutritionally speaking, this is like any other pasta noodle. For a 2 ounce serving (yes…I do measure and weigh), you’ll be set back 210 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. Not too shabby for pasta, yes? Thanks to the flax, you get a nice hit of 4 grams of protein. Unfortunately, the fiber content in this is rather low, so it may not be as filling as a regular pasta noodle would be. But, when you’re gluten-free…you use what you are given. And this is what I had. These noodles are gluten-free, wheat-free, and an excellent source of Omega 3…something this gluten-free vegetarian doesn’t really get regularly.
So…while not a horrible choice for noodles, there are others out there I would return to before picking up another box of DeBoles Gluten-Free Rice Plus Golden Flax Angel Hair Pasta. I prefer my noodles not to stick together…break…have a gumminess to them…you know…what any good gluten-free eater should get. Something done right and something done well. These noodles…failed me. And now…I have no love for them. I liked them…but it’s not love.
We’re just…acquaintances.
The Celiathlete 