Joe Clemente combines eggs, flour and an unspecified amount of water, using a recipe that has been in his family for years. (Photo by Mark Wetherbee, Jr.)
After pouring the mixture into a pasta machine, Clemente collects extruded pasta into nests (Photo by Mark Wetherbee, Jr.)
Clemente places a tray of fresh pasta onto a rack to dry. (Photo by Mark Wetherbee, Jr.)
Homemade pasta sold at Dolce and Clemente’s in Robbinsville. Owner Joe Clemente produces around 1,000 pounds of pasta per week.(Photo by Mark Wetherbee, Jr.)
Dolce & Clemente’s Italian Gourmet Market offers fresh pasta, including whole-wheat and gluten-free.
Joe Clemente started working in his family’s Brooklyn specialty grocery store when he was 9-years old and stayed there until he was 18. After exploring his options following his college graduation, Clemente decided to stick with what he knew and open his own store, Dolce & Clemente’s Italian Gourmet Market. The Robbinsville location, opened in 2008, is his third. He previously owned two other branches in Staten Island and Jackson.
Since opening, Clemente has added several new entities to his store, including breads, prepared meals to go, a small produce department and a salad station. One of the most popular, though, is fresh pasta, which he learned how to make at age 13.
“At that time, I started making things that were easier to handle from scratch,” he said. “Pasta is not a very difficult thing to do. It’s just a matter of getting all the ingredients to the right proportions and having the right equipment. When I started, we still did everything with a hand crank machine. Unless you’re doing it at home, you’re using an electric machine now. It’s relatively easy.”
Back then, Clemente said, his family sold only traditional pastas. Now, he makes ten different cuts and around six different flavors depending on the season. Regular, whole wheat, gluten-free, red pepper, lemon pepper, lemon poppy and black pepper are all currently on the menu, and he plans on adding squash during the summer.
Clemente makes his pasta with three ingredients: eggs, water, and flour. When he makes a flavored pasta, the pureed vegetable or other ingredient replaces the water. This makes his pasta more similar to a protein.
“It actually eats heartier,” he said. “It eats like a meal. It doesn’t break down as fast. Boxed pasta has a lot of fillers in it. This is an all-natural product. It’s definitely much better for you. This is what pasta is supposed to be.”
The process, like Clemente said, is simple. He prepares his ingredients and lets the machine do most of the work. He applies different dies for different cuts of pasta and prefers bronze over stainless steel.
“The bronze will not heat up as fast as the stainless steel during the extrusion,” he said. “It also will not waver in shape. The stainless steel will heat and bend with the force of the pasta. There’s about 3,000 pounds of pressure that’s put on the plate that the die has to deal with.”
Once the pasta is extruded, Clemente lets it air dry on racks. Drying time varies with each cut, but humidity slows down the process no matter what. Still, Clemente prefers to keep it natural and almost never does anything to speed it up. After drying, the pasta goes directly into the refrigerator. The average shelf life is five days.
Clemente said he makes around 1,000 pounds of pasta per week. His favorite is rigatoni paired with a red sauce or vodka sauce.
None of the bigger, popular franchises have ventured into fresh pasta, Clemente said.
“A lot of the newer stores, especially Shop Rite and Wegman’s, aren’t going to get involved in this,” he said. “This is too labor-intensive for their cost factor for their profit margins. For a place like mine where it’s family-oriented and everybody knows everybody, it works.”
Dolce & Clemente’s Italian Gourmet Market is located at 2 North Commerce Square and is open from 9 a.m. to 8 pm. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Phone: (609) 259-0072. On the web: dolceandclementes.com
,
,
