Diamond products are available from most supermarkets in New Zealand.

If you can’t find a Diamond product in your local supermarket, please contact us and we can direct you to the nearest stockist.

Unfortunately Diamond products are not sold in Australia.

Diamond dried pasta is made in Italy.Diamond Rice Risotto, Couscous, Coat n Cook and Macaroni Cheese is made in Australia.

Regular Diamond pasta starts life as durum wheat grown in a field.

Regular Diamond pasta is made from durum wheat as this has a lower starch content and higher protein content than other types of flour. Lower starch content and higher protein content are essential to the quality of pasta.

When ripe, the durum wheat is harvested and taken to the mill. During milling the wheat grains are separated from the chaff to reveal the heart or endosperm of the durum wheat grain.

The grains of wheat are stored at the mill until we are ready to make pasta. Stringent quality control checks are undertaken on each load of grain to measure their protein content, moisture content, and other measures to ensure only the best grains make it into Diamond pasta. The grains are sorted and stored according to their qualities so that can be blended together to make the best possible pasta.

The heart of the durum wheat grain is then ground into semolina flour. Semolina flour is then mixed with water to form a dough. No artificial colours, flavour or preservatives are added to Diamond pasta. The dough is then pushed through a die to form the pasta shape. As the dough is pushed through different shaped dies the pasta shape is formed. Once the shape is formed the pasta is dried in ovens and then cooled and packed into packaging.

Diamond wholemeal pasta is made in the same way from whole wheat durum flour.

Diamond gluten free pasta is made in a similar way to regular pasta, except that it is made from corn rather than wheat in a dedicated gluten free facility.

Most people tend to associate pasta with Italy, however originally pasta was first made as a pasta noodle in China. Marco Polo brought pasta across from China to Europe in 1295.

A semolina dough (made from durum wheat and water) is pushed through different shaped dies under pressure (a bit like using a cookie cutter shape to make biscuits). Each shape is then dried in ovens to form a hard dried pasta shape and then packed.

Choose a pot that is big enough to fit in your pasta and water.

As a guide allow 750ml of water for each 100g serving (helping) of dried pasta.

Bring the water to the boil. Add the pasta and salt to taste, keeping the water boiling.

Don’t cover

Cook according to time guide on the pack or until firm to bite, stirring occasionally.

There is no need to add oil to Diamond pasta while cooking. Diamond pasta has low starch content and high protein meaning that it doesn’t release extra starch when cooking. This means that it is less likely to stick together and requires less water to cook it in versus other brands. Save your olive oil for the top of your pasta rather than throwing it down the drain.

Tips:

You can start with boiling water from a jug rather than boiling on the stove (which may save you time depending on the speed of your stove).

Pasta can be cooked in the microwave, although we don’t recommend it. It isn’t quicker than cooking on the stove and in a microwave it can be easier to over-cook your pasta.

First of all look at the colour of the pasta – is it golden in colour? Does the pasta have any cracks in it, or pieces broken? If it looks pale or brightly coloured it may not be made from quality ingredients or it may have colour added.

Then look at the ingredients list and nutritional table. Good pastas will have no added colours, flavours or preservatives. They will also be low in sodium and have a high protein content.

When you cook up pasta it should have a low starch content meaning that it should not stick together and release too much starch when it cooks. You should not need to add oil to the water when it is cooking.

Taste the pasta – it should taste great!

We recommend 100g of uncooked pasta per person. Note that if your recipe has lots of sauce or added meat and vegetables you will need less pasta per person.

As a guide, if you don’t have the shape that a recipe calls for it is best to pick a similar shape and size of pasta to replace it with. You may have extra sauce or less sauce depending on the type of replacement pasta you select.

Long pasta is simply a pasta that is long in length, such as spaghetti.

Short pasta are shorter shapes like macaroni.

Yes Diamond Rice Risotto contains flavour enhancers including MSG. Flavour enhancers are part of what gives Diamond its great flavour.

Diamond Gluten Free Chicken. Supergrains: although this range isn’t specifically made on a gluten free line the Malay red curry and Vietnamese do not have gluten in the ingredients. If you are a Celiac, we would not recommend the Diamond Supergrain risotto range as it is not tested to be gluten free.

Mushroom, Chinese, Beef, and Thai Green Curry. The beef flavour is from yeast extrat not beef.

Mushroom, Chinese, Red Malay Supergrain and Spanish Salsa Supergrain risottos.

Diamond Taties (20kg) are available from Bidfood.

Yes. Our regular rice risotto range, like all rice, its best to rinse before cooking.Do not rinse supergrains risotto - this is pre rinsed and the supergrain mix contains flavour as well.