How to Cook Pasta, Better

[Elderberry]

Thermoworks August 17, 2018 By Martin

If there is a food that is more versatile than pasta, I’m not sure what it is. The sheer taxonomy of it alone boggles the mind. Fresh and dried, filled and unfilled, extruded or rolled, hollow or solid—those are just the forms. Then there are the preparations—tomato sauces of a million varieties, pesto, cream sauces. And yet, despite—or perhaps because of—that ubiquity, pasta is constantly simmered in myth and folklore. In this article we intend to dispel some of those myths, and to tell you how to use actual tools, rather than folklore, to achieve perfect pasta.

Contents:

    Pasta history and background
    Pasta science
    Difficulties of pasta cookery
        Boil-overs
        Clumpy pasta
    How to cook pasta
    Pasta al pomodoro recipe

Pasta history and background

Pasta was not introduced to Italy from China by Marco Polo in the 13th century. Both written records, as well as archaeological evidence, suggests that pasta was made from wheat or its relatives in Italy for centuries before that time. While Polo may have brought some noodles back with him from his journeys, by no means was he the means of their introduction to the people at large.

Pastas in various forms may go back as far as the 4th century B.C, but because these “edible pastes”(a literal translation of what some pastas were called in Italy for a long time) were the food of the common people, there is little record of them.

In America, we most often associate pasta with spaghetti, though that is a particular shape of pasta. And we also mostly associate it with tomato sauces, though those are a relatively recent addition to the Italian menu canon. In fact, the first recorded recipe for a tomato sauce for pasta comes from an 1839 Italian cookbook, Cucina teorico pratica, by Ippolito Cavalcanti.

The root of Pasta’s popularity in the States stems primarily from the vast migration of Italians, especially from Naples, to the USA in the late 1800’s. They brought with them an appetite for pasta that was, for the most part, served by import for decades. But due to interrupted supplies of pasta imports during the First World War, pasta production became a real thing in America in the 1910s and 20s. To produce the pasta, farmers in the Dakotas began growing durum wheat to meet the demand. In fact, to this day most of the wheat grown for pasta, even in Italy, is grown in the American Midwest.

Durum wheat is important because it is exceptionally high in protein (gluten), which gives the pasta the structure it needs to dry and reconstitute effectively. Which brings us to the science of pasta.

Science of pasta: the interplay of starch and protein

More: https://blog.thermoworks.com/2018/08/how-to-cook-pasta-better/

[GrouchoTex]

I've had issues with boil-overs, but I do add olive oil into the water.
I'll usually do it again after its cooked and drained, and stir it in to keep it from sticking.
Not a lot, a cap full, about a teaspoon or 2.

[Elderberry]

I don't have a boil over problem, but I use a tall pot. I usually don't add oil before, but I always stir in a couple pats of butter after draining.

[roamer_1]

I've had issues with boil-overs, but I do add olive oil into the water.
I'll usually do it again after its cooked and drained, and stir it in to keep it from sticking.
Not a lot, a cap full, about a teaspoon or 2.

Butter.

[roamer_1]

I don't have a boil over problem, but I use a tall pot. I usually don't add oil before, but I always stir in a couple pats of butter after draining.

Add a couple pats to the boil, dropping the pasta slowly (as the butter is floating in the boil)... Just as the pasta begins to go limp, worry it up, being sure to drag it all to the top once more, to pass it through the butter. After that, you can pretty near forget it, though I will probably come back and worry it a time or two more.

I have never been able to work with the olive oil... Makes it stick together...

[Restored]

Some oil and more salt than you think you need.

[endicom]

The story I got on al dente is that it was cooked that way for working people. The idea is that the fully cooked portion of the pasta will quickly dissolve in the stomach to provide energy while the less cooked portions will dissolve over a longer period of time.

That principle, if it holds, would of course hold for any noodles.

[Elderberry]

Thanks!

Well, here’s the most concise reference I’ve found to describe the health benefits of al dente pasta from, of all places, Disabled World

    Pasta made with semolina is made from cracked wheat and not finely ground flour so it has a moderate glycemic index. Furthermore, pasta is unique in its physical make up. The reason for its slow digestion and steady release of energy is “the physical entrapment of ungelatinized starch granules in a sponge-like network of protein molecules in the pasta dough.” That is something you don’t need to understand to get the good news that pasta can be good for your energy. Yippee!

    But always serve pasta al dente. If you overcook pasta it gets soft and swollen and you have fully “gelatinized” those starch granules and turned pasta into an energy drainer.
  https://www.wanderingitaly.com/blog/article/174/pasta-why-al-dente-is-really-good-for-you

[endicom]

Thanks!

Well, here’s the most concise reference I’ve found to describe the health benefits of al dente pasta from, of all places, Disabled World

    Pasta made with semolina is made from cracked wheat and not finely ground flour so it has a moderate glycemic index. Furthermore, pasta is unique in its physical make up. The reason for its slow digestion and steady release of energy is “the physical entrapment of ungelatinized starch granules in a sponge-like network of protein molecules in the pasta dough.” That is something you don’t need to understand to get the good news that pasta can be good for your energy. Yippee!

    But always serve pasta al dente. If you overcook pasta it gets soft and swollen and you have fully “gelatinized” those starch granules and turned pasta into an energy drainer.
  https://www.wanderingitaly.com/blog/article/174/pasta-why-al-dente-is-really-good-for-you

Thanks in return.

That seems to be saying the same. Or close enough to same.

[Sanguine]

I don't use oil, make sure there is plenty of water so the noodles have enough water for the amount of noodles, stir them when I add them to the water, add in a tablespoon or so of salt and rinse the drained noodles so that they don't stick together.  I prefer the texture of al dente noodles but never knew there was also a health benefit!