Nine ways you’re cooking pasta wrong
Nine ways? That’s a lot of ways.
I figured I was committing all nine errors. But it turns out that I’m only committing one: using too small a pot.
And I was already well aware that I often use too small a pot, and yet I do it anyway. I do it because (a) it’s much faster to boil a smaller amount of water, and I’m usually in a hurry and hungry (b) my smaller pots are right out in the open, hanging from hooks, whereas the very big ones are much more annoying to haul out; and (3) I just feel like it, so there.
But who on earth thinks things like number 8, “You think pasta is just for cold weather”? Bizarre. However, I do know that there are people who live by maxim number 9, “You throw out the leftovers.” I know several people (not just one—several—and they don’t live together) who have a thing against leftovers.
Hey, I know people who don’t like to mix food. These are adults, too. By “mix food,” I mean they don’t like stews or soups, for example. But it’s more extreme than that. Everything has to be simple and unitary. A piece of meat, next to (but not touching) a pile of mashed potatoes, next to (but not touching) a mound of green beans. That sort of thing.
And I know other people who eat that way, only minus the veggies. And yes, these are fully-grown adults.
As our present POTUS would say: sad.
[NOTE: Then again, Trump’s actual diet has been said to be horrendous (fast food, mainly), but it’s also been reported that a few months ago after his medical checkup he reformed and now is into soups and salads.]
I break the spaghetti into pieces to fit them into my pot. Of course my brother who picked up a lot of crazy ideas when he moved up north insists that it is not real spaghetti if he can’t twirl it around the fork with a spoon.
The “too small a pot” thing is nonsense for home cooks.
A large pot at a “full rolling boil” is useful in commercial kitchens because it’s essentially self-stirring. It’s one less thing the cook has to deal with. At home, though, nothing is stopping us from stirring the pot every minute or two.
It needn’t even boil. Pasta cooks to done at 180 degrees, not 212. As long as the water stays above 180 degrees, your pasta will cook beautifully.
Not only is it faster to boil, as you said, but the starch from the pasta is much more concentrated in a relatively small amount of water. It works better when you’re mixing it with the sauce and pasta.
A smaller pot is the correct vessel for cooking pasta at home.
I couldn’t get through the paywall to read the no-nos, but I agree there are big differences between commercial and home cooking.
However, we have started using a veggie spiralizer gadget and no longer eat grain-pasta at all.
Zucchini works great, and so do parsnips – the sauce hides any veg flavor if you are concerned about that.
Best of all, you can throw the sauce on the cool or cold just-shredded squash and nuke it in the microwave for a couple of minutes: no pots boiling over, no hot water to spill; done just as fast or faster as the traditional.
FWIW, to the purists:
Left-overs are not a bug, they’re a feature.
I cook spaghetti in the microwave using a Pyrex glass bread pan.
Fill it with water to 5/6 full. Heat on high for 7-10 minutes. Add small amount of salt and dry spaghetti. I use pot-sized or otherwise break it to fit. Heat 4 minutes on high. Stir. Heat another 4 minutes on high. Stir. Heat 2-3 minutes on high until it is done to your satisfaction. Remove and drain.
Keeps kitchen from getting steamed up. Pasta absorbs alot of water so there isn’t much to drain. Also used a 9×11 Pyrex baking dish for lasagna noodles.
AesopFan:
“However, we have started using a veggie spiralizer gadget and no longer eat grain-pasta at all.
Zucchini works great, and so do parsnips — the sauce hides any veg flavor if you are concerned about that.”
The hell you say. I can’t even wrap my brain around your faux, fraudulent fettuccine, your spurious spaghetti.
To quote many a mentally damaged, blue haired third wave feminist, “I just can’t even.”
I’ll stand with AesopFan. I just had spaghetti today for lunch, made with zucchini “noodles.” It was tasty – and I wouldn’t have eaten regular spaghetti for lunch, because of the calories, so it was a bit of a treat, besides.
But then again, one of my favorite recipes is for zucchini chocolate cake (yes, you read that right, and I promise you, it is delicious and you don’t taste the veggies at all) so I may not be the most objective judge.
A useful article, according to her I’m doing a number of things wrong. So I’ll compare and investigate and make up my own mind.
Plus, FWIW the picture @ #2 of Robbins’s simple tomato sauce… Tomato seeds and skins are heavy in “lectins”, which some nutritionists and researchers are leary of and a fine sauce can be made without tomato seeds and skins.
So, she’s potentially putting her customer’s health at risk, which surely has to count as ‘wrong’ as well. Though in fairness, long cooking reduces lectins.
Evidently, draining the water is one of the things I’m doing wrong. But… anyone know to what use the water used in cooking the pasta has once done? The sauce is done when the pasta is cooked to al dente, right? And wouldn’t leaving the pasta in the water take it past al dente, overcooking it?
Geoffrey Britain,
She suggested adding some of the pasta water to the sauce.
Not sure how I think of that.
Thanks FR,
I’m a bit doubtful about that myself.
I use more sauce than pasta. Pasta is there so I’m not eating Italian chili.
Pasta is mostly starch with a high glycemic index. After I went through my commune vegetables-and-rice period, I realized I don’t do that well with carbs. I don’t like eating really bready sandwiches either.
Does adding oil to pasta or pasta water to sauce make a noticeable difference? Maybe I would notice if I ate larger portions of pasta, but to me they sound like placebo effects.
Huxley,
I wish I could say the same about really bready sandwiches myself. Sadly, I’d eat a spaghetti sandwich everyday if I could get away with it.
That is, if my blood sugar could get away with it.
I bought a neat micro wave pasta cooker at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/1/1/350362-fasta-pasta-microwave-pasta-cooker.html
You add water to a line on the pan, put your spaghetti in the microwave and cook on high for seven minutes. Works well, is quick, and no big pot to wash.
For those wanting healthier spaghetti there is Dreamfields brand.
Their ad: “Bring pasta back into your life. Dreamfields help you feel full longer with a balance of fibers and plant proteins. It contains a prebiotic fiber which helps promote healthy digestion.”
And for me, it tastes like normal spaghetti.
I like mine tossed in some balsamic olive oil dressing or with a splash of marinara sauce.
I don’t know anyone like that; but this is a bizarrely coincidental comment on your part.
I’ll tell you why. The other day for no reason at all, an uncle (my mother’s much older half sister’s husband) who was a bit of a character and as close to clone of British actor Stanley Holloway [ http://waytofamous.com/images/stanley-holloway-07.jpg ] in looks and manner and even voice – minus the accent – as one could imagine, popped into mind. And as I was reflecting on some of the things he had said and done, this one surfaced.
We are all eating at one of the long tables set up on the occasion of some big family gathering when I was about 8 or 9 years old. He’s sitting a couple places down from me. He looks over and starts laughing and asks me, “Are you Jewish?”
I say something like “Huh?” and still grinning he says it again. I ask him why he says that, and he says, “It’s the way you eat.”
I still have no idea what he’s talking about so he says, look how you have everything set on your plate so nothing touches anything else, and how you completely eat everything of one kind before starting on another.
As I’m still completely adrift he says something like, “That’s how Jewish people eat their food. Nothing can touch anything else.”
No one is paying any attention to what he’s saying to me, and no one there would have had any idea of how or what Jews ate that was the same or different than anyone else anyway, except for pork, so it just dropped.
And how a onetime minor league ball player who spent some time in the Navy at Pearl during WWII, but otherwise spent his working life as a pipe fitter for an auto company, would know or think he knew ” how Jews are supposed to eat” will have to remain a mystery I guess.
Mrs Whatsit Says:
April 19th, 2018 at 6:24 pm
Thanks for the vote! It took me a while to get used to not eating the pasta, but now I prefer the veg-noodles.
As for zucchini cake: it makes great bread, and if you put enough chocolate in something that’s all you can taste.
Try avocado chocolate mousse sometime — I’ve never met anyone who could tell the difference if it was whipped sufficiently to get the texture right.
Fractal – “faux, fraudulent fettuccine, your spurious spaghetti” – guilty on all counts, but I eat the fake food while I watch the fake news, so at least I’m consistent.
I confess that I have never eaten a spaghetti sandwich, but I love a good meatloaf panini.
DNW:
Well, for what it’s worth, none of the people I’m talking about are Jewish.
But maybe your uncle had some vague knowledge of the kosher laws about separating milk and meat, and was making a joke about that.