you add the pasta to the water that is boiling. in order to get the pasta that is al dente do you

That is a very pertinent question for boiling anything really, because whatever you throw into to the water cools it for at least a minute usually.

immediately

Monitor pasta for a while and then take a piece out and eat it

It's al dente when it's al dente time measurement in cooking is a lie

^^^

also that glass pot looks like it could shatter into a billion scalding shards at any moment and for that reason it makes me nervous and I do not like it

I throw the pasta in, stir it around for maybe 15 seconds to prevent clumping, then casually reach over and start the timer even though it probably hasn't yet re-boiled, yet. There's no point in obsessing over a few seconds in any direction. Minutes, yes. Seconds, no.

It doesn't really matter because the only way to get it cooked the way you want it is to test a piece.

al dente

good bloke iirc

It's al dente when it's al dente time measurement in cooking is a lie

― quet inn tarnation (darraghmac), Saturday, June 17, 2017 7:43 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

I'm sorry do you see a third poll option because i dont

the third option is to not vote, friend

you're gonna feel so stupid when you see that over 6 billion people didn't vote in your fraudulent pasta poll, bud

i put the pasta in as soon as i put the pot on because it makes it taste better and produces superior pasta water

with fresh pasta i put it in boiling water and then pretty much taste it every 20 seconds and it ends up overcooked anyway

Al dente is overrated, I call it under done. And yes, you have to taste it.

https://i.imgur.com/TuKBBJT.gif

pasta underdone and pasta threads oversalty

there are many hills i'm willing to die on and they all involve pasta let's get this going

i found my thrill
on pasta hill

voted show-egg

i stand w deems

you don't need to boil the water first, just put the pasta in the water from the get go and then heat it up cmon guys

the fuck are u playing at

you add the lime to the coconut, you mix them all up

i put the pasta in as soon as i put the pot on because it makes it taste better and produces superior pasta water

― qualx, Saturday, June 17, 2017 9:58 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess i worded that weirdly

i don't remember where i first heard about this method but i'm certain j kenji lopez-alt has several articles about it

p sure yr a witch

1. water doesn't have to be boiling for pasta to cook
2. as noted you don't have to wait for the water to heat up
3. also as noted: trying to get accurate times for all pasta varieties & allowing for things like finishing it in a pan w/ sauce is for fools, always better to test

this is not an issue for true and good lovers of pasta

i had no idea people actually used the times on the box, wouldn't different stovetops and pots require different times

they always seem overcautious too

SORCERY

I wonder how alex is voting

you don't need to boil the water first, just put the pasta in the water from the get go and then heat it up cmon guys

― gbx, Sunday, 18 June 2017 03:57 Bookmark

reminds me of this guy (also an idiot) i once met who cooked rice by pouring it into a pot of boiling water and draining it after x minutes

chez maison snoball the routine is this:

• bring water to the boil
• put in paster
• wait for water to come back to the boil
• cook for 14 minutes regardless of pasta type

reminds me of this guy (also an idiot) i once met who cooked rice by pouring it into a pot of boiling water and draining it after x minutes

I also cook rice in exactly the same way as pasta, even down to cooking it for 14 minutes.

don't start the timer at all

14 minutes after returning to boil probably makes the pasta easier to mash (assuming you're making mashed pasta)

resultant pasta

michael_jackson_popcorn_except_with_spaghetti_in_the_box_instead.gif

for the dente i like it to be al, eat straight from box, no water needed boiled or otherwise

resultant pasta

― qualx, Sunday, 18 June 2017 09:05 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Highest excellence

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/002/008/chefexcellencememe.png

start timer immediately. putting pasta in boiling water does lower the temp of everything but not enough to cook the pasta more slowly. also different amounts of water will return to boil at different times. the water is close enough to boiling. consistency is key.

i don't remember where i first heard about this method but i'm certain j kenji lopez-alt has several articles about it

― qualx, Saturday, June 17, 2017 10:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this is where i first heard about it -- works like a charm

i like the way harbl thinks

i have a phd in pasta science

you're not fucking kidding pal! You've educated this savage, my overdone al dente is all in the pasta now.

i don't remember where i first heard about this method but i'm certain j kenji lopez-alt has several articles about it

― qualx, Saturday, June 17, 2017 11:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark

i like this dude generally but sometimes he's like "throw an ice cube into your chocolate chip cookie dough, trust me" and it makes absolutely no difference

loool

Itt ghosts

how have i not opened this thread yet

and it's resulted in making the best possible carbonara as something of a white whale in my life. I was in Rome recently and went as always to Cantina Cantarini, where I had the carbonara, and dammit how do they do it? It was incredible. I simply can't get to that level. I mean I know they've been doing it for 100 years, local ingredients etc, but it's infuriating.

Carbonara - cream or no cream? I've always preferred the latter, mixing in some of the pasta water.

unless I'm making a broth-y soup or using the pasta in a cold salad, or its a type of pasta that only takes 2-3 minutes to cook (e.g. angelhair, rice noodles), I actually take the pasta out of the water a few minutes before it's done and then cook it for the remaining few minutes in the sauce. You end up with better texture, and flavor due to the sauce permeating more of the pasta.

xp cream or no cream, iirc you once posted online a carbonara recipe which had onions in, i hope you have repented of that sin.

^

no cream.

pretty much every dish should have onions in it.

there are dishes that don't have onions? I don't I've ever cooked one tbh.

I put onions in almost everything too. Certainly every pizza, pasta, stir-fry, soup, chili, stew.

Not waffles or pancakes (though maybe I should!).

Also: in my household, onions are red unless otherwise specified. My wife has to specifically instruct me to get yellow or white onion when a recipe calls for it.

When making tomato based sauces do any ILX bon vivants just use cheap tinned tomatoes? Last year I went through a period of making my own passata, but fuck doing that anymore - peeling tomatoes and sieving them is tedious work, and if the tomatoes aren't good it is pointless. Sometimes I think some of the pricier brands of passata do make a superior flavour of sauce, but saying that I have made some delicious sauces with plain supermarket brand tinned tomatoes.

Long-cooking tomato sauces do just fine with tinned tomatoes.

i use tinned san marzanos

some v cheap tinned tomatoes are bad but yes I always use tins & my tom sauce game is v strong

tinned all the way

Even the Italian nonnas I have known all use tinned tomatoes (good italian ones if you can get them). They were all like "lol fuck cooking with fresh ones, thats a waste of time"

THIS is the pasta thread I was hoping had been bumped

It doesn’t really matter when you start the timer because it’s merely to remind you to start checking the pasta. imo.

Some very Edward Learian pasta and egg recipes upthread.

Thread is an excursion into madness

That’s every thread

true

I had fancy orrechiete for dinner with onion, pesto and a bit of fresh tomato with some of the starchy cooking water tossed in. Was delish.

I live in fear of overcooked pasta. I think I tend to eat it 2-3 minutes before most people would stop cooking it, but I do cook it more in the sauce.

I'm the exact opposite, I live in fear of undercooked pasta, and have a tendency to make it too soft.

I also do that thing where I cook pasta super al dente, toss it in sauce, then put it into a hot pan with a little oil and parm, crack an egg on top, put a lid on and steam the egg. That way I get a nice runny egg on top and a crusty bottom.

That sounds seriously good

Always set timer for 1 minute less than package says, comes out reliably al dente. Except for farfalle which needs a minute longer.

Part of my problem is I don't like al dente nearly as much as everyone else. I'm a bad Italian!

yerac, a runny egg on top sounds good, but i'm not sure about a crusty bottom

Always set timer for 1 minute less than package says, comes out reliably al dente. Except for farfalle which needs a minute longer.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Monday, July 30, 2018 10:04 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

farfalle is a pasta outlier. if the middle folds are al dente then the outside 'wings' are probably too soft. dried folded pasta is a no-no imo.

I had fancy orrechiete for dinner with onion, pesto and a bit of fresh tomato with some of the starchy cooking water tossed in. Was delish.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, July 30, 2018 11:36 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

love onion being a keystone of a pasta dish

xp yep exactly. and I'd rather have the outside be lil beyond al dente than have the middle be crunchy eww eww.

I like a crispy bottom because my favorite part of the lasagna is the crispy, chewy bit.

Basically, a faster way to get that baked pasta feel.

sorry yerac i was being facetious with my earlier post

t/s sauce or lasagne sheets at the bottom of the dish?

lasagna sheets

off topic, but the egg part reminds me that I've always wanted to try shakshuka

shakshuka is great

I was youtubing a quite daft UK based Italian chef last year, i forgot his name but i know he was an associate of the late Carluccio. What I picked up from him was to mince the onions, garlic, carrots, celery etc to absolutely tiny fragments - i was doing pasta sauces way too chunky for years.

CRUSTY BOTTOM

I put an olive oil, balsamic, clove of garlic sliced and a dash of sauce mixture on the bottom so it makes the lasagna sheet on the bottom roasty, garlicky. Plus I don't cook my noodles beforehand and just use the dry sheets.

^sounds like a good idea

My family always had lasagna on xmas and easter. Unlike Yerac, everyone hated how the top layer was prone to getting dry and crunchy. My aunt (who married into the family) solved that by protecting the top with foil. I think my mom still resents the fact that it took an "outsider" to figure out such a simple solution haha. I make sure every speck of the top layer of noodles is covered liberally with sauce, which prevents crispiness even moreso.

I'm ok with a little pasta crunch

i'm sorry, Yerac, but that's two days in a row that you've blown my mind!:

this is brilliant: That way I get a nice runny egg on top and a crusty bottom.

and that other pasta thread revive that had the buzzfeed article which led to Miyuki's insta. that showed those beautiful, inspired, refined noodle creations was like some life-changing stuff.

ty!

Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana does that dish, The Crunchy Part of the Lasagna.

xpost No problem! I was looking all over my kitchen trying to find textured things to run my pasta against because of that instagram. So many possibilities.

do you manage/worry about the egg holding the integrity of its shape of sorts or do you just plop raw egg on top and just leave it be? sry if that doesn't make sense and if this should be in aks Yerac thread

I make a little nest in the pasta. The oil and parmesan on the bottom helps with getting the crispyness going before I put the egg on. If I don't have a good lid for the pan I am using I will sometimes add some water to help create the steam for the egg. Today I had a hard time getting the egg to cook (all the whites solid) so I had to add a little water like 3 times. Normally my problem is that the egg cooks too fast and the yolk is no longer runny and I get sad.

Residual heat is often quite enough to cook an egg sufficiently; c.f. carbonara

I incubate plain al dente pasta for three weeks until an egg forms on the top