Don't cook on gas if you really care about that kind of stuff.
Barilla passive cooker
61–70 of 528 posts
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#62You can reduce the energy consumption drastically by boiling way less water than "a large pot" as every packet recommends. Just enough to cover the pasta + some evaporation margin is good enough.
Is that something that even needs to be said?
Does any functioning adult actually cook pasta in such a way as to use way more water than necessary?
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#63The claim: reduces CO₂e emissions by up to 80%* The asterisk: water boiling phase excluded When I boil pasta, I use full heat to get the water boiling, drop in the pasta, then let it come back up to a boil, then drop the temperature as low as possible to keep a slow boil going--about medium-low. Guesstimating that the boil takes about as long as the time to cook the pasta, I'd say that the pasta cooking portion only…
A better way to save energy is to use an electric kettle to get the water up to boiling.
This is about three times as energy-efficient as a gas hob. Combined with passive cooking it could save real money…
Technology Connections on YouTube has a good video about how electric kettles are the superior way to boil water: https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#64You can reduce the energy consumption drastically by boiling way less water than "a large pot" as every packet recommends. Just enough to cover the pasta + some evaporation margin is good enough.
That's why I tend to avoid spaghetti these days. A smaller pasta fits in the small pot better.
Angel hair will soften pretty quickly. You can fold it in half once its steeped a short while from one end.
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#65The claim: reduces CO₂e emissions by up to 80%* The asterisk: water boiling phase excluded When I boil pasta, I use full heat to get the water boiling, drop in the pasta, then let it come back up to a boil, then drop the temperature as low as possible to keep a slow boil going--about medium-low. Guesstimating that the boil takes about as long as the time to cook the pasta, I'd say that the pasta cooking portion only…
Guesstimating that the boil takes about as long as the time to cook the pasta, You need an new stove. Edit: or a new pot
Bringing 5+ quarts of water to a boil takes a lot of energy. Hell, it takes my jetboil 90s-120s to boil low-temp water in like...1 quart quantities. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a large pot of water takes 8-10 minutes to bring to a rolling boil.
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#66[deleted]
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#67You can reduce the energy consumption drastically by boiling way less water than "a large pot" as every packet recommends. Just enough to cover the pasta + some evaporation margin is good enough.
This is a mistake though from a cooking perspective. You use a lot of water because you want to have a very high ratio of thermal mass of water to thermal mass of noodles. You want the noodles to heat up as fast as possible so that the outside gets soft while the inside stays a little firm (al dente) and if you use less water, you’ll take longer to cook the noodles, allowing more even heat transfer because it’s a diffusion process. Basically what you’re going for is the opposite of sous vide/low temp cooking.
And with with more water, you’ll remove more of the starch from the pasta, making it less gummy.
A big pot is, of course, less energy efficient but the results are noticeable if you care about noodle quality.
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, how long would you soak rice to make it edible? I’d imagine it’s longer than 24 hours.
Typically you'd use instant / minute rice when backpacking.
I'd imagine the pressure-cooked (ie: autoclaved) ready-to-eat products like Uncle Ben's Express (or whatever they renamed it) will take over a lot of this, at least for those not on a serious budget.
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hint: There is a direct way to tell if pasta is almost done.
Oooh, maybe we can build a $400 IoT device that requires a $60/month subscription around this idea? Oh... just tasting a piece of pasta? Never mind.
You could maybe call the device Pastero.
It would need to have several precisely calibrated pressure sensors to test the done-ness of pasta. With machine learning of course.
Re: Barilla passive cooker
#70You can reduce the energy consumption drastically by boiling way less water than "a large pot" as every packet recommends. Just enough to cover the pasta + some evaporation margin is good enough.
That's why I tend to avoid spaghetti these days. A smaller pasta fits in the small pot better.
Just stick one end in, wait a few seconds, push, flip it over, repeat.
That said, since I discovered bucatini I don't think I have any desire ever to eat spaghetti again. (And also much more desire to eat 'long thin tubular pasta'.)