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The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

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Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#31

Post by babarock »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #11

Not bad advice. Another good tip is to use the right pasta for the right sauce. As any Italian would explain, Spaghetti Bolognese is not actually a thing at least not what you think it is. You wouldn't use spaghetti for a meat sauce but a bit more chunky kind of pasta like tagliatelle or papardelle. You'd use spaghetti for a fish pasta; which is what you risk getting in Bologna if you are ordering a spaghetti bologne…

The main reason for tagliatelle/pappardelle is to get "fresh" pasta. "Pasta Fresca" or "Pasta all'uovo" is made of different ingredients than spaghetti. It's usually soft wheat and eggs versus hard wheat (durum wheat, semolina) and water.

I agree that finding the right pairing of pasta and sauce does make a difference, but I would also say not to overthink it. Most italians will use whatever's available in the pantry, even if it's sub-optimal.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#32

Post by bradleyjg »

I like good food, so I’ve started to follow recipes on sites like this one.

However the thing that no one talks about is that cooking “properly” takes a huge amount of time cumulatively for a single person or even a small nuclear family.

A blogger will talk about a quick little dish. First of all it is going to take you longer because you haven’t spent the last decade chopping onions. Second, even as written this “quick dish” is 15 to make, 15 minutes to eat, and another 10 minutes of cleanup. That’s 40 minutes per meal for a total of 2 hours a day.

Uber eats is just 5 minutes to order and clean up plus 15 minutes to eat, for a total of 1 hour a day. That doesn’t even get into the extra time shopping for high quality and sometimes obscure ingredients, learning these recipes in the first place, and so on. And again that’s assuming only quick little dishes.

So best case scenario net one hour a day every day to eat high quality home cooked meals. That’s 6% of your waking life that’s not available for work, exercise, dating, playing with your kids, calling your parents, reading a book, etc, etc, etc.

Like so many things in our atomized world, the math has gotten worse as we’ve discarded large, extended families. If that cooking time is divided among several people, feeds even more, and is often taken as an opportunity to teach and bond, then things start to look a lot different.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#33

Post by klez »

brunooliv wrote: post #28

This is awesome! A question for Italians in the audience though: is using butter as a fat something that’s commonly done? Being Portuguese and fond of Mediterranean cuisine, I always saw butter as a fat as being a more American thing but maybe that’s just the wrong perception and it’s totally fine if you use a dab of butter? PS: I do it myself, reason being that usually I’ll use extra virgin olive oil while preparing…

Depends where in Italy and what you're doing. In the north where I'm originally from we used to use butter more. In the south oil is king. But that's just "historically". Nowadays there's been a big push towards olive oil in the whole country.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#34

Post by andrew_mason1 »

brunooliv wrote: post #28

This is awesome! A question for Italians in the audience though: is using butter as a fat something that’s commonly done? Being Portuguese and fond of Mediterranean cuisine, I always saw butter as a fat as being a more American thing but maybe that’s just the wrong perception and it’s totally fine if you use a dab of butter? PS: I do it myself, reason being that usually I’ll use extra virgin olive oil while preparing…

Yes. For a long time, butter and cheese were the _only_ toppings for pasta. If you're interested, I'd really recommend reading The Discovery of Pasta by Luca Cesari, which traces the development of a few well-known pasta dishes through historical documents, cookbooks, etc.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#35

Post by frostburg »

brunooliv wrote: post #28

This is awesome! A question for Italians in the audience though: is using butter as a fat something that’s commonly done? Being Portuguese and fond of Mediterranean cuisine, I always saw butter as a fat as being a more American thing but maybe that’s just the wrong perception and it’s totally fine if you use a dab of butter? PS: I do it myself, reason being that usually I’ll use extra virgin olive oil while preparing…

Not commonly in my (Tuscan) experience but there is regional variation, in some areas (mountains, some northern areas) it's used; the French use a lot of it.

I would avoid using it as a partial substitute of olive oil, however. Use butter if the recipe calls for it.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#36

Post by Hikikomori »

benterix wrote: post #21

This is almost a religious matter among my Italian colleagues and I see a few blasphemies on this video already. The recipe I was taught on the hills of Tuscany 30 year ago is so perfect and simple I'll never prepare pasta in a different way. * First slice garlic and put it a pot together with excellent quality olive oil * Fry it until garlic becomes slightly yellow but nor brown, and in the meantime in a separate po…

What's your tomato sauce?

I do something similar but add pepper flakes with the garlic, use canned tomatoes and finish with some butter.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#37

Post by zabzonk »

InCityDreams wrote: post #13
zabzonk wrote: post #10

call me mad, but i like the sauce both dumped on top, or mixed in the pan. i do like controlling the cheese myself though. and the pepper - can't stand those waiters coming round with giant phallic grinders!

Never figured grinders as particularly 'phallic', but beauty, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder.

take it from me, in London at least they really are!

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#38

Post by babarock »

brunooliv wrote: post #28

This is awesome! A question for Italians in the audience though: is using butter as a fat something that’s commonly done? Being Portuguese and fond of Mediterranean cuisine, I always saw butter as a fat as being a more American thing but maybe that’s just the wrong perception and it’s totally fine if you use a dab of butter? PS: I do it myself, reason being that usually I’ll use extra virgin olive oil while preparing…

The answer is... complicated:

- Using butter for pasta is something that is typically reserved for people with upset stomach (understand diarrhea). It's not scientific at all, but just something that is commonly done.

- Fettucine Alfredo[1] is a real italian dish invented in Rome. It's made with butter and cheese. It was originally popular in the touristy areas, targeting foreigners, but over time I notice it slowly appearing in "real" restaurants.

- "Pasta Fresca" (tagliatelle, raviolis, tortellinis, etc) is often served with butter-based sauces (like a lot of the traditional northern cuisine).

A simplistic way to think about it is that butter is a rich luxurious ingredient used in the North, whereas the South is more likely to use Olive oil.

Note that other fats can be used, it's not just olive oil: - Carbonara / Alla Gricia will use the animal fat from the _guanciale_ (the cured pig meat) and avoid using any oil or butter - Cacio e pepe will use neither and use the cheese itself as fat for the sauce. It's a simple pasta, but it's difficult to get right, since parmesan/pecorino are diffcult to emulsify. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fettuccine_Alfredo

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#39

Post by babarock »

Niksko wrote: post #26
babarock wrote: post #22

> Your other option is to purposely undercook the pasta by a few minutes before adding it to the sauce to let it finish. This is super important. I don't know why the article presents it as optional. It is a vital step for success in my experience.

The degree to which you undercook is really about how scared you are of overcooking. The phrase I've heard used is that removing pasta from boiling water and putting it in the sauce is like "pasta bullet time". It slows the cooking enough that you now have lots of extra time to play with. So it's not that you need to pull the pasta very early. You just can, for greater insurance. But pulling it just shy of al dente a…

Agreed.

I pull it out undercooked so I have time to add enough pasta water in the pan and let it reduce. If it's already al dente by the time it's added to the pan, then I find I have to rush through the mixing.

Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)

#40

Post by babarock »

bradleyjg wrote: post #32

I like good food, so I’ve started to follow recipes on sites like this one. However the thing that no one talks about is that cooking “properly” takes a huge amount of time cumulatively for a single person or even a small nuclear family. A blogger will talk about a quick little dish. First of all it is going to take you longer because you haven’t spent the last decade chopping onions. Second, even as written this “qu…

You get better at it the more you do it, and naturally with experience you'll notice it takes less and less time.

That being said, I agree with you, it does take a lot of time. To me, the switch occurred when I stopped considering this time "wasted" and instead consider it fulfilling. I actively look for the time I'll spend cooking each day, I believe it's a good use of my time and I don't try to rush through it.

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