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The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
51–60 of 72 posts
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#52I guess some people don't touch their food without a complete physico-chemical analysis, at the molecular level.
For myself, I would not be able to tell the difference between pasta (cooked by myself) with the sauce added before or after. I suspect this is true for many of those "the right way to " advice.
The article even says they have "done the tests to prove" that pasta is better when mixed (and cooked) with the sauce before serving but clicking through to that link the "test" is one guy trying three different pasta dishes. That's one down, a few more billion sets of taste buds to go.
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have made this and a non-stick pan is essential. Otherwise, you have a very annoying mess to clean. The relevant Cook’s Illustrated/ATK recipe: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/article...
Unfortunately the materials coating the non-stick pans are well-established carcinogens. Cast iron stuff is a good alternative and needs only a bit more care.
You can't cook tomato sauces for any significant time in cast iron unless your intention is to remove all the seasoning of the pan. So for the proposed recipe, cast iron doesn't really cut it.
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#54I 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…
>> 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.
For me cooking (generally, making stuff to eat) is a hobby. I don't have kids but that just makes it a little less enjoyable because I don't have a large family to share my cooking with. Otherwise I'm happy for the chance to get away from a screen and have some me-time doing something that satisfies my senses (I especially like adding each spice separately to the pan and taking a biig sniff as it cooks - I'm a food hedonist). In any case I really don't experience it as wasted time. If I'm tired from work or I'm late at home, I just cook something simple or make sure I have left overs.
And it doesn't need to be a hobby. Any way you see it, cooking a good meal is just a great way to care about yourself and your loved ones and make them happy. Uber Eats can't do that.
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#55Surely the correct-correct response is "however the eater likes it" Example, my kids. If it isn't separate they won't touch it.
As a kid, I thought that that was the proper way to serve pasta, thanks to Big Pasta indoctrination via tv shows and ads. I'm happy to announce that I'm now saved and that I've been enjoying my pasta as it was supposed to be enjoyed: pre-sauced!
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Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#56Not 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…
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Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#57ps. make sure you get bronze-nozzle extruded pasta, not teflon extruded .. [ if you get dried pasta ] It creates a nice rough micro-texture on the pasta surface when extruded, which helps it cook easier, and hold more sauce. Swear, not making this up ..
More importantly, they seem to release more starch and lead to nicer sauces.
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately the materials coating the non-stick pans are well-established carcinogens. Cast iron stuff is a good alternative and needs only a bit more care.
You can't cook tomato sauces for any significant time in cast iron unless your intention is to remove all the seasoning of the pan. So for the proposed recipe, cast iron doesn't really cut it.
Yes, for that type of thing you can use stainless steel pans/pots.
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have made this and a non-stick pan is essential. Otherwise, you have a very annoying mess to clean. The relevant Cook’s Illustrated/ATK recipe: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/article...
Unfortunately the materials coating the non-stick pans are well-established carcinogens. Cast iron stuff is a good alternative and needs only a bit more care.
Silicone coatings are significantly better after the initial bakeout:
https://www.nontoxicforhealth.com/is-silicone-cookware-safe....
But I have two kids and a partner with crippling ADHD, otherwise I'd be more conservative about things like this.
Tradeoffs, as we say in the engineering dungeon.
Re: The right way to sauce pasta (2016)
#60Much of this is overengineered. My entire wife's family is from Sicily, and I lived there for 5 years. The important step is to add the pasta to the sauce skillet after the pasta is al dente, and cook it for another minute or so while turning it. This is called "mantecare" in Italian. If you want, you can add a few lines of oil after you turn off the fire ("al crudo" i.e. "raw"). I have never seen anyone do the other…
My mother is Sicilian and she always keeps some of the pasta water aside to add if the sauce ended up too dry.