Mastering pasta: Debunking myths and avoiding common pitfalls
Soft and flexible pasta tastes great even without sauce. It is not true that good additions can save overcooked spaghetti. Often, weak pasta ruins the entire dish. Therefore, it is worth remembering a few simple tips to make your dish perfect.
25 October 2024 20:01
Cooking pasta seems like the easiest thing in the world. Yet, there is no shortage of experts who compete in giving advice, such as, "To prevent pasta from sticking, add a tablespoon of oil to the water." This is one of the most frequently repeated myths. Oil added during cooking will always float to the top and will not improve the condition of sticky strands. The most important factor is the correct proportions.
Why does pasta stick?
Wheat pasta contains starch, which starts to stick when cooked in hot water. About 60-70 percent of wheat pasta contains starch, so it is no wonder it's most prone to sticking.
Special caution should be exercised with regular wheat pasta with egg additives. The strands you usually cook for broth are very thin and delicate, so even a delay of half a minute can have catastrophic results.
Less sticky durum wheat
Today, most pasta is made from durum wheat, which is harder and contains more gluten than white wheat. Gluten is responsible for the elasticity of the strands, so this pasta – even cooked a little longer than recommended on the package – should not turn into mush. Durum wheat pasta has a characteristic yellow colour.
Cooking pasta – 3 most common mistakes
Too little water – the perfect proportions are 100g of pasta per 1 litre of water. To be sure, it's worth using a kitchen scale.
Cold water – you might be throwing in the pasta before the water in the pot starts simmering. It is worth waiting a moment. The longer the pasta stays in the water, the more it releases a sticky substance.
Exceeded cooking time—it's worth sticking to the recommended time for cooking pasta al dente, especially if you plan to mix it with olive oil or sauce, which will soften it a little more.
How to save sticky pasta?
Everyone occasionally exceeds the recommended cooking time or hastily throws in a few more strands. Fortunately, there are simple tricks to save sticky pasta, provided it hasn't turned into total mush yet.
You can pour the drained pasta with oil – only then does this hack make sense. Mixing pasta with sauce also works. We do not recommend rinsing spaghetti with water. Italians never do that.
