I’ve made that!
Reminds me of “The Assassin’s Spaghetti”
ETA Another version I saw was less burning, more like a risotto treatment.
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Never met with that problem. Perhaps because the sauce itself very often has some oil it? I practically never use plain tomato sauce, though some people prefer it in summer. But even then it’s often with the addition of a little olive oil or some butter. But there’s definitely oil in Bolognese sauce (as part of the soffritto), in Pesto alla Genovese, in Amatriciana sauce (well, not oil, but fat rended from the guanciale, a kind of bacon) and in Carbonara (Idem. though Carbonara recipes are varied, and it doesn’t appear in any written record before the 50’s, so it’s hard to say what a proper Carbonara is). There is no oil as such in cacio e Pepe, that the first that springs to mind.
Also, I only use a very tiny amount, less than half a teaspoon. Which naturally doesn’t mix with the water and floats above the pasta… doing exactly the job I mean it to do, which is breaking up the starch foam.
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I once had microwaved spaghetti. Worst spaghetti I’ve ever had, by far. Worse than high school cafeteria spaghetti.
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Some newer formulations cut that time by two thirds.
I use this technique with every variety of noodle, even bucatini, and get really nice, non-sticky results. I do move the long noodles around quite a bit with tongs, and it seems to work a treat. Either way, bon appetite!
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I’m not convinced that the considerations for cooking pasta well in a restaurant map all that closely to cooking it well at home.
At a restaurant there’s not going to be much energy benefit to turning off the burner, since they reuse the water for multiple batches of pasta, plus you want to keep cooking times short for workflow efficiency and using more water reduces the amount of temperature drop you get when throwing the pasta in. And restaurants are going to have more powerful burners than most homes. Maintaining constant temperature will also improve consistency in how much time each batch takes to get to a certain doneness without having to worry about exactly how much water you’re starting with and exactly when you turn it off and with which pot; I assume a chef shouldn’t have to taste from every batch of pasta multiple times to get the doneness right, that would be a lot of pasta every night.
In other words: there exists at least one version of reality where they’re both right, but trying to solve subtly different problems.
Possibly related: Are there any restaurants that have found that pasta cooks well at a particular lower temperature range, and started using sous vide to do so? That would save energy, save water, save labor, and potentially enable infusing flavors into the pasta during the cooking process in a new way.
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Restaurants keep a big pot of water going with multiple baskets that hang over the side. They often par-cook the pasta and chill it, then finish it just when ordered.
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One of the reasons I prefer to go by the Guide Duchemin myself.
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Yeah, I’ll stick with what works with the pasta I buy, with the water I use, my stove and pot, to produce what the house prefers.
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Came here to say exactly the same thing.
I don’t get the whole removing water with the ladle thing either. I do understand what others had mentioned about using starchy pasta water to enhance sauces, but this…not so much.
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Wondering if they’re arguing about dried or fresh pasta. I have known squatters “cooking” dry pasta by letting it soak for days in cold water.
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I use an electric kettle to bring my water to boil for pasta and whatnot. Time saver, couldn’t say whether it saves energy, but time, def saves a lot.
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If your electric kettle is induction and your cooktop is not, then absolutely the kettle will boil faster.
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This thread makes me think a lot of semi-anonymous people I admire on the interwebs don’t know how to make pasta.
Nonnina is rolling over in her grave!
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Was thinking “That’s interesting, I wonder how they will monetise this??”
Then got to the part of the page with the passive cooker smart device and went “Oh! That’s how!”
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As far as “trust the professional” goes, I suspect most chefs follow what they were taught, and part of that also connects with what is efficient in a commercial kitchen. I would trust chefs who demonstrate having taken a scientific approach to cooking, and that’s why content like Kenji’s is great.
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Most of science is repeated observation, changing certain actions to see what happens, and documenting that. So is the history of cooking. The methods chefs use are the ones that have been shown to work, over hundreds of years in many cases. When new observations can change the methods, chefs do things the new way. Adding vodka to pie crust was a good idea (except that it’s too expensive for large scale production.)
There are so many variables in cooking starches that there can not be a “right” way to do it. (See the whole uncle Rodger event.)
A personal peeve is the idea that cooking like a professional should be the goal of home cooks. Except for knife skills and working clean they are completely different.
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