For many of us, pasta is the staple ingredient for a simple weeknight meal, but preparing it properly isn’t as easy as it seems.
While most store-bought packages instruct home cooks to take a specific step to prevent pasta pieces from sticking together once cooked, it turns out they’re missing a trick.
Fans of this Italian-born staple have probably long rinsed their cooked pasta in cold water to prevent it from sticking together, but those in the know are eager to eliminate this practice.
The website Republic of food (founded by award-winning chef and cookbook author Marcus Samuelsson), for example, has compared rinsing pasta to “pouring liquid gold down the drain.”
She added: ‘When you throw the noodles into a colander and pour over water after cooking, you might think you’re helping them become less sticky.
It has long been believed that cooked pasta should be rinsed with cold water to prevent individual pieces from sticking together, but cooking professionals disagree (file photo)
“But important starch is also removed from surfaces.”
And, according to the site, when you rinse pasta and remove the starch, you’re actually damaging the dish you’re planning to make.
This is because starch acts as a kind of “glue” that improves the flavor of the finished product.
The website described the “water left after cooking pasta” as a “magical preparation.”
Instead of pouring it down the drain, cooks should “reserve a cup or two” before straining the pasta and then “add some to the sauce while mixing the pasta.”
The starch in the water causes the sauce to combine with the pasta (rather than just sitting on top of it) and in turn produces a more flavorful dish.
However, there is one situation where rinsing pasta with cold water is the right thing to do.
If you’re making a pasta salad, for example, running the pasta under cold water after cooking helps “stop the cooking process, preventing the pasta salad from getting mushy.”
The Food Republic website (founded by award-winning chef and cookbook author Marcus Samuelsson), for example, has compared rinsing pasta to “pouring liquid gold down the drain” (file photo)
Another thing to consider when cooking pasta is the cost, which there are ways to reduce.
According to scientists at Nottingham Trent University, there is an optimal method that could save you up to 6.5p per serving.
It involves first soaking the dried pasta in cold water for two hours and then cooking it in simmering (but not boiling) water at 176°F (80°C) for one to two minutes.
In terms of the volume of water in the pot, the scientists calculated that using half the standard amount of one litre was more cost-effective and did not compromise the texture or quality of the pasta in any way.
The first thing the experts analyzed was what happens to pasta when it is cooked.
There are two processes happening at the same time: first, the rehydration and softening of the dried pasta within ten minutes of cooking it in boiling water, and second, the heating of the pasta to cause the proteins to expand and become edible.
The study estimates that, taking into account that the standard cooking method is to place 100g of pasta in 1 litre of boiling water for ten to twelve minutes, the cost of doing so is 12.7p per serving on ceramic hobs, 10.6p on induction hobs and 7p on gas hobs.
So scientists at Nottingham Trent looked at how they could reduce this cost by breaking down the amount of energy used during the cooking process.
They estimated that 60 percent of the water is used to keep the water boiling, meaning any way to reduce cooking time would have a big impact on the overall cost.
That’s where the two processes are important. The first, the hydration of the paste, doesn’t actually require any heating. All it needs is water.
Therefore, the scientists said, instead of boiling it in water for 12 minutes, food lovers can simply rehydrate dried pasta by placing it in cold water for two hours.
As no heat is used, no energy is used, resulting in a total saving of 6p on the cost of service.
In fact, just turning off the heat halfway through cooking and letting the pasta rest in the residual heat will save you about 3 cents.
Immersion in cold water completes one process of cooking pasta, but it doesn’t satisfy the other, which involves heating it and causing the proteins to expand. But there are still more ways to save money, say scientists.
This is because they discovered that reducing the water by half (500ml) still resulted in excellent pasta, so heating it took less time and therefore used less energy.
Not only does less water use less energy, but experts say there’s no need to heat it to 212°F (100°C) because simmering it at 176°F (80°C) will still allow the protein granules to dissolve.
This reduction in temperature represents a saving of around 0.5 cents per serving, according to the study’s estimates.
However, 500ml is the limit, because reducing the volume of water to a third didn’t work. It allowed too much starch to build up in the pan and led to lumps of pasta that didn’t cook evenly.
Another thing that didn’t work was using a microwave to heat the pre-soaked pasta, as this produced the worst quality noodles in the entire experiment.
The research was shared by David Fairhurst, professor of Nottingham Trent University, in The conversation.