Jump to content

Do you rinse your pasta?


This is important  

22 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you rinse your pasta?

    • Yes
      4
    • No
      15
    • It depends
      3


Recommended Posts

I am fairly certain that if I rinse my pasta the butterfly effect will occur and an earthquake or tsunami will be triggered on the other side of the world. I do add oil or butter to the pasta after draining but this of course does NOT count as rinsing.

Link to comment

I do not rinse beforehand.

 

Afterwards, I used to rinse in cold water--to seal the pasta so that it doesn't stick to itself in a congealed mass. I started doing this after observing other people's pasta leftovers. Leftovers often were congealed masses.

 

I got upbraided by a young fellow who said that this 'barbaric' practice guaranteed that the sauce would not be absorbed by the pasta.

 

In retrospect, perhaps what I should be doing is rinsing the pasta in cold water (and draining it) prior to putting it in the fridge.

Link to comment

I kinda rinse it... ( neat topic btw lol ) ... I used to do it religiously with the coldest water I could find, short of using ice cubes. I think I remembered reading that this `sets`the pasta, and stops it from continued cooking which would rob the tender strands of their Àl dentiness`

 

;)

 

gogo

Link to comment

If the dish is supposed to be server cold, like a pasta salad, rinse. If it is supposed to be hot, like spaghetti, don't rinse. Pretty sraightforward in my book ;)

Edited by AgentSmith5150
Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

As Ansgar said a teaspoon of olive oil in you boiling water will keep your pasta from getting sticky. Also don't overcook it. that will also cause your stick pasta. El dente' should be tender with just the slightest resistance to the bite. done "to the teeth"

Edited by locolagarto
Link to comment

Ah Pasta !

 

My two cents about pasta cooking.

 

Put them in the boiling water with a spoon of olive oil, but don't cook them completely, remove them 1-2 minutes before the time it would normally take to get them "al dente". Immediatly shower them with cold water to stop the cooking. Once cold, take oil and swirl the pasta with some oil. Then you can put them in the fridge for a day if you want. When you want to eat them, boil some water and put them in for the 1-2 minutes missing from the first cooking.

 

My 2 cents

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Enough water so each pasta piece can freely move

some salt (or herbs)

some 'female' oil

let the pasta slowly fall into the pot with boiling water so each gets a thin layer of 'female' oil

 

If the sauce contains 'male' oil then it will get attracted by the female oil and get glued to the pasta

 

Too bad that we moved before I learned from the italian girl in my 3rd class what a male and what a female oil is.

 

If you use herbs and no salt you can use the water in the pot as base for a soup. I learned this from a navy cook at my army time.

Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...

Here it depends which pasta it is. Penne isn't rinsed, but tagliatelle or spaghetti is rinsed yes. I always cook the pasta "al dente", then rinse with warm water (not hot, but just warm). Not too long, only a couple of minutes. Then back in the pot, 2 parts of oliveoil in it and then just heat it about 2 minutes. When cooking the pasta better not fill the whole pot, but use half of it. That's more then enough.

Link to comment

I voted yes. Being married my wife does most of the cooking and she rinses with warm water. She does not rinse for long; the pasta stays hot enough to still melt butter. Also she puts the colander back in the pot that did the cooking so maybe that helps it stay hot. I did not know that the pasta stayed porous and the sauce was absorbed, I thought there was some sort of sub atomic nanotube effect that caused the bonding of the sauce to the surface of the pasta because after all, that's how it should be. And to be honest, as old as I am I do not remember ever cooking pasta for a salad although I do like pasta salad and will sometimes get it when we eat out.

 

If anyone knows about that female oil and male oil thing, please let me know, it sounds like that could ruin a good pot of pasta :bow: .

Link to comment
  • 4 months later...

Yes!

 

SO yes!

 

lol, I just saw this on Anthony Bourdain's very excellent made in heaven series on food. This time around, during the course of the show, he had interviewed a few of the most important chefs in the world...each one cooking one thing... the best in the world.

 

perfect hamburger

perfect fries

perfect tomato sauce (As you mentioned Claudius..adding the water used to boil the pasta in completes the marriage)

perfect beef bourguignon

perfect steak

perfect baked chicken

 

glorious episode... you can catch it on youtube.

 

search: Anthony Bourdain techineuqes.

 

Man...the chef who was cooking the tomato sauce...holee molee...I think he knows more science than Einstein. Listen to him describing the food science involved in making his perfect sauce

 

:)

 

gogo

Link to comment
Although I'm not convinced about 'perfect', that is subjective imo :)

LOL!

 

You've been hanging out at DarkMatters WAY too much :)

No more abstract perfects for you... all has now gone the way of quantum qualifiers...

 

houston I do believe a philosopher has been born

 

;)

 

gogo

Link to comment

Lol, really great show btw. Nearing the end and its been quite entertaining, the burger looked TASTY as hell. A chef in the background was like 'I want some :)'

 

Also, arent French people just the cutest!?

 

edit: wow, the guy who cooks the french fries looks ExACTLY like the deputy head chef from the pub/hotel I used to work at. Deputy head chef? you know what I mean :)

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up