This is how you prepare pasta properly: ‘Never rinse cooked pasta with cold water’ | Cooking & Eating

Cooking pasta brings with it enough dilemmas: olive oil, salt, a lot or little water, pasta in a large or small pot. And the packaging of the pasta type does not always provide an answer to all your questions. We list the best tips to avoid pasta fiascos in the future.

Whether you use dry or fresh pasta, one pasta commandment is always important to remember: your pasta wants to swim. Always cook pasta in plenty of water, put on about 1 liter per 100 grams of pasta. Therefore, always provide a large pot to cook your pasta in, because the dough expands during cooking, because pasta absorbs the water during cooking. Because pasta absorbs water, it is important that you let the water boil beforehand. Only when the water starts to simmer is it time to add your pasta to the pot. In cold water, pasta will simply absorb water, but unfortunately will not continue cooking. The result of cooking pasta in cold water is therefore a pasta that is too soft.

Whether you make spaghetti, tagliatelli or farfalle: to cook pasta you can do a lot salt add. Only add the salt after the water starts to boil. That salt makes your pasta tastier, which benefits the pasta dish as a whole. If you’ve sometimes wondered why pasta tastes so good in restaurants as opposed to at home, chances are the Italian chef is ticking you off about your salt intake. It only has an effect during the cooking process, because sprinkling salt over your spaghetti afterwards does not change the taste. The salt really needs to penetrate into the pasta: during cooking, the pasta absorbs the water, creating the difference in taste. Count on about 7 grams of salt per 100 grams of pasta. Although you can of course add more based on your own taste preference.

Where salt is indispensable, let oil prefer to be on the left. Putting oil in your boiling water is absolutely useless, as oil and water repel each other. The oil will therefore simply float on top of your boiling water, which will have no effect on the taste of your pasta. When you add oil to the water, there is also a chance that you ‘seal’ the pasta with a layer of oil, so that your sauce does not adhere well to the pasta. Afterwards you can of course pour oil over your dish, if this belongs in the sauce or if you want to season the pasta. The opposite applies to oil as to salt.

It is best not to put a lid on the pot while cooking pasta. Putting a lid on it will make the water foam and leak over the edge onto your fire. In addition, you should occasionally stir the pasta and keep the spirellis or strings moving. This is much easier without a lid.

The salt tip given earlier is already step one here. When there is enough salt in the boiling water, the amount of starch in the cooking liquid remains under control and the pasta can cook. Another tip not to make the pasta too sticky is not to leave it in the hot water after cooking, because then the strings will continue to cook. Immediately drain the cooking liquid with a colander and keep it in a bowl to thicken the sauce a bit later.

One of the most common mistakes made when draining the pasta is to briefly shock the pasta under cold water. What is the prescription for buckwheat noodles is absolutely forbidden here. When you douse the pasta with cold water, you rinse off the starch. The starch makes the sauce that you put over the strings creamier afterwards, and ensures that the pasta adheres well to the sauce. Finally, it’s a good idea to stir the pasta into the sauce immediately after draining, if you want it to retain its texture and not be too sticky.

The ideal cooking time differs from pasta type to pasta type. Therefore, always look carefully at the information on the packaging. The indicated cooking time depends on the freshness of the pasta, its shape, quality and size. Do you cook dry pasta? Then it is advisable to let it cook for 1 minute less than stated on the package. You should not forget that your pasta will also continue to cook in the warm sauce, which can ensure that you remove the pasta strands with perfect texture from your pot, but still taste limp pasta while eating.

Chances are that you have prepared a slightly too generous portion of your pasta. Secretly, it sometimes tastes even better the next day, because the flavor of the sauce has completely penetrated the pasta itself. At least: it tastes better if you reheat the pasta in a good way.

Do you have any cooked pasta left without sauce? Then it is a good idea to submerge the pasta in a sieve in a pan of boiling water, so that it can cook again for about 30 to 40 seconds. This way the pasta does not dry out and it does not become too mushy during the second cooking process.

Have you mixed the pasta with the sauce yet? Then you like to slide the pasta into the oven like an oven dish and let it warm up for about fifteen minutes covered with some aluminum foil.