Some people swear that finishing pasta on the heat with its sauce and some of the starchy pasta-boiling water produces the best result. Others just sauce on top. Who's right, and does the starch make much of a difference? We investigate.
Not exactly.The thing is, pasta-the-dish isn't just about the pasta-the-starch, and it's not just about the sauce, either: It's about the marriage of the two. And, like all marriages, there are some secrets to getting the union to work. It just so happens that I was recently working on a screenplay on this very theme. Take a look:A piece of Penne stands opposite blushing bride Tomato Sauce, whose happy tears have reduced her to an absolute puddle .
I served each pasta with grated cheese to my colleagues without revealing what I was testing, and asked them to pick their favorite. To test this out, I prepared three new batches, with the goal of getting water with different levels of starchiness. I cooked one using the frequently recommended ratio of one pound of pasta to one gallon of water, to create moderately starchy water. I cooked another following, with one pound of pasta in half a gallon water, which created the starchiest water. And finally, for the control, I cooked a third batch of pasta and paired it with plain tap water.
But I know that old habits die hard. If you're still not on-board, I'm going to give you a choice: Take this blue pill, and you can go on living your pasta life, eating bowls of so-so spaghetti and thinking it's all great. But if you want to know the truth, take this red pill. I warn you, though, your whole idea of what's real may never be the same...
At left, pasta that's been boiled for 14 minutes; at right, pasta that also cooked for 14 minutes, first in boiling water for five minutes, then in its sauce for nine minutes. The sauce-finished pasta is less cooked than the boiled pasta, despite cooking for the same amount of time.
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