While the internet is brimming with hacks for achieving the perfect pasta, from secret sauce ingredients to precise salt measurements, culinary experts have debunked a common trick used for ‘unsticking’ cooked pasta. Chefs and home cooks alike have their individual methods for preventing pasta from clumping together. For instance, while renowned TV chef Gordon Ramsay advocates for adding oil to cooked pasta, others consider this step unnecessary. However, there’s one specific practice that culinary experts unanimously critique: rinsing your cooked pasta with cold water. They warn that this can make your spaghetti even more slippery and stickier, essentially “washing liquid gold down the drain,” as Food Republic aptly put it.
The act of rinsing pasta removes valuable starch from its surface, according to the Mirror. This starch is crucial for the pasta to cling onto its sauce, resulting in a more flavorful and satisfying dish. Without the starch, the pasta becomes less receptive to the sauce, leading to a blander taste. The recommended remedy? Set aside some of the pasta water and blend it with your sauce, allowing the starch to create a richer, more flavorful sauce.
However, there are some exceptions to the no-rinsing rule. Bon Appetit professionals recommend rinsing if you are preparing a dish that will be served chilled or at room temperature, such as rice noodles or pasta salad. This is because the starch can cause these dishes to become gummy and unpleasant when chilled.
The pasta unsticking trick isn’t the only kitchen myth we’ve been perpetuating. A chef recently revealed another common mistake, highlighting that what many of us consider ‘al dente’ is actually just undercooked. In culinary terms, ‘al dente’ is an Italian phrase meaning ‘to the tooth’. This refers to pasta or rice that is cooked to have a firm texture when bitten. The pasta shouldn’t be hard, but there should be a slight resistance when you bite into it. This nuanced understanding of ‘al dente’ emphasizes the importance of cooking pasta to the appropriate level of firmness, ensuring a pleasant and satisfying eating experience.
