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When you buy pasta The best quality dried pasta is made with semolina, the hardest wheat. This is easy to cook with, as it cannot easily become overcooked. Procedures herein assume semolina pasta, normally imported from Italy. Addition of farina to semolina softens the pasta. Price is lower, a consideration if pasta is the dominant food for the household. To hold cooked pasta Pasta may be cooked ahead of time and held until needed under cold water. As soon as pasta is removed from its boiling water, it begins to stick together. To prevent this, pour off the boiling water and replace with cold tap water. Let the pasta sit in the cold water until needed. When ready to serve, pour off the cold water and replace with hot tap water. This will heat the pasta nicely to serving temperature. Lift pasta out of the warm water and serve immediately. (It might be argued that nutrients will be lost in the cold water. However, the pasta has already undergone boiling for 12 minutes or so. Nutrients that have survived this high-temperature onslaught will surely be very slow to leach out in a cold water bath.) To prevent sticking Pasta may sometimes stick to the bottom of the pan. This danger exists only at the beginning. Thus stir the pasta a couple of times in the first minute of cooking. Sometimes the ends of noodles will stick together. This danger is most acute with wider noodles such as fettuccine. Thus when cooking the wider noodles, make sure that the water is boiling vigorously at the start. (For further insurance, distribute noodles in the pot like spokes of a wheel, so that ends do not touch.) For pizza A flour tortilla makes a convenient base for pizza. |
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