Some Cooking Tips & Bits
Life in the restaurant like Tuscana Pizzeria is always hectic and we must follow certain guidelines and procedures to make sure we are always consistent and maintain our quality. One of the things we must always be careful about is cooking the pasta, and here I talk about dried pasta or the pasta that you can buy on any supermarket shelf. Most times we will blanch our pasta first and then quickly reheat before serving. At home this is also a good method as it means that other meal items can be prepared closer to serving time and the pasta is already semi-cooked and just ready for finishing off, saving too many last minute jobs before you serve.
“Simple & Easy Tips on Cooking Pasta”
All Pasta packets have a cooking time on the side and these have been tested by the company concerned to give optimum quality of their product. These cooking times should be adhered to for Al Dente (it means – to the tooth) pasta but if you like soft and well cooked pasta then you may exceed the guidelines.
- Firstly your water needs to be boiling and in a big enough pot to give plenty of room for the pasta to be completely covered when adding it to the center area of the pot.
- Add salt but never add oil, which will coat the pasta and cause it to repel instead of absorb the sauce. The salt level should be enough that the water tastes salty, a little like sea water in fact, then it is seasoned enough.
- When the water is boiling add the pasta all together and once it is all submerged, stir it as soon as possible with a wooden fork or spoon and keep stirring every minute or so. The water should quickly come back up to the boil once the pasta is added. For blanching pasta, cook the pasta 2 minutes less than that stipulated on the packet and drain off in a colander or strainer at this time.
- Lay the pasta thinly on a tray so that most off the pasta is exposed to the air. Let the pasta cool naturally as cooling under cold water will wash starch and flavour away and keeping the pasta stacked too high on a tray will result in the pasta continuing to cook and over cooking.
- To reheat, just place the pasta back into simmering salted water for the remaining 1 minute and add to your favourite sauce.
Easy really, but it is important to stay within the cooking times to maintain the consistency and quality of the pasta and is also very important whether for the home or working a large commercial establishment.
Things To Remember:
- Look out for – Pasta made only with 100% Durum Semolina, but that is not enough as the recommendation for the serious pasta lover is to buy only imported Italian pasta, and make sure it is made in Italy, not just packaged in Italy!
- Do not trust packaged pasta just because it has an Italian name. Check that the package reads “Made in Italy”. Use the best pasta available. De Cecco is probably one of the best pasta you can buy in Chennai.
- High-quality pasta has a golden colour with a vaguely translucent appearance.
- Once the pasta is cooked and before draining, you can add a glass of cold water into the pot to stop the cooking process.
- To know if the pasta is cooked and you do not have a cooking time on the pasta package, just sample a strand of the pasta. Break it, and see if the inside is still whitish in which case it is ready!
- Save a glassful of the cooking water to add to your sauce. That water will help form a perfect combination between the pasta and the sauce.
Only dry pasta should be cooked “al dente” because “fresh” pasta already is soft to begin with.
