Pasta
5 Foolproof Tricks for Cooking Even Better Pasta
Whether you're working with boxed pasta or fresh, you can count on these expert tips from our Resident Pasta Maker, Meryl Feinstein of Pasta Social Club.
Photo by Meryl Feinstein of Pasta Social Club
Popular on Food52
6 Comments
Karl W.
January 14, 2021
6. Serve pasta (unless it's a salad) on warmed dishes. It especially makes a *bit* difference from light sauces like pesto, carbonara, cacio e pepe, alla gricia, et cet., where a tepid or cold plate will cause the sauce to congeal unpleasantly.
Chefs and people who write recipes for a living typically omit this because it's just background assumption for them.
Chefs and people who write recipes for a living typically omit this because it's just background assumption for them.
Lauren E.
January 7, 2021
Since I grew up in Seattle, I do not find sea water "gross". I find heavily salted water, you can describe it as briny if the idea of sea water is gross to you, imparts the perfect amount of seasoning that cannot be achieved by salting at the end.
AntoniaJames
January 7, 2021
You say that "sea water is gross." Whether it makes sense to salt your pasta water so it tastes like the sea depends entirely on which sea you are talking about. In an earlier post on this topic, I added the following, which I am adding here for those who haven't seen it before:
Many years ago, I had the lovely good fortune to spend an afternoon swimming in the Adriatic off of Pesaro, just to the south of Cesenatico, where Marcella Hazan spent her summers. I was a competitive long distance swimmer at the time, but was at Pesaro just to relax. I immediately noticed how much less salty the water was there than other ocean water I'd been in. (One floats more easily, the saltier the water. Swimmers notice such things.)
Decades later, when reading Hazan's memoirs, I remembered reading before how she recommended making your pasta water taste like the sea. Checking the map, I noticed that Cesenatico is even closer to the freshwater plume from the Po River than Pesaro is.
A bit of research confirmed that indeed, the water from the Po does make that part of the Adriatic less saline. In fact, scientific studies based in Cesenatico show that the water there, at the surface (the water one would taste), can have less than half of the average salinity of sea water worldwide - which means that Marcella's rule is probably not far off the mark, when "the sea" refers to the sweet transitional water where she swam as a girl. ;o)
Many years ago, I had the lovely good fortune to spend an afternoon swimming in the Adriatic off of Pesaro, just to the south of Cesenatico, where Marcella Hazan spent her summers. I was a competitive long distance swimmer at the time, but was at Pesaro just to relax. I immediately noticed how much less salty the water was there than other ocean water I'd been in. (One floats more easily, the saltier the water. Swimmers notice such things.)
Decades later, when reading Hazan's memoirs, I remembered reading before how she recommended making your pasta water taste like the sea. Checking the map, I noticed that Cesenatico is even closer to the freshwater plume from the Po River than Pesaro is.
A bit of research confirmed that indeed, the water from the Po does make that part of the Adriatic less saline. In fact, scientific studies based in Cesenatico show that the water there, at the surface (the water one would taste), can have less than half of the average salinity of sea water worldwide - which means that Marcella's rule is probably not far off the mark, when "the sea" refers to the sweet transitional water where she swam as a girl. ;o)
Meryl F.
January 11, 2021
Thank you so much for sharing this! Really helpful background and I've amended the language. I wish I had grown up near such sweet-tasting water!
Smaug
January 7, 2021
As far as I can see, the whole "pasta water" thing is a complete crock. In the first place, if you want to thicken your sauce with starch (which is not an emulsifier- it can serve as a stabilizer, but at least in all of my sauce recipes that purpose is served by the regular ingredients), why do it with water with an uncertain starch and salt content? In the second place, a small amount of starch that has been in a large pot of boiling water will have exhausted it's bonds long ago; it will have no interaction with moisture from the sauce. Thus, unless your pasta water is actually thicker than your sauce there will be no thickening effect. Fortunately, the pasta itself contains quite a bit of starch- if you drain it very thoroughly after cooking (I like to give it a couple of minutes to evaporate too) and cook it briefly in the sauce you have your best chance of having the sauce adhere.
Join The Conversation