Curious (and somewhat disgusted): why corn starch in pasta?
Tonight my husband made some "fresh pasta" he recently bought at a large somewhat trendy grocery chain. It was cooked exactly to directions but came out gummy and slippery. Yuck. When I looked at the label it said "vegan - no eggs!" And the ingredients listed only flour, salt and corn starch. So I'm figuring that the corn starch was put in there to somehow compensate for the lack of egg? My husband wondered if maybe it was added as a preservative of the "freshness." Or could there be some other reason? We will surely never buy this again, but now I'm curious. Can anyone enlighten me?
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Anyway, thanks- I learned a lot from everyone's answers.
Like Sam, I think the corn starch was added to keep the pasta from sticking together. Next time you get pasta, have a look at the dried pastas--a good quality of dried pasta will almost always be better than fresh pasta in a grocery store. And read the ingredients label--anything with more than flour, water, and possibly eggs should stay on the grocer's shelf. And while you are looking at the pasta box, if you see that the pasta is extruded from old dyes, that will be your better choice. Those old, heavily-used dyes are nicked and worn, and give the pasta more texture, which helps the pasta hold the sauce better.