16.5 Cooking pasta and cereals

Pasta recipes → Oats recipes →

Buying and storing pasta

Pasta is bought by weight, fresh or dried. Tubes and shapes are rarely sold fresh. Dried pasta, by far the most common, comes in boxes or bags, usually of 1, 10 or 20 pounds, and keeps for several months somewhere cool and dry. Wrap fresh pasta airtight; it keeps a few days in the refrigerator or a few weeks in the freezer.

Pasta has very little fat and supplies vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrate; some products are enriched with extra nutrients.

Making fresh pasta

Fresh pasta needs only a few staples and almost no special tools. It starts as the sfoglia: one thin, flat sheet of dough, later cut into ribbons, circles or squares.

You can knead the dough by hand, roll it with a rolling pin and cut it with a chef's knife, but a machine makes the work easier. Some electric machines mix and knead the dough and then push it out through a cutting disk; these suit kitchens that serve a lot of pasta. The more common machine is turned by hand. Two smooth rollers knead and press the dough into an even, thin sheet, and a second pair of rollers cuts it into strips.

To make egg noodles by hand:

• Mix half a beaten egg with a tablespoon of milk and a quarter teaspoon of salt. Work in half a cup of flour, plus a little more if needed, to make a stiff dough.
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• Roll it out as thin as you can and let it dry for about 20 minutes.
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• Roll the sheet up loosely, like a jelly roll, and slice it into noodles a quarter inch wide, or use a pasta machine.
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• Spread the noodles on a tray under a towel and let them dry, two hours or longer.

Making ravioli

Almost any filling works, raw or cooked: meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, cheese, vegetables or herbs. A meat filling, though, must be fully cooked before it goes in, because the dough cooks too fast to cook the meat. Choose the filling, the dough and the sauce so that each suits the others.

• Make a pasta dough in the flavor you want, and make and chill the filling.
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• Roll two thin sheets through the pasta machine and lay them flat.
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• Pipe or scoop small mounds of filling onto one sheet, about 2 inches (5 cm) apart.
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• Brush water on the bare dough between the mounds.
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• Lay the second sheet on top and press around each mound to push out the air and seal it.
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• Cut the ravioli apart with a chef's knife, a pastry wheel or a round cutter.
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Filled pasta is boiled the same way as ribbons.

Al dente: knowing when pasta is done

Heat stored in food goes on cooking it after it leaves the heat. see chapter 8: Carryover cooking

Asian noodles are never served al dente. They are either cooked in boiling water until they are very soft, or stir-fried to a real crisp.

Well-cooked pasta shows it in three ways:

• Look: the pieces are separate and whole, with the color typical of that pasta.
• Texture: firm yet tender, moist, and gelatinized all the way through.
• Flavor: mild, with no taste of raw starch; egg noodles taste a little of egg.

Boiling pasta

There is only one way to cook Italian-style pasta and most Asian noodles: boil them. The key is plenty of water, 1 gallon (4 liters) for each pound (450 g) of pasta.

Use a pot big enough for the pasta to move freely. In too little water, the starch the dough gives off makes the pasta gummy and sticky. Bring the water to a rapid boil and add all the pasta together.

Salt the water. Pasta takes up water and salt as it cooks, and salt added afterwards does not season it the same way.

Chefs argue about oil in the water. Purists leave it out, holding that it makes the dough take up water unevenly. Others add it to cut down the foam. Some say oil stops pasta sticking, but that only works when it is tossed through pasta that is already cooked and drained.

To cook pasta to order:

• Bring the water to a boil over high heat, adding oil if you choose.
• Add the pasta and the salt to the water at a rolling boil.
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• Stir so the pieces do not stick together, bring the water back to the boil, and cook until done.
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• Drain at once in a colander. A little oil can be tossed through to keep the pasta from sticking.
• Serve it hot straight away, without rinsing; or, for a salad or another dish later, cool it in cold water.
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Noodles can boil uncovered in salted water about three times their volume, for about 10 minutes. Another way is to boil them 2 minutes, then cover the pot, take it off the heat and let it stand until the noodles are al dente, about 10 minutes.

Asian noodles are either boiled until fully cooked, or parboiled (part-cooked) and then stir-fried with the other ingredients to finish.

Cooking pasta ahead

Fresh pasta is delicate and very quick to cook, so always cook it to order. Dried pasta can be cooked ahead for large numbers:

• Boil it as above, but stop when it is about two-thirds done.
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• Drain it, rinse it lightly, and toss it with a little oil.
• Portion it, and wrap each portion in plastic or lay them on a covered sheet pan. Refrigerate.
• To serve, drop a portion in a china cap into boiling water to heat it, drain, sauce and serve at once.

Cooked pasta is a potentially hazardous food, so pasta cooked ahead falls under the same limits as any cooked food:

• Cool it to 20°C (68°F) from 60°C (140°F) within two hours, then to 4°C (40°F) within four more.
• Keep it at 4°C (40°F) or colder.
• If it will be held in the cooler past 24 hours, date it; potentially hazardous foods are generally thrown out after three days.
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• Before it goes into a hot-holding unit, reheat it to at least 74°C (165°F) for 15 seconds, then hold it at 60°C (140°F) or hotter.

Pasta in broth and with sauce

Pasta goes into broths, makes a bed for stews, fish, shellfish, poultry and meat, or is simply tossed with sauce. Small shapes for soup can cook in the broth they are served in, or be cooked apart and added to the hot liquid as it goes out; cappelletti in brodo and chicken noodle soup are made both ways.

Pasta sauces run into the hundreds, but most belong to one of six families:

• Ragù: a braise used as a sauce. Meat or poultry and flavorings are browned, then a tomato product goes in with stock, wine, water, milk or cream.
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• Seafood: white seafood sauces use white wine or stock and herbs; red ones are based on tomato.
• Vegetable: older sauces of tomato and stock with garlic and red pepper, and newer ones such as primavera.
• Cream: milk or cream, sometimes thickened with roux, and usually finished with cheese.
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• Garlic and oil: olive oil flavored with garlic and herbs, hot or cold, cooked or raw. Pesto is a raw, cold one.
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• Uncooked: dressings and garnishes such as fresh tomato, basil and olive oil; or olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, basil and red pepper flakes. Olives, capers, anchovies, flavored oils, fresh vegetables and herbs, and cubes of cheese all belong here too.

Braising is taught in full with the slow, low methods. see chapter 10: What braising is

Lessons from pasta recipes

• Save some cooking water. Keep back a cup of the starchy water. Tossed with the drained pasta and sauce, it loosens a sauce that has grown too thick.
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• Orzo looks like a large grain of rice. Serve it on its own, alongside soup, in a salad, tossed with sauce and vegetables, or in a baked casserole.
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• One-pot pasta. Spaghetti can cook straight in stock and cream over low heat, stirred, until the pasta is tender and the liquid has become a sauce.
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• Fettuccine Alfredo is fettuccine tossed with Parmesan and butter. As the cheese melts it binds the liquids into a smooth, rich coat. It takes its name from Alfredo, a restaurant in Rome, where it was named in 1914.
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• Pasta salad: farfalle cooked al dente, 12 to 15 minutes, then dressed with oil, vinegar and oregano, garnished, and chilled, covered, for 20 minutes before plating.
• Puttanesca comes from Naples in the middle of the 20th century. It usually holds tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, olives, capers and olive oil.
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Hot breakfast cereals

• old-fashioned, quick and instant oats;
• cream of wheat and cream of rice;
• Malt-O-Meal;
• quick and instant grits;
• cornmeal;
• multigrain cereal.

Look at how processing shapes each one, and check the packet directions against the two usual faults: lumps, and a raw starch taste that lingers.

Cook each cereal with water as the packet says, until the raw starch taste is gone. Add more water if it needs it, and stir it gently with a fork.

A well-made hot cereal:

• has the color of its grain, with no skin on top;
• is light and even, with the separate particles you expect of that cereal;
• has no lumps and no hard, unsoftened bits;
• feels moist and slightly chewy;
• tastes mellow and true to its grain, with no raw starch.
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Words for milling and shaping

• Cracking: breaking grains open.
• Grinding: crushing grains to a powder, fine or coarse.
• Hulling: taking the hull, or husk, off a grain.
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• Pearling: taking off some or all of the hull, bran and germ.
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• Extrusion: forcing pasta dough through plates with holes in them to make shapes. Dough that is not extruded has to be rolled and cut.
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• Macaroni: any dried pasta made of water and wheat flour. The word means elbow-shaped tubes in the United States alone.