“La pasta vuole compagnia”
Pasta needs company! Never leave it alone, keep stiring once in a while and keep testing them.
Best to drain it before you think it's "good" or al dente cause paste keeps cooking after beeing drained due to the heat and moisture/vapor.
Also, most good pasta dishes get their final cooking in a large pan in the sauce with some cooking water. So usually you drain em when they are still a bit hard in the inside and finish the cooking in the pan.
Italian nonas are rollin in the grave.
Good HN article nontheless
My best pasta comes from when I start testing it roughly 9 minutes in. Pasta softness depends on water softness, salinity, even ambient air pressure (though I am decidedly a low-lying person). Also pasta shape, and even quantity of pasta in the container (unless you have one of those huge boilers used in restaurants).
The instructions on the box tend to overcook my pasta well beyond al-dente.
Also, to all pasta lovers: please try trafilata al bronzo pasta from places like La Molisana, De Cecco, Garofalo, Rummo, and more.
It’s a high quality mass market brand. I have tried a large number of more expensive brands, but none have beat De Cecco for me in terms of consistency and quality.
> I generally find the numbers printed on pasta boxes for cooking time far too high: I'll set the timer for a minute below their low-end "al dente" time
Interesting! I generally add three minutes to the recommended cooking time, otherwise the pasta still feels stiff. There's no accounting for taste, is there?
Pasta is a bit like toast. It's undercooked for most of the time and only ready for a tiniest fraction of the time. The rest of the time it's overdone.
Although I heard a reason for the toast thing the other day. As it slowly toasts it gets a tiny bit darker. Once darker it doesn't reflect as much energy, hence absorbs it and result is exponential roasting levels.
Interesting. I live at low altitudes and I almost always have to cook noodles longer than the instructions on the box. Now I only use Italian pasta like DeCecco or Rummo.
Yeah, I think usually the recommended time is an underestimate for me, but it depends strongly on the brand and type of pasta. I usually treat the recommended time as a ballpark of when to think about monitoring it closely if I'm busy prepping other things. Usually the first time I cook a given type of a given brand I'll watch it more closely and then try to remember what seemed best.
The cooking time is proportional to the thickness.
General advice on pasta:
* a quality dry pasta (dececco e.g) will have ~14 grams of protein per 100 grams dry weight, this is really essential
* bronze die cut will help soak up more sauces
* you do not need the full volume of water the box says, but start your timer once the water has returned to a boil
* once it has gotten to a boil, keep it boiling, but it doesn't need to be a raging boil, that'll tear apart the pasta, especially a stuffed one
* heavily salt your water, but it does not need to be "salty like the ocean"
* set your timer for a minute less than the cooking time on the box, check for doneness, then give it another minute if needed
* if you're finishing in a sauce, take the pasta out a minute before it is done. Remember to reserve one cup of the starchy cooking water before draining your pasta entirely
* do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick. Just stir after you put it in, and then again a minute or two in
* if you're struggling to tell if it's "done", take a bite of a single piece, and look at the cross section a bit of "white" in the middle means that hasn't hydrated fully. Maybe you like a bit of "toothsome"ness ('al dente'), maybe you don't
> * if you're finishing in a sauce, take the pasta out a minute before it is done.
ie, 2-3 minutes before the box time, possibly more, depending on what finishing means for your case.
> * do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick.
It will not hurt, and may help. Oil will stop the super starchy water, if you followed the reduce the water volume step as suggested, from boiling over - as it will help reduce the surface tension. This is real, and particularly important for some types of noodles and dumplings.
> Remember to reserve one cup of the starchy cooking water before draining your pasta entirely
At least- again, depending on what sauce you're putting it in, and how underdone you took it out. Particularly if you'll have leftovers (as any good homecook often will!), the 'al dente' pasta will absorb all your water, and you'll need to add some before you put it in the fridge, or it will be super dry when you reheat it.
> it does not need to be "salty like the ocean"
despite what Nigella might tell you, it should be no where near ocean water. (just to reinforce this, because I'm not sure if people just think it is a thing to say, or they just have no idea how salty the sea is)
If you make pasta frequently, you can just reserve the pasta water on the stove and cook more pasta in it the next day. I usually just leave it out with a cover on, it's fine for a day, probably two.
For whole grain pastas I find this really helps get a more satisfying flavor and consistency.
Sometimes I'd put the whole pot in the fridge after it cooled to room temperature and it'd keep for a bit so I could use it for brown rice, or for more pasta later.
Finally, you can also use that water to water your plants because it has a ton of healthy nutrients in it, but you have to be really careful cause of the salt so I always water it down heavily and don't apply it as frequently as I have a pasta water that I'm going to drain.
> you do not need the full volume of water the box says, but start your timer once the water has returned to a boil
I never do that, I start the timer as soon as I put the pasta in the water, and usually the cooking times on Italian brands are spot-on. If I have to finish the cooking in a pan (depending on the sauce) I take out 1m or 1m30s, and it's "al dente".
> * do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick.
Using oil has never been about preventing it from sticking, despite so many people repeating this myth. Anyone can plainly see that the oil floats on top of the water and never touches the pasta.
The only purpose of the oil is to prevent foaming so it doesn’t boil over.
(I get what you're saying, spiritually, your pasta water from your giant pot of one box of pasta isn't gonna do much to thicken your sauce. But it's not a myth, just a matter of degree)
... if you use less water than the amount prescribed on the box it'll be proportionally starchier. It isn't a myth, you can literally see the starch in the water ...
As someone who makes pasta 3 times a week, the comment sums up my experience with cooking better than the article. I don't really ever have issues with pasta getting too soft in my alla gricia, cacio e pepe or aglio e olio.
How much salt also depends on how much pasta water you want to use for your sauce and how much cheese you intend to put in. With more cheese you'll need more starch and then you need to avoid over salting the water.
For the type of rigatoni (smaller) in the article and my local brands it varies between 11 and 15m recommended cooking time depending on brand, and from experience the recommended time is when its ready to be put in a sauce, so not fully cooked. My favorite but more expensive brand says 14m, I usually set a timer to 13 and then try it until its ready to be cooked in the sauce.
Hopefully tptacek shows up... this is sort of offtopic but made me remember some comments of his from years ago here on HN. Something about the "rehydrating" step not having to be the same as the "cooking" step. I feel like he said you could end up with some pretty interesting and terrific pasta by _soaking_ it for a while (not cooking it), and then cooking it for a much shorter time later.
Does this ring a bell for anyone? I've been wanting to try it, but I can't remember the details exactly.
It's funny because Americans love to overcook their pasta, even when it's 'Al dente'. Italians serve pasta so it nearly crunches in the very center of the noodle.
Nearly all the population in the UK lives below 500m.
In the US, there are major cities that are at 1500m elevation (like Denver CO). Water in Denver boils at ~94C. For most of the UK it's more like 98->100C
Yup, for my altitude (825m) the 12 minute cook times are about spot on. And I do prefer my noodles to be more al dente. I don't even mind if they have a little crunch.
The water does not need to be boiling the whole time.
You can boil the pasta just 2 minutes, turn off the stove, close the lid and leave the pasta in the water for the rest of the time until reaching the desired cooking time, plus around one more minute.
The result will be the same and you would have saved round 80% of the energy.
I don't do this, but I'm impatient so I start with scalding hot tap water. Not sure if there is any energy saving (or waste) there, since it takes at least 30 sec for hot tap water to reach max temp.
Also something I discovered recently: making home-made pasta is REALLY EASY, and quite delicious. For basic ravioli you need about 30min from going from raw ingredients (a bit of flour, one or two eggs, some salt) to a ravioli
There’s an American fear of “not enough”. I think the overboiled pasta is informed by a fear of undercooked food, but also just this general not-enoughness. It’s the same fear that makes someone buy a truck that can hold the biggest load they can imagine needing, rather than accepting they might need to make two trips or rent a bigger truck every few years (or never) and get a truck half the size.
> I think the overboiled pasta is informed by a fear of undercooked food
Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence.
"Mahkit Baskit" (as we say it) is a discount grocery store. Even though it's clean, there are often lots of mistakes that happen with low-wage, untrained labor. IE, one of the few times I went there, the bosc and d'anjou pears were all mixed together because they are green. (But they are obviously different in taste and shape if you are smarter than ChatGPT, and have stickers on them to make it obvious to whoever's stocking the shelfs.)
So it's no surprise the directions on pasta are wrong!
It's also because Americans love "mac n cheese" and food like that, so basically that have a taste for overcooked, mushy stuff, where basically 99% of the taste is in the (overflavored) sauce they'll pour on top
You do not cook pasta by cooking time.
“La pasta vuole compagnia” Pasta needs company! Never leave it alone, keep stiring once in a while and keep testing them.
Best to drain it before you think it's "good" or al dente cause paste keeps cooking after beeing drained due to the heat and moisture/vapor.
Also, most good pasta dishes get their final cooking in a large pan in the sauce with some cooking water. So usually you drain em when they are still a bit hard in the inside and finish the cooking in the pan.
Italian nonas are rollin in the grave. Good HN article nontheless
Cooking time can be a good indicator. If it says 10 minutes you can start to check it out by 8 and decide from there.
Don't know why this was downvoted.
My best pasta comes from when I start testing it roughly 9 minutes in. Pasta softness depends on water softness, salinity, even ambient air pressure (though I am decidedly a low-lying person). Also pasta shape, and even quantity of pasta in the container (unless you have one of those huge boilers used in restaurants).
The instructions on the box tend to overcook my pasta well beyond al-dente.
Also, to all pasta lovers: please try trafilata al bronzo pasta from places like La Molisana, De Cecco, Garofalo, Rummo, and more.
Isn't De Cecco pretty mid? It's found in every supermarket in the UK for example
It’s a high quality mass market brand. I have tried a large number of more expensive brands, but none have beat De Cecco for me in terms of consistency and quality.
Eye-talians probably downvoting this LOL. Confused by a bit of basic Italian
it's nonna* though ;)
Measuring pasta with calipers is prime HN material, thank you for posting this!
> I generally find the numbers printed on pasta boxes for cooking time far too high: I'll set the timer for a minute below their low-end "al dente" time
Interesting! I generally add three minutes to the recommended cooking time, otherwise the pasta still feels stiff. There's no accounting for taste, is there?
Pasta is a bit like toast. It's undercooked for most of the time and only ready for a tiniest fraction of the time. The rest of the time it's overdone.
Although I heard a reason for the toast thing the other day. As it slowly toasts it gets a tiny bit darker. Once darker it doesn't reflect as much energy, hence absorbs it and result is exponential roasting levels.
Interesting. I live at low altitudes and I almost always have to cook noodles longer than the instructions on the box. Now I only use Italian pasta like DeCecco or Rummo.
Yeah, I think usually the recommended time is an underestimate for me, but it depends strongly on the brand and type of pasta. I usually treat the recommended time as a ballpark of when to think about monitoring it closely if I'm busy prepping other things. Usually the first time I cook a given type of a given brand I'll watch it more closely and then try to remember what seemed best.
The cooking time is proportional to the thickness.
General advice on pasta:
* a quality dry pasta (dececco e.g) will have ~14 grams of protein per 100 grams dry weight, this is really essential
* bronze die cut will help soak up more sauces
* you do not need the full volume of water the box says, but start your timer once the water has returned to a boil
* once it has gotten to a boil, keep it boiling, but it doesn't need to be a raging boil, that'll tear apart the pasta, especially a stuffed one
* heavily salt your water, but it does not need to be "salty like the ocean"
* set your timer for a minute less than the cooking time on the box, check for doneness, then give it another minute if needed
* if you're finishing in a sauce, take the pasta out a minute before it is done. Remember to reserve one cup of the starchy cooking water before draining your pasta entirely
* do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick. Just stir after you put it in, and then again a minute or two in
* if you're struggling to tell if it's "done", take a bite of a single piece, and look at the cross section a bit of "white" in the middle means that hasn't hydrated fully. Maybe you like a bit of "toothsome"ness ('al dente'), maybe you don't
> * if you're finishing in a sauce, take the pasta out a minute before it is done.
ie, 2-3 minutes before the box time, possibly more, depending on what finishing means for your case.
> * do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick.
It will not hurt, and may help. Oil will stop the super starchy water, if you followed the reduce the water volume step as suggested, from boiling over - as it will help reduce the surface tension. This is real, and particularly important for some types of noodles and dumplings.
> Remember to reserve one cup of the starchy cooking water before draining your pasta entirely
At least- again, depending on what sauce you're putting it in, and how underdone you took it out. Particularly if you'll have leftovers (as any good homecook often will!), the 'al dente' pasta will absorb all your water, and you'll need to add some before you put it in the fridge, or it will be super dry when you reheat it.
> it does not need to be "salty like the ocean"
despite what Nigella might tell you, it should be no where near ocean water. (just to reinforce this, because I'm not sure if people just think it is a thing to say, or they just have no idea how salty the sea is)
If you make pasta frequently, you can just reserve the pasta water on the stove and cook more pasta in it the next day. I usually just leave it out with a cover on, it's fine for a day, probably two.
For whole grain pastas I find this really helps get a more satisfying flavor and consistency.
Sometimes I'd put the whole pot in the fridge after it cooled to room temperature and it'd keep for a bit so I could use it for brown rice, or for more pasta later.
Finally, you can also use that water to water your plants because it has a ton of healthy nutrients in it, but you have to be really careful cause of the salt so I always water it down heavily and don't apply it as frequently as I have a pasta water that I'm going to drain.
> you do not need the full volume of water the box says, but start your timer once the water has returned to a boil
I never do that, I start the timer as soon as I put the pasta in the water, and usually the cooking times on Italian brands are spot-on. If I have to finish the cooking in a pan (depending on the sauce) I take out 1m or 1m30s, and it's "al dente".
> * do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick.
Using oil has never been about preventing it from sticking, despite so many people repeating this myth. Anyone can plainly see that the oil floats on top of the water and never touches the pasta.
The only purpose of the oil is to prevent foaming so it doesn’t boil over.
Wait does that work?
Bravo. * set your timer for a minute less than the cooking time on the box, check for doneness, then give it another minute if needed
Please eat the pasta al dente. Overcooked pasta is really awful, trust me
No need to trust you. I tried it myself. Food preferences are subjective and I prefer overcooked pasta to al dente...
Pasta water being strachy is a good myth. It only happens in restaurants where they reuse the water all day long for many servings of pasta.
That water's _starchier_ but it's not a myth. Here's Kenji on it: https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boi...
(I get what you're saying, spiritually, your pasta water from your giant pot of one box of pasta isn't gonna do much to thicken your sauce. But it's not a myth, just a matter of degree)
If you cook it in a lot less water, and add a quarter teaspoon of corn starch, you can get the same effect. Play with the ratios to taste.
I prefer to use semolina, since that's the same flour the pasta is made of. I find corn starch can add an "off" flavor.
... if you use less water than the amount prescribed on the box it'll be proportionally starchier. It isn't a myth, you can literally see the starch in the water ...
Can depend on the pasta too, and how much volume water to pasta you have.
Based on the article, this seems like a recipe for overcooking pasta.
As someone who makes pasta 3 times a week, the comment sums up my experience with cooking better than the article. I don't really ever have issues with pasta getting too soft in my alla gricia, cacio e pepe or aglio e olio.
why would it be a recipe for overcooking pasta when it doesn't even mention cooking time but "check regularly and taste" ?
that's basically what I do
with French quality brands, it's between 9-11 min for dry pasta, when I make my own ravioli, it's more 2-3min
But what the OP wrote was not "check regularly and taste". They proposed a single timer-based check at one minute less than the time on the box.
That strategy relies on the box being off by at most one minute, so the results from the article seem highly relevant.
> * heavily salt your water, but it does not need to be "salty like the ocean"
Speaking of, wonder if using seawater for cooking would have good results. Pasta or otherwise!
No. It's much, much too salty.
How much salt also depends on how much pasta water you want to use for your sauce and how much cheese you intend to put in. With more cheese you'll need more starch and then you need to avoid over salting the water.
For the type of rigatoni (smaller) in the article and my local brands it varies between 11 and 15m recommended cooking time depending on brand, and from experience the recommended time is when its ready to be put in a sauce, so not fully cooked. My favorite but more expensive brand says 14m, I usually set a timer to 13 and then try it until its ready to be cooked in the sauce.
Hopefully tptacek shows up... this is sort of offtopic but made me remember some comments of his from years ago here on HN. Something about the "rehydrating" step not having to be the same as the "cooking" step. I feel like he said you could end up with some pretty interesting and terrific pasta by _soaking_ it for a while (not cooking it), and then cooking it for a much shorter time later.
Does this ring a bell for anyone? I've been wanting to try it, but I can't remember the details exactly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8948177
There's so much superstition and ritual around food preparation (especially coffee). Tested processes are extremely rare.
Added to https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights!
(I mention this so people can know the list exists, and hopefully email us more nominations when they see an unusually great and interesting comment.)
This post disappeared from the front page, what happened? https://hnrankings.info/45424704/
Probably caught by the flamewar detector (too many comments compared to upvotes).
Yes. Reversed now.
This is awesome. Measurement and experiment for a very quotidian thing is a great vibe.
You can feel when it's done by stirring it. It's not rocket science. After 10-20 times cooking pasta this method can be second nature
It's funny because Americans love to overcook their pasta, even when it's 'Al dente'. Italians serve pasta so it nearly crunches in the very center of the noodle.
"I boiled some water, put in the pasta, and starting at 9min I removed a piece every 15s until I got to 14:30:"
When you remove pasta, you Cool down the water. So its not the same reault as actual 15 minutes cooking
How does removing pasta cool down the water?
I was putting in a slotted spoon, and removing one piece at a time. The water remained at a full boil throughout.
No, they're right. You took out at least a nanojoule of thermal energy.
Did you factor that in to your next tasting?
In the UK pasta instructions tend to be 9-11mins. 15mins is nuts, especially for the small cheap pasts he's using here. "More for your dollar". Yum!
It depends on the type and shape of pasta. Whole wheat pasta takes longer than white flour pasta. 7 min for whole wheat sphagetti, 9 min for rotini.
13-15 min for that rigatoni definitely sounds excessive.
The "throw it at the wall, and see if it sticks" test is about right!
maybe because the US water is not hot enough at 100 degrees
Nearly all the population in the UK lives below 500m.
In the US, there are major cities that are at 1500m elevation (like Denver CO). Water in Denver boils at ~94C. For most of the UK it's more like 98->100C
Yeah, 100 degrees in the US is barely 38°C.
15min is certainly needed for some shapes in Boulder, even the loss of a few degrees seems to matter a lot.
Yup, for my altitude (825m) the 12 minute cook times are about spot on. And I do prefer my noodles to be more al dente. I don't even mind if they have a little crunch.
Another advice for cooking pasta:
The water does not need to be boiling the whole time.
You can boil the pasta just 2 minutes, turn off the stove, close the lid and leave the pasta in the water for the rest of the time until reaching the desired cooking time, plus around one more minute.
The result will be the same and you would have saved round 80% of the energy.
I don't do this, but I'm impatient so I start with scalding hot tap water. Not sure if there is any energy saving (or waste) there, since it takes at least 30 sec for hot tap water to reach max temp.
This math doesn't account for the time it takes to get the water to a boil. Probably closer to 40% savings. Still, quite good!
Also something I discovered recently: making home-made pasta is REALLY EASY, and quite delicious. For basic ravioli you need about 30min from going from raw ingredients (a bit of flour, one or two eggs, some salt) to a ravioli
Man, if you can shop at Market Basket, you must now the real Pasta cooking time is Wednesday :)
Nice article BTW.
Who needs a timer? When the pasta is about done, just pull a piece out and eat it.
Reminds me of nailing jelly to a wall
There’s an American fear of “not enough”. I think the overboiled pasta is informed by a fear of undercooked food, but also just this general not-enoughness. It’s the same fear that makes someone buy a truck that can hold the biggest load they can imagine needing, rather than accepting they might need to make two trips or rent a bigger truck every few years (or never) and get a truck half the size.
Meh, connoisseurs would probably say my pasta is overcooked; I don't care. I've tried it other ways and I don't like what's supposedly best.
I'm Canadian and I don't think this is an American thing at all. Certainly my lifestyle is nothing like stereotypical US lifestyle.
Also: there's a certain kind of machismo associated with liking steak rare, which is hard to reconcile with overcooking other things habitually.
> I think the overboiled pasta is informed by a fear of undercooked food
Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence.
"Mahkit Baskit" (as we say it) is a discount grocery store. Even though it's clean, there are often lots of mistakes that happen with low-wage, untrained labor. IE, one of the few times I went there, the bosc and d'anjou pears were all mixed together because they are green. (But they are obviously different in taste and shape if you are smarter than ChatGPT, and have stickers on them to make it obvious to whoever's stocking the shelfs.)
So it's no surprise the directions on pasta are wrong!
This isn't a Market Basket-specific issue: I see the same thing with pasta at Shaws/Star, Stop and Shop, and Wegmans.
It's also because Americans love "mac n cheese" and food like that, so basically that have a taste for overcooked, mushy stuff, where basically 99% of the taste is in the (overflavored) sauce they'll pour on top