Some cooking books recommend that when cooking pasta, add a little oil to the water to avoid sticking to the noodles. Unfortunately this is not true! The oil will only float on the surface of the water, how can it be possible to avoid sticking noodles?
Olive oil, garlic and a little boiling water are the simplest pasta sauces.
Try it, no matter how much oil is added, the noodles at the bottom of the pan are still in the same state.
The role of oil is actually to avoid boiling water coming out. When cooking pasta, the noodles release more and more starch into the boiling water, increasing the viscosity of the water to form more firm bubbles, which are stacked on top of each other, like a dinghy, surfaced and spilled out. Oil can destroy the surface tension of water and prevent bubbles from forming.
Of course, if we use the technique of no-boil noodles that we have just learned, then pouring oil is pointless, and there is never a need to pour oil again.
After draining the pasta, what about mixing some oil? This is a bad idea! Yes, mixing the oil does prevent the noodles from sticking together before mixing well with the sauce. But you know what? This can also hinder the sauce from attaching to the noodles.
When it comes to mixing sauces and pasta, the most important thing is to confirm that the sauce is ready. As soon as the noodles are drained (keep a little boiling water), move to the sauce pan and stir evenly, then add the appropriate amount of boiling water to adjust the concentration.
Pasta without sauce is like the Lone Ranger without a buddy In The Lone Ranger, the Milli Uanilli without Vanilli, mario without Luigi, R2-D2 in Star Wars without... You know what I mean.
You've all heard of the so-called "mother sauces" in French cuisine, right? In the early 20th century, Auguste Escofier, the "grandfather" of modern French cuisine (4), divided all French sauces into five main categories: béchamel (milk thickened with starch), brown sauce (espagnole, brown calf stock), white sauce (velouté thick white stock), hollandaise (emulsified egg yolk and butter) and tomato sauce (tomato-based). His philosophy is that once you learn to make these 5 basic sauces, you can derive hundreds of combinations.
For example, the mornay is made from besché sauce with cheese; Sauce Bordelaise is made from brown sauce with concentrated red wine and bone marrow; and Bernash sauce is made with concentrated white wine, shallots and tarragon. etcetera.
Over the years, I've found that there are also 5 basic sauces for American (and pure Italian) pasta cooked at home. Just like French master sauces, once you learn the skills to make these basic sauces, you can successfully make any derivative combination.
The 5 base sauces are:
Garlic olive oil sauce, tomato sauce (classic red sauce), green sauce, white sauce, meat sauce (Bologna meat sauce)
A bowl of pasta has 3 different garlic flavors.
It's garlic olive oil sauce, cut a handful of parsley to add a fresh grassy flavor.
As for how to make the noodles more efficient to adsorb the sauce, it is a bit tricky. The characteristic of olive oil is that it is not easily emulsified, that is, it does not merge with water. Once you stir in the pasta, you get a sauce that is oily but very thin.
So what? You might say that. Isn't all the flavor in it? It's generally true that the flavor is all in the sauce, but the real problem is that the liquid sauce separated by oil and water will gather at the bottom of the bowl because it can't stick to the noodles, resulting in a dry, light and tasteless pasta on the top and a lump of wet pasta on the bottom. Indeed, this is as important as the need for a well-emulsified vinaigrette. The salad is made with an unemulsified vinaigrette, topped with tasteless green vegetables, while at the bottom of the salad bowl is a pile of unfused oil and vinegar.
What to do? Very simple! Just a little butter can solve this problem. The characteristic of butter is that it is easily emulsified as long as water is added. Here, the butter acts like a powerful coordinator, holding olive oil in one hand to encourage it to join, while inviting starch from the boiled noodle water to help.
Combine the garlic (processed in 3 ways), olive oil and a little blending butter to finish the garlic olive oil sauce. It can also be reserved as a base sauce for other purposes.
Garlic olive oil sauce comes from the Abruzzo region of Italy. This simple Italian sauce made with stir-fried garlic in olive oil and a dash of dried chili flakes, sprinkled with a pinch of parsley, can be seen in almost any American Italian restaurant. This sauce is the basis for more than a dozen common sauce variations, such as clam pasta, spring vegetable pasta, and prawn pasta (or some menus with problematic translations call it sea prawn pasta).
Garlic olive oil sauce is the simplest sauce and is often used to accompany the usual straight-strip pasta. Personally, I prefer to pair them with shorter, thicker types, like rotini or orecchiee, which adsorb more sauce. Because I'm a garlic olive oil sauce maniac, I chose this. You are free to mix and match your favorite noodles.
The key to a delicious sauce is the use of high-quality olive oil and the 3 ways to process the garlic. First, the sautéed whole cloves of garlic are placed in olive oil to add a sweet flavor, then the thin garlic slices are fried to give the finished product a strong garlic aroma, and finally the garlic paste is added to make the pungent taste of the garlic head string together the overall flavor. Layers of flavor make the pure garlic flavor more profound. Based on this, add a little dried red pepper flakes to increase the spiciness, and cut a handful of parsley to add a fresh grassy flavor.
So what? You might say that. Isn't all the flavor in it? It's generally true that the flavor is all in the sauce, but the real problem is that the liquid sauce separated by oil and water will gather at the bottom of the bowl because it can't stick to the noodles, resulting in a dry, light and tasteless pasta on the top and a lump of wet pasta on the bottom. Indeed, this is as important as the need for a well-emulsified vinaigrette. The salad is made with an unemulsified vinaigrette, topped with tasteless green vegetables, while at the bottom of the salad bowl is a pile of unfused oil and vinegar. What to do?
Very simple! Just a little butter can solve this problem. The characteristic of butter is that it is easily emulsified as long as water is added. Here, the butter acts like a powerful coordinator, holding olive oil in one hand to encourage it to join, while inviting starch from the boiled noodle water to help.
Selected from the book "Cooking Lab", all rights reserved.