• OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
    28·
    7 hours ago

    It’s not salting your water, nor the water volume to pasta ratio, nor if the water is boiling or not, nor oil in the water, but stirring early in the cooking process that will prevent sticking.

    From the great Kenji Lopez-Alt:

    Pasta is made up of flour, water, and sometimes eggs. Essentially, it’s composed of starch and protein, and not much else. Now starch molecules come aggregated into large granules that resemble little water balloons. As they get heated in a moist environment, they absorb more and more water until they finally burst, releasing the starch molecules into the water. That’s why pasta always seems to stick together at the beginning of cooking—it’s the starch molecules coming out and acting as a sort of glue, binding the pieces to each other, and to the pot.

    …

    The problem is that first stage of cooking—the one in which starch molecules first burst and release their starch. With such a high concentration of starch right on the surface of the pasta, sticking is inevitable. However, once the starch gets rinsed away in the water, the problem is completely gone.

    So the key is to stir the pasta a few times during the critical first minute or two. After that, whether the pasta is swimming in a hot tub of water or just barely covered as it is here, absolutely no sticking occurs. I was able to clean this pot with a simple rinse.

      • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
        1·
        2 hours ago

        Yep, I really like how he applies the scientific method to cooking. Some of my favourites are how he’s found the perfect way to boil an egg, cook steaks and roasts (dry brine, reverse sear), and make chocolate chip cookies (he made over 1500 cookies testing how changing each variable changed the final cookie).

  • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
    24·
    12 hours ago

    I have actually never seen this before. Other comments are saying its because you dont salt your water and i do so probably thats why. It also makes the taste better so overall recommended.

    • toofpic@lemmy.world
      68·
      11 hours ago

      You can add some oil so pasta won’t also stick when you have cold leftovers. I add both oil and salt in the very beginning, because there’s no reason to not do that, and I have a feeling of the right amount compared to the amount of water.
      And I stir once, about a minute after putting the pasta in, because something tends to stick to the bottom in the very beginning. Afterwards, it’s just not necessary.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        8 hours ago

        You ever heard the saying “like oil and water”? Oil doesn’t mix with water. It floats on the surface. Adding it just wastes 100% of the oil.

        • toofpic@lemmy.world
          15·
          7 hours ago

          Oh, thank you for providing me with this rare knowledge. But what happens while you boil pasta, is pasta turning around and soaking the oil in. I wouldn’t be doing that if it wouldn’t help with pasta stickiness.
          And as other people comment here, oil gets into pasta so you can have a problem with sauce not soaking in, but when I’m making something like bolognese, I sometimes pour pasta into the frying pan with the sauce, so it’s getting there for sure.

          • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            31·
            7 hours ago

            But what happens while you boil pasta, is pasta turning around and soaking the oil in.

            That’s not what happens

            wouldn’t be doing that if it wouldn’t help with pasta stickiness.

            It doesn’t, it prevents boilover

      • HairyHarry@lemmy.world
        6·
        11 hours ago

        I add both oil and salt in the very beginning, because there’s no reason to not do that.

        If you really like to impregnate your pasta, so that it won’t absorb your sauce (or less well), then you are right about the there-is-no-reason-part in your answer.

  • yggdar@lemmy.world
    56·
    15 hours ago

    Do you cook your pasta in a large pot, with plenty of boiling water, and a good amount of salt? Usually I just stir once just after putting the pasta in, and I never have noodles sticking together.

    • HairyHarry@lemmy.world
      11·
      7 hours ago

      It depends on the pasta (form, freshness, self-made… etc). Some has to be stirred 3-4 times others just once, in my experience.

    • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      42·
      12 hours ago

      My pot would have to be 3x its size to fit the amount of water a single package of pasta says I should use.
      1kg to 10l
      Do you have a bathtub in your stove?

      • yggdar@lemmy.world
        8·
        8 hours ago

        As others have already said, that is a lot of pasta. If you regularly cook volumes like that, it would really make sense to invest in a large pot as well. A cheap 10l pot will do just fine for boiling pasta, and it sounds like you would get plenty of use out of it.

      • f314@lemmy.world
        6·
        12 hours ago

        1 kg of dry pasta is enough for 10 people! Do you often cook for that many people? (Genuine question)

        • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 hours ago

          This is making me chuckle, because I just did this last night for a dinner party. It was a hell of a lot of pasta for 7. I kept it moving, even in my big stock pot. Only a few strands stuck to the bottom. We have leftovers.

          I usually cook a quarter of that for the two of us, sometimes half if I want to eat for a couple of days.

          2lbs/1 kg is a lot.

        • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.netEnglish
          1·
          7 hours ago

          I have a 12 gallon pot I use for the same.

          If it didn’t have the spout off the front I’d probably use it for a lot more stuff like huge batches of chili (for canning). I end up using multiple pots for that instead because I don’t want to have to clean around the dumb thing.

          But the drain tube makes it soooo easy to strain the broth.

    • Scrollone@feddit.it
      4·
      8 hours ago

      Yeah, I also don’t get it. I don’t stir pasta, maybe once in the middle. It never sticks.

  • Squorlple@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    16 hours ago

    My biggest gripe with cooking instructions is the non-specificity. “Stir pasta frequently”? How frequently? How continuously? Tell me in unit Hertz

        • Prime@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          11 hours ago

          No it can see much more. Bonus: your brain can ‘see’ more than 100hz too. Google bundesen tva. Source i worked on programs to measure it for my gfs phd. Also i play fps :D

        • jettrscga@lemmy.world
          31·
          14 hours ago

          I don’t understand the basis of the 24Hz limit rumor. My monitors are 144Hz, and if I limit them to 60Hz and move my mouse around I see fewer residual mouse cursors “after-images” than I do at 144Hz. That’s a simplified test that shows that the eye can perceive motion artifacts beyond 60Hz.

          The eye can perceive LEDs that are rectified at 60Hz AC, it’s very annoying.

          • gens@programming.dev
            1·
            7 hours ago

            Your eyes are not digital. Nothing physical really is. Think about a camera flash. They can get well under 3.33ms, meaning over 300fps, and you can still see it clearly (and painfully). Same for a monitor, it also has a “response time”. It is how long it takes for a pixel to transition color. (Usually “gray to gray”, as in one shade of gray to another. Black to white would be longer, as is for eyes.)

            So ofc you would see all the mice.

            It’s also why motion blur is a thing, even though it was usually implemented incorrectly. Seeing every motion on a tv or monitor in perfect sharpness feels weird, because they are pictures not actual movements.

            Your brain makes movements out of it all.

            Anyway: 16 is minimum, 24 is good for most movies, 30 for slower games, 60 minimum for fps (75 and above for faster fps, even though i played xonotic on 45), 120 for vr.

          • Hjalmar@feddit.nu
            2·
            14 hours ago

            I think it’s the limit for what most people can see as jittery motion. You may be able to differentiate between higher FPS settings, but above 24 hertz most people shouldn’t be able to see discrete steps.

            That’s at least how I’ve come to understand it

          • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
            1·
            10 hours ago

            24hz is the lower limit. People will perceive 24hz as a smooth sequence, especially with motion blur, while anything below it will start to look choppy. Of course humans can perceive higher frequencies. But 24hz became the standard because celluloid film is expensive especially in the early days of cinema. The less frames you need to shoot the less film you need to buy and develop. And film back then was probably not sensitive enough for the lower exposure times that come with higher frame rates.

    • flying_sheep
      3·
      12 hours ago

      What kind of dumb instructions are that?

      Stirring exactly once is enough in most cases.

  • Shortstack@reddthat.com
    274·
    15 hours ago

    Y’all need to salt your water.

    It prevents nearly all the sticking and it makes pasta delicious

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
    3·
    12 hours ago

    137 times more powerful than the Electromagnetism you try and use to tear them apart, behold the Strong Pasta Friendship Force!

  • Ludrol@szmer.info
    14·
    8 hours ago

    Stirring doesn’t matter. The rinse after really matters for it to not stick together. (I had displeasure of eating a portion from 15kg of pasta slab that had no chance of proper rinse, bottom was charred)