6 ms·

The fact is that not all "why"s are known in cooking yet, and the combination of ingredients is so varied that it's not always easy to go from a myth to a reaso

The fact is that not all "why"s are known in cooking yet, and the combination of ingredients is so varied that it's not always easy to go from a myth to a reasonable explanation. Although, lots of research has greatly improved, and I warmly recommend you to read “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking” (2011). Then, for techniques, I strongly recommend following a book designed for chefs when they learn. For example, in French, I recommend “La Cuisine de Référence” (2015) by Michel Maincent that teaches you how to select ingredients, cut them, to various traditional techniques and how to correct them if you fail, and why you failed.

mikekchar 9y ago
One of my favourite aha moments: Back when I was much younger virtually every cookbook said you should add olive oil to pasta cooking water. I could never figure out why. Later people pretty much poo-pooed the practice saying that it was some old wives tale about stopping the pot from boiling over or some such thing. Fast forward many years and I was trying to work on a bolognese sauce. My wife likes meat/tomato sauces on spaghetti. I think it's weird because long pasta like that should be with an oil/cream based sauce. Anyway, I figured it would make the dish much better if I somehow coated the spaghetti with olive oil and then spooned the meat sauce on top. But how to easily coat the spaghetti with olive oil? I figured it would be easiest to float a tablespoon of olive oil on the pasta water and then draw the spaghetti through it as I took it out of the water. And then I realised what I was doing :-) Still not sure if that's why people suggested it oh so many years ago, but it works a treat!
- 317070 9y ago
  The solution I came up with (watching many many cooking videos) is different: cook the spaghetti in the sauce for the last minutes. You get the same effect, but less of the oily mouth feel which I did not like. It also helps thicken your tomato sauce. Also, +1 on `Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking`.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    Just add some of the starchy water to your sauce and allow it to thicken to avoid over-cooking your pasta.
- trymas 9y ago
  In my experience, olive oil helps spaghetti not to stick together, by coating them in oil, while putting them into the water. Also it adds taste after.
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  > I could never figure out why. [...] long pasta like that should be with an oil/cream based sauce. You're doing the same thing you are complaining about: Postulating something as an axiom but not even trying to explain why you think it may be the case. Anyway, as another commenter said, the commonly stated reason for oil in the cooking water is to stop the pasta sticking together. The commonly stated reason against oil in the cooking water is that it coats the pasta and makes it harder for the sauce to stick to it.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Oil in pasta water is a weird thing. It generally helps the pasta not stick, especially after cooking and waiting for sauce. This can be mostly ignored if you stir the pasta often and leave a wooden spoon across the top of the pan (to stop boil-overs). It does add flavor at times. The main drawback to putting oil in the pasta water or tossing the pasta with oil/butter afterwards is that some pasta sauces won't stick too well to oiled pasta. This may not be such an issue with fattier sauces: cream sauces or something with ground meat, since they already have oils in the sauce. Vegetarian tomato sauces (regardless of fake meat) seem to fare worse.
  - arkh 9y ago
    Or do the contrary of what you'd do for sticky rice: start cooking in boiling water and once the water is full of starch, replace the water.
- jiehong 9y ago
  > I could never figure out why. Pasta cooking in boiling water has a tendency to over boil as the flour is very good at making stable foam that will rise in your pot. The oil acts as a anti-foaming agent[1] here[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer [2]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jctb.280430105 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jctb.2804301...
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Once it's at a boil, remove the lid. Problems (mostly) solved?
    - sizzzzlerz 9y ago
      That, and turn down the heat.
  - sureaboutthis 9y ago
    Don't boil water for pasta. Simmer it. If you insist that you need to boil the water, and you don't, then use a bigger pot.
- tomcooks 9y ago
  A better way is to cook pasta in a pan, adding water bit by bit as you would in a risotto (look up "pasta risottata"). In Italy no professional chef I know would allow oil in the boiling pan ("that's what Frenchies do, because they don't know how to cook pasta without making it stick" being the common answer)
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    ...if you want to fuss over the pan for 20 minutes. OR, add oil, add pasta, bring it to a boil and set a timer. If the result is the same, I'm all for that method.
    - tomcooks 9y ago
      Your use of the word "fuss", together with that of a timer instead of being an active participant in the cooking experience, clearly explains what's the difference between the method i proposed and your way of dealing with what you ingest. Feel free to continue your way, if it' the same to you.
      - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        Don't understand at all. Why is it a problem that I'm preparing the sauce (which actually requires my attention) while the pasta is cooking? Anything other than arrogance? Don't even try to make me believe that you get 'better pasta' by fussing over it. Its not the star of the dish - its just a vehicle, and 'cooking' is just making it softer. Not adding anything magical.
        sokoloff 9y ago
        (I'm on your side; I want the absolute least of my personal time and attention devoted to food preparation.) IMO, tomcooks' comments aren't arrogance; they're an expression that some people genuinely enjoy the process of cooking and are perfectly happy (in fact, happiest) if they remain thoroughly engaged in the preparation steps. To me, it's a bunch of wasted time; to them, it's enjoyable. Replace "cooking dinner" with "computer programming on an unpaid side project" and many HN readers will understand that we/they enjoy it immensely while others would see it as a tedious waste of time.
nerdponx 9y ago
Some other books that might be more practical than The Modernist Cuisine: The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nostrat Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

mikekchar 9y ago

One of my favourite aha moments: Back when I was much younger virtually every cookbook said you should add olive oil to pasta cooking water. I could never figure out why. Later people pretty much poo-pooed the practice saying that it was some old wives tale about stopping the pot from boiling over or some such thing. Fast forward many years and I was trying to work on a bolognese sauce. My wife likes meat/tomato sauces on spaghetti. I think it's weird because long pasta like that should be with an oil/cream based sauce. Anyway, I figured it would make the dish much better if I somehow coated the spaghetti with olive oil and then spooned the meat sauce on top. But how to easily coat the spaghetti with olive oil? I figured it would be easiest to float a tablespoon of olive oil on the pasta water and then draw the spaghetti through it as I took it out of the water. And then I realised what I was doing :-) Still not sure if that's why people suggested it oh so many years ago, but it works a treat!

317070 9y ago
The solution I came up with (watching many many cooking videos) is different: cook the spaghetti in the sauce for the last minutes. You get the same effect, but less of the oily mouth feel which I did not like. It also helps thicken your tomato sauce. Also, +1 on `Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking`.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Just add some of the starchy water to your sauce and allow it to thicken to avoid over-cooking your pasta.
trymas 9y ago
In my experience, olive oil helps spaghetti not to stick together, by coating them in oil, while putting them into the water. Also it adds taste after.
tom_mellior 9y ago
> I could never figure out why. [...] long pasta like that should be with an oil/cream based sauce. You're doing the same thing you are complaining about: Postulating something as an axiom but not even trying to explain why you think it may be the case. Anyway, as another commenter said, the commonly stated reason for oil in the cooking water is to stop the pasta sticking together. The commonly stated reason against oil in the cooking water is that it coats the pasta and makes it harder for the sauce to stick to it.
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
Oil in pasta water is a weird thing. It generally helps the pasta not stick, especially after cooking and waiting for sauce. This can be mostly ignored if you stir the pasta often and leave a wooden spoon across the top of the pan (to stop boil-overs). It does add flavor at times. The main drawback to putting oil in the pasta water or tossing the pasta with oil/butter afterwards is that some pasta sauces won't stick too well to oiled pasta. This may not be such an issue with fattier sauces: cream sauces or something with ground meat, since they already have oils in the sauce. Vegetarian tomato sauces (regardless of fake meat) seem to fare worse.
- arkh 9y ago
  Or do the contrary of what you'd do for sticky rice: start cooking in boiling water and once the water is full of starch, replace the water.
jiehong 9y ago
> I could never figure out why. Pasta cooking in boiling water has a tendency to over boil as the flour is very good at making stable foam that will rise in your pot. The oil acts as a anti-foaming agent[1] here[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defoamer [2]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jctb.280430105 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jctb.2804301...
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Once it's at a boil, remove the lid. Problems (mostly) solved?
  - sizzzzlerz 9y ago
    That, and turn down the heat.
- sureaboutthis 9y ago
  Don't boil water for pasta. Simmer it. If you insist that you need to boil the water, and you don't, then use a bigger pot.
tomcooks 9y ago
A better way is to cook pasta in a pan, adding water bit by bit as you would in a risotto (look up "pasta risottata"). In Italy no professional chef I know would allow oil in the boiling pan ("that's what Frenchies do, because they don't know how to cook pasta without making it stick" being the common answer)
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  ...if you want to fuss over the pan for 20 minutes. OR, add oil, add pasta, bring it to a boil and set a timer. If the result is the same, I'm all for that method.
  - tomcooks 9y ago
    Your use of the word "fuss", together with that of a timer instead of being an active participant in the cooking experience, clearly explains what's the difference between the method i proposed and your way of dealing with what you ingest. Feel free to continue your way, if it' the same to you.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Don't understand at all. Why is it a problem that I'm preparing the sauce (which actually requires my attention) while the pasta is cooking? Anything other than arrogance? Don't even try to make me believe that you get 'better pasta' by fussing over it. Its not the star of the dish - its just a vehicle, and 'cooking' is just making it softer. Not adding anything magical.
      - sokoloff 9y ago
        (I'm on your side; I want the absolute least of my personal time and attention devoted to food preparation.) IMO, tomcooks' comments aren't arrogance; they're an expression that some people genuinely enjoy the process of cooking and are perfectly happy (in fact, happiest) if they remain thoroughly engaged in the preparation steps. To me, it's a bunch of wasted time; to them, it's enjoyable. Replace "cooking dinner" with "computer programming on an unpaid side project" and many HN readers will understand that we/they enjoy it immensely while others would see it as a tedious waste of time.

nerdponx 9y ago

Some other books that might be more practical than The Modernist Cuisine: The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nostrat Ratio by Michael Ruhlman