13 ms·

Conlusion: just add some (possibly cooked) flour to your sauce. It's called "singer" in French.

• sebtron 2y ago
  The authors suggest corn or potato starch, not flour.
  • bdauvergne 2y ago
    Using flour is easier, you can use corn flour also.
    • gattilorenz 2y ago
      Starch is what does the trick, flour contains some too but it’s definitely not easier than adding some maizena
    • lordmauve 2y ago
      What we call cornflour in British English, and cornstarch in US English, is flour heavily processed to remove everything except starch, giving a flavourless thickener. If you use wheat flour you will change the flavour and also add a slight graininess as the flour grains don't completely homogenise.
      • duskwuff 2y ago
        But watch out - "corn flour" in the US is unprocessed finely ground corn - like cornmeal, but less coarse. Not a substitute for corn starch.
  • Hikikomori 2y ago
    Kinda prefer sauces that use flour over those, different mouth feel.
• Hikikomori 2y ago
  Or beurre manie.
• mastazi 2y ago
  In Italy we just add to the pan some of the water in which the pasta was cooked; this is rich in starch due to the cooking process. This works with other recipes as well, for example gricia or aglio olio & peperoncino. I guess that adding flour would produce a texture more similar to gravy and that's not what we're going for in traditional Italian cooking.
  • mgaunard 2y ago
    except that doesn't really work, it usually doesn't contain enough starch unless you used little water and worked with very starchy pasta. even famous italian pasta restaurants use the cornflour technique.
  • riffraff 2y ago
    This is addressed in the paper, there isn't enough starch in the water for it to reach the ideal proportion unless you "risotto" the pasta (I don't think there's "risottare" in English sorry). Adding corn/rice starch is advised by some Italian chefs too cause it's just a lot easier to get a reliable result (see the videos on Italia Squisita by Monosilio). You can eyeball it with pasta water, it's just harder.
    • MezzoDelCammin 2y ago
      That's one thing I never quite understood on the "Italian" way to cook pasta (basically "use a bucket of water"). Using just the bare minimum ("risotto" as You call it) is in my opinion way more efficient and opens up a lot of interesting options (i.e. using the residue for a sauce). There's an extra step (the need to stir occasionally), but it can also remove a step (straining may be superfluous if the residue is used for a sauce base).
      • mastazi 2y ago
        > (basically "use a bucket of water") the traditional way to cook cacio e pepe and the other recipes I mentioned in my GP comment is to move the pasta from the pot to the pan, then add some of the water from the pot to the pan so you have the "risottare" phase (most people in Italy would call that mantecare, at least in central Italy). I appreciate that adding something like corn starch would make it thicker, but also different people may have a different understanding of the concept of "creamy".