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With long pasta it's not hard, with a tiny bit of experience and attention, to learn how it physically behaves when it's either done or close to it. It's about

With long pasta it's not hard, with a tiny bit of experience and attention, to learn how it physically behaves when it's either done or close to it. It's about as easy to learn (experientially) how much it changes minute by minute at that point. I will stir it to see how it behaves, as soon as I catch it behaving like pasta which is may be al dente I will sample it, if it's still a bit too hard, I can more or less tell if it's going to be one or two minutes. I'm aiming for almost-too-hard al dente to compensate for any further cooking. Stop even a bit early if you'll be finishing the pasta in the sauce. I think attempting to formalise cooking techniques is a funny sort of thing... The people trying to do it are clearly into cooking, but if you really enjoy cooking, you're probably better off learning these things intuitively and spending your time learning other skills to expand your general cooking ability.

cortesoft 1y ago
> I think attempting to formalise cooking techniques is a funny sort of thing... The people trying to do it are clearly into cooking, but if you really enjoy cooking, you're probably better off learning these things intuitively and spending your time learning other skills to expand your general cooking ability. Some people like to create rules and systems for things, some people like to grow their intuition. Everyone can cook how they want.
- lstodd 1y ago
  There is too much variation in ingredients for any sort of formal rules. If you strive for excellence, pasta cooking time is the least of your concerns, selection and knowledge of ingredients is. It gets internalized and feels just like intuition. If you don't, generally just put pasta into boiling water and wait for T-1m where T is what's written on the package. It will be good enough.
cpfohl 1y ago
I hear your point on formalization, but I do find that understanding the science behind various techniques has helped my ability to Freeform in the kitchen significantly.
- Arch-TK 1y ago
  While it's an interesting article, I don't think there's much science going on. There's one variable barely controlled for, compared to the dozen or so variables which weren't controlled.
  - cpfohl 1y ago
    This is responding to Food Lab.

cortesoft 1y ago

> I think attempting to formalise cooking techniques is a funny sort of thing... The people trying to do it are clearly into cooking, but if you really enjoy cooking, you're probably better off learning these things intuitively and spending your time learning other skills to expand your general cooking ability. Some people like to create rules and systems for things, some people like to grow their intuition. Everyone can cook how they want.

lstodd 1y ago
There is too much variation in ingredients for any sort of formal rules. If you strive for excellence, pasta cooking time is the least of your concerns, selection and knowledge of ingredients is. It gets internalized and feels just like intuition. If you don't, generally just put pasta into boiling water and wait for T-1m where T is what's written on the package. It will be good enough.

cpfohl 1y ago

I hear your point on formalization, but I do find that understanding the science behind various techniques has helped my ability to Freeform in the kitchen significantly.

Arch-TK 1y ago
While it's an interesting article, I don't think there's much science going on. There's one variable barely controlled for, compared to the dozen or so variables which weren't controlled.
- cpfohl 1y ago
  This is responding to Food Lab.