Helpful Pointers For Cooking Pasta
There are many easy pasta recipes, but sometimes even harder recipes don’t turn out because the pasta itself wasn’t prepared properly. Cooking pasta in the correct way can sometimes take some small complications out of even more complex recipes. For example, if pieces of your pasta are always sticking together, then you very likely didn’t cook it in enough water, or didn’t stir it when you first put it into the water. Knowing how to cook spaghetti and other types of pasta won’t suddenly make a complex recipe easier, but it will help.
To make any pasta meal, whether using easy or more involved pasta recipes, you always must get the pasta to the right consistency by beginning the same way. Provide enough water for the pasta to “swim” in, so it won’t stick, and also to expand to about twice the size it is when dry. Salting the water will help it taste good, without adding excessive amounts of salt to your diet.
Put the pasta into boiling water and stir for the first few moments, again to prevent sticking, and cook at a gentle boil for the amount of time indicated on the package. A quick and easy way to tell when it’s done is to bite a piece; it should be tender, but firm enough that it’s not totally limp.
Next consider size, shape and types of pasta. If you’re creating pasta dishes from stuffed pasta like tortellini or ravioli, then you’ll want a light sauce so the ingredients inside the pasta aren’t drowned out. Big and heavy pasta like lasagna noodles will take a much heavier type of sauce than fine pasta like vermicelli, which works better with lighter, creamier sauces. You can improvise some easy pasta recipes simply by learning which sauces work best with which pasta types.
Easy pasta recipes can be made unnecessarily more difficult if you haven’t mastered the basics, like cooking the pasta properly and matching the different pastas with the right kinds of sauces. You might follow all the recipe instructions to the letter, but if you’ve missed out on one of these fairly simple points, the final dish may be less than perfect. Learning to do things the right way at every step of the process will make the entire recipe much easier.
For the ultimate in pasta dishes, you can’t beat the taste and texture of fresh homemade pasta. If you’re ready to take your love of pasta to the next level, click here to learn about the advantages of a pasta rolling machine, and the difference between a hand crank pasta roller and an electric model.
