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2009/01/08
Has anyone ever tried cooking pasta sous vide? Why not vacuum seal your spaghetti along with the precise amount of water that will need to be absorbed to create al dente pasta? Then you could leave it in a hot water bath until you're ready to serve, and dump it out without even draining it first.
This just occurred to me when I microwaved some leftover pasta that was in a tightly sealed tupperware container, and the pasta quickly became very soft because it absorbed the liquid from the sauce. Why not seal pasta in to cook it the first time?
There are potential disadvantages. Perfectly al dente pasta is, conventionally, more cooked on the outside than on the inside. If this technique were used, that wouldn't be the case. Instead, it would be cooked identically throughout an individual piece of pasta. Also, it would require some experimentation, and probably quite a lot of precision to determine the correct amount of water for a given quantity of pasta. Furthermore, since even dried pasta varies in moisture content, the process might yield unpredictable results unless one knows how old one's dried pasta is.
On the other hand, the potential advantages are numerous. For one thing, it saves water and salt, since one only has to use the quantity desired. It prevents pasta from getting overcooked, and saves the cook from having to start his pasta cooking a certain amount of time before he is ready to plate. Also, one can obviously cook one's pasta in stock or other flavorful liquid already. But this way, one could do it with only a very small quantity of stock, without wasting a whole pot of stock which gradually gets more starchy and dilute throughout a night's service.
Would it work?
Posted by Barzelay on 2009/01/08 @ 16:39 | Comments (6) | Science, Technology
Comments
I would expect, if you did this, that you would get pasta that was raw in the center.
Posted by: sygyzy at January 8, 2009 4:58 PM
Why?
Posted by: Barzelay at January 8, 2009 5:01 PM
i do it all the time
it is brilliant
Posted by: arazor at January 9, 2009 2:01 PM
Care to share how much water you typically use per gram of dried pasta? I know it'll vary based on a number of factors, but got any general guidelines?
Also, you should be able to cook it to anywhere above whatever temp the starch gels, right? What temp is that, for flour? I'm guessing around 65 C. It shouldn't hurt anything to hold it up to 100 C, right. What temps are you using?
Posted by: Barzelay at January 9, 2009 2:19 PM
You are correct to observe that water in which pasta is cooked will gradually become more starchy. Of coarse that starch is coming from the pasta so... that would imply that the process of cooking pasta (properly) involves removing starch. How would you compensate for this in a sous vide environment?
Posted by: chefMark at January 11, 2009 5:18 PM
chefMark, I think the amount of starch removed is negligible. The starch on the outside of the pasta, if it causes the pasta to stick together, could be rinsed off before bagging.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 13, 2009 4:01 AM