Everyone loves delicious pasta.
But not everyone knows how to cook a real fork-licking treat.
This article will discuss life hacks that will help you create a real masterpiece no worse than those of Italian chefs.
Macaroni is pasta, but not just any kind. Pasta can be made from meat, fish, and vegetables; from seafood; from hard wheat and from soft. The latter are the most expensive, but the tastiest, says Yulia Arkhipova .
They are prepared in restaurants, not in home kitchens. Of course, you can prepare other types of pasta at home.
If you cook pasta according to the rules, you will get a dish that you won’t be ashamed to put on the table in a restaurant.
Salt
It is recommended to add 2 to 3 tablespoons of coarse salt. It is very important to salt the water. It is important to remember that there is almost no salt in the pasta dough, this will change the texture.
And it’s no secret that the salt grains in the sauce stick only to the surface of the pasta and do not penetrate into the dough.
For this reason, it is necessary to add 2 to 3 tablespoons of coarse salt during the boiling process.
Water for cooking
The chef's secret ingredient: The cooking liquid absorbs the starch from the noodles, making it a great thickener and emulsifier: when added to gravy, it becomes creamier.
And this helps it stick to the pasta and coat it evenly. To give the cooking liquid better qualities, some cooks even add a few spoons of semolina to the water before boiling the pasta.
Al dente
How to achieve this? Many people want the dish to have a pleasant mouthfeel, a fine texture, but they definitely should not stick to the teeth when chewing; undercooked noodles are even worse than overcooked ones! Better try.
It's best to taste every 20-30 seconds during the last 2 minutes of cooking until it's perfect. If you bite into it and see white inside, the pasta is still undercooked.
Flushing
Don't do this, or you'll ruin the dish by making it bland and shapeless. Since the cooking starch is so important for getting the creamy sauce that will stick to the noodles, the last thing you should do is rinse the pasta. (This will wash off too much salt, by the way.)
The only time Italians briefly rinse their pasta is if they plan to serve it without sauce.
If you have cooked a huge quantity and it is better to set aside some, the best way to prevent further cooking is to drain them, spread them on a wide tray and place them in the refrigerator, drizzled with oil.
Open the refrigerator and stir the pasta every few minutes until it cools to prevent the noodles from sticking together.
Sauce and serving
Once the pasta is cooked, it's not just a matter of putting it into individual bowls and covering it with sauce.
The spaghetti will stick together, the sauce will sit on top, and the starch will not mix in. After draining, put the noodles back in the pan with a few spoons of cooking liquid for a minute or two.
Of course, when making a raw egg-based sauce like carbonara, you need to put it in a large salad bowl, not a hot saucepan, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs!
6. The secret of delicious macaroni and cheese is that Italians do not skimp on cheese. It costs pennies in Italy, and there is a lot of it.
As you can see, it is quite easy to prepare your favorite dish. If you have the desire and the necessary high-quality products, then everything will turn out simply incredibly delicious.
The main thing is to always follow the recipe and prepare delicious food to serve in a good mood to please yourself and your loved ones. Enjoy your meal!
Earlier we told you what sauce will turn buckwheat into a gourmet dish.
Author: Valeria Kisternaya
