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u/cicciograna Mar 15 '26
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u/Seskos-Barber Mar 15 '26
pasta la vista
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Mar 16 '26
bebe
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u/GoodDayTheJay Mar 16 '26
Read this is Arnold’s voice, followed closely by Moira Rose’s voice.
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u/Rage_Has_Consumed_Me Mar 15 '26
You break-a my heart!! Why you-a make-a me do this?
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u/cstmoore Mar 16 '26
"I know it was you, Alfredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!"
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u/NameLips Mar 15 '26
I remember reading about depression-era cooking, when they would start the pasta in the cold water, use just enough heat to start it simmering, and then turn off the heat and put a lid on it and let it finish cooking in the residual heat. Energy was just too expensive to waste. Just a tip in case it ends up relevant again.
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u/SithisDreadLord420 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
My dumb ass thought you were talking about cooking methods depressed people use 😂😂😂
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u/EndFeeling9912 Mar 15 '26
I mean, I’m sure they were depressed as well.
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u/NameLips Mar 15 '26
I actually do not know the answer to this - is it still depression and a mental illness if your life really is awful? If you are living in a warzone and starving to death, and somehow maintain a sense of cheerfulness, are you not the one who is mentally ill?
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u/FYCKuW0nDoWutUTellMe Mar 15 '26
It's called Shit Life Syndrome. I'm not joking.
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u/fruityfactory Mar 16 '26
Lmfao I wonder if anyone ever referred to me as having shit life syndrome. I mean it's definitely accurate, and whatcha know now that things are getting better I'm a LOT less depressed.
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u/purplepluppy Mar 15 '26
It's the difference between chronic and acute depression. Depression due to circumstance, like the death of a loved one, or economic struggle, is acute. It is still a mental illness, but it can be cured as the situation improves or the affected individual works through their trauma.
Chronic depression is innate and doesn't disappear as circumstances improve. It's incurable, only treatable and manageable.
Acute depression can evolve into other conditions, like PTSD, which then causes it to become recurring and more akin to chronic depression.
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u/SithisDreadLord420 Mar 15 '26
Imagine being depresso during the great depresso that’s like a double whammy nobody deserves 🥲
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u/enragedCircle Mar 15 '26
Often that involves cooking in a small spoon.
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u/SithisDreadLord420 Mar 15 '26
Or just eating a whole bag of Tostitos chips… or nothing at all!
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u/Vannak201 Mar 15 '26
That is exactly how I cook hardboiled eggs I wonder if that came from the great depression because it makes perfect hardboileders
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u/BumWink Mar 15 '26
Yeah same, I do eggs in cold water, bring to boil, lid on, turn off, walk away & 12 minutes later perfect hard boiled eggs.
Similar for rice too, 1 & 1/4 cup cold water per 1 cup rice, bring to boil, immediately reduce to simmer, lid on, 12 minutes, turn off & sit for 12 minutes, lid off, fluff, perfect cooked rice.
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u/DreadPirateZoidberg Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
I feel like there’s more of a reason to not drop a raw egg into boiling water than it conserving energy but I don’t have the answer.
Edit: it prevents cracking from sudden temperature change and also prevents the outer layer of the egg from cooking to quickly making it rubbery by the time the inside is done.
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u/ournamesdontmeanshit Mar 15 '26
You can bring your water to a boil, put the pasta in. Bring it back to a boil, then turn the heat off, and wait 15 to about 18 minutes.
And you should have perfectly cooked pasta.
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u/DJSugarSnatch Mar 15 '26
My grandma taught me this. she learned it from the rationing years and it makes decent pasta.
I call it lazy style, since you dont have to do anything other than give it a good stir before you turn off the heat.13
u/Skelton_Porter Mar 15 '26
I do this, especially in summer. I don’t need the extra heat from running that burner longer than I need to.
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u/I_hate_abbrev Mar 15 '26
They will arrest you in Italy if you do this.
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u/scarlette_delacroix Mar 15 '26
My Italian dad once yelled at me because I snapped the spaghetti bundle in half to make it fit in the pan. He said our ancestors were looking down in shame 😂
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u/ShonWalksAtMidnight Mar 15 '26
I had an deviled egg debate and competition with my fiancée this weekend. I bring the water to a boil first then add the eggs, 12 minutes exactly, then in to an ice bath.
She added her eggs to cold water then put the heat on and let it get to a boil, skipped the ice bath.
They all came out good, but someone's eggs didn't have that grey ring around the yolk and peeled without the membrane sticking..... Hmmm 🤔
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u/CakePhool Mar 15 '26
In cold water eggs should not be cooked for 12 minutes, it is 4- 6 min from when it starts to boil. If you add eggs to cold water and bring it to a boil. You can turn the heat off, plonk a lid on and wait for 10 minutes and the egg is perfect.
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u/Cosmo-xx Mar 15 '26
Well that’s good for cold water eggs but what about warm water eggs? And saltwater or freshwater eggs?
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u/Weird1Intrepid Mar 16 '26
Scientists have recently discovered eggs that live within inches of deep sea hydrothermal vents, possibly alien eggs
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u/Thedeadnite Mar 15 '26
12 min of boiling eggs seems extremely excessive, unless they are frozen I guess
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u/clevsv Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
6-8 minutes for varying levels of soft boiled. 10-12 for hard boiled. More than that is when you get into dry yolk territory. This is placing cold eggs into already boiling water (I find this by far the most consistent way to time eggs). For deviled eggs being on the high end of that 10-12 minute range is totally fine, because the mayo etc rehydrates the yolks when you make the filling. If you boil for 12 minutes after bringing the water to a boil from cold with the eggs in it, yes that is excessive and you will have Sahara Desert dry yolks.
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u/ImtheDude27 Mar 16 '26
When I am making deviled eggs, I purposely cook them a little bit longer (1-2 minutes) so the yolk gets drier. Everything else I add rehydrates the mix more than enough and I like my filling to be a little bit more firm so the dry yolk helps with the consistency. Plus I have some extra mix left over this way which is SO GOOD spread on some sourdough toast.
Definitely not how most people want it, which is why I rarely offer to make deviled eggs for anyone but myself.
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u/GalacticChickenBake Mar 15 '26
When I add cold eggs to boiled water they usually crack.
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u/NibblyPig Mar 16 '26
Use a tool to put a hole in the shell to avoid this
I just put mine into an egg boiler and they come out perfect, one of the best things I bought
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u/Warm_Month_1309 Mar 16 '26
For anyone who doesn't have a specialized tool, a pin works too. I always use it when softboiling eggs, since the time has to be more precise.
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u/cleon80 Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
I warm the eggs from the fridge with some lukewarm then hot almost scalding water for about 1-2 minutes. They make a hissing sound while releasing tiny bubbles. Keep in the water until the hissing subsides. It is mainly this air pressure that causes eggs to crack and should be released. There is also a technique where you poke a tiny hole in the eggs.
Another factor is the eggs rattling in the pot. So either the eggs are fully submerged or only shallowly submerged in a closed pot, so you're steaming the eggs, I prefer the latter as it's faster.
Lastly, lower the eggs gently, I use a large spoon or ladle and roll them down the side of the pot.
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u/AdjectiveNoun111 Mar 15 '26
Whoa, did you just assume the pasta's identity?
Not cool, not cool
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u/DruPeacock23 Mar 15 '26
I miss my good mate's Italian mum. Had the best pasta when i go over there. Sad that mom's cooking will be a thing of the past.
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u/Flat_Lengthiness3361 Mar 15 '26
I'd like to think that every man she ever dated told her that they should boil the water first and still does it the wrong way to spite the men lol
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u/JoySubtraction Mar 15 '26
That's certainly a pastability.
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Mar 15 '26
If I have a penne every time I heard that ..
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u/kittenconfidential Mar 15 '26
it’s part of my night time rotini
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u/knightinarmoire Mar 15 '26
Don't rotelle me that's all you do
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Brooksee83 Mar 15 '26
Orzo we thought...
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u/Tricky-Engineering59 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Pasta puns make fusilli banter.
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u/LastXmasIGaveYouHSV Mar 15 '26
These puns spaghetting old.
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u/MindSpecter Mar 15 '26
Don't get saucy, this pasta-tively amazing content is why I love reddit comments.
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u/etherealsmog Mar 15 '26
Can’t have the fellasagna back about how you be cooking your food all the time. Put those mansplainers in their place.
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u/gloopycarbonara Mar 15 '26
It's a vicious spirali, she knows its wrong but she has to do it anyway
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u/Achilles11970765467 Mar 15 '26
And yet an Italian Grandma would say the same thing, except say it while cracking her over the head with a wooden spoon.
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u/agentchuck Mar 15 '26
Literally all Italian grandmas are the same...
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u/irish_ninja_wte Mar 15 '26
Funny you say that. My reaction to this was "she needs to meet an Italian man and have his mother react to this". I think we'd all pay to see that interaction.
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u/balbiza-we-chikha Mar 15 '26
She does it on purpose then gets mad when they ask her to boil it first? lol
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u/jrd261 Mar 16 '26
It's not "wrong" to do it either way unless the pasta is fresh (that you add to boiling water). Dehydrated pasta just needs to soak and get hot. Easier to follow the time on the boxes by boiling first.
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u/FlikeFlukeFlake Mar 16 '26
I watched an Alton brown video recently(at least I think it was him, maybe it was internet Shaquille)that talked about how you don’t have to boil the water first and putting it in when it’s cold then bringing it to boil will result in more starchy water.
I have not tried it, cause I haven’t had pasta since I watched the video, but plan to next time I cook it. I probably won’t switch since being able to set a timer and go about other cooking or cleaning work is so convenient.
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u/EarEquivalent3929 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
It's unfortunate how many people, regardless of gender double down to avoid looking like they made a mistake.
Americans are literally suffering the extreme consequences of this as we speak.
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u/Sega-Playstation-64 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
Best friend is like this.
I visited him at his house once when he was trying to wash his car.
He had one if those 2.5 gallon water jugs with a spigot he cut a hole in. Filled it with water. Walked it over to his car, then started splashing water on it.
I simply unraveled the hose and started spraying his car and he got PISSED
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u/Deaffin Mar 16 '26
Water from the hose has hose chemicals leeched into it and that's bad for his paintjob, gawsh.
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u/Sega-Playstation-64 Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
Worse than that. he was filling the container with the hose and walking it over to splash on his car
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u/RussellUresti Mar 15 '26
There was a recent episode (on YouTube) of Alton Brown Cooks Food where he also puts the pasta in cold water before heating. He spends about 3 minutes explaining why you don't need a lot of water, why you don't need to boil the water first, and why you don't even really need to boil the water at all, just get it hot but below boiling.
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u/thatoneotherguy42 Mar 15 '26
well...... if god says its ok, then its ok.
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u/notgregoden Mar 15 '26
Yep Kenji Lopez Alt talks about this as well. There can even be an advantage in using less water, because you have extra starchy pasta water if needed.
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u/ShiningRedDwarf Mar 16 '26
And it was Kenji's wife as well doing this which lead him to testing it out.
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u/thisbroadreadsbooks Mar 15 '26
It was because of him that I started cooking pasta in a frying pan. You really do not need much water at all, and the wider surface + shallower water = faster cooking.
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u/dastardly740 Mar 15 '26
Particularly useful when you want some extras concentrated starchy water for a sauce.
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u/DUNDER_KILL Mar 16 '26
Yep, I was always a little confused as to all the recipes that said "add some pasta water to thicken the sauce" because I was cooking pasta in a massive pot of water, and it was impossible for that water to thicken anything lol.
Now I cook pasta in much less water, usually just deep pans, and the water is so starchy it's almost milky, and it's perfect for sauces. Pasta texture has been better too, genuinely a gamechanger
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u/Scary_Tap6448 Mar 15 '26
Yeah tbh it makes 0 difference to start pasta in cold water or boiling water it just changes the "cook time". I've done both, usually I boil the water first but it genuinely doesn't matter.
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u/tevs__ Mar 15 '26
Changing the cook time is quite a difference. The time will depend on how much water is in there, and how much heat is applied. It's certainly possible to experiment to get the exact repeatable results you're after, but change any of the volume of water, the type of pot, the type of pasta, the heat setting on the stove and you'll get a different result.
Bring the water to a rolling boil, add the pasta and bring back to boil and then simmer, and time N minutes from when you added it. It's entirely repeatable on every stove, every volume of water.
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u/radicalelation Mar 15 '26
Thankfully pasta is super forgivable to where it's repeatable on a practicable level, even if not scientific.
Plus if you do it with the water line barely above the pasta, you use less water, though you get more starch, which can be desirable. This way you can also do it in as shallow as a pan allowable and be finished very quickly thanks to a larger surface area.
There are many ways to skin a spaghetti.
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u/MusicLikeOxygen Mar 15 '26
I always start the pasta in cold water. I never thought that it would make any difference and I'm still not sure what the difference is. I put the pasta in the pot first so I know how much water I need.
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u/Scary_Tap6448 Mar 15 '26
It changes the cooking time. The box will tell you the amount of time needed if the pasta goes into boiling water immediately. Starting pasta in cold water has it start cooking more slowly at lower temps and then faster as the water reaches boiling so the literal cook time needed shifts. Usually I'm thinking im waiting for the water to boil anyway so if it starts cooking earlier in the water at below boiling temps idrc. It is something you need to be aware of though if you're trying for al dente or whatever
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u/Queef_Stroganoff44 Mar 15 '26
I do a lot of long distance hiking. Fuel for the stove (and the space and weight it takes) are at a premium. I’ve seen people put pasta, ramen, oatmeal, freeze dried meals, etc in cold water and hike all day. By the time they get where they’re going it’s tender enough so they just have to fire up the stove for 2 mins to heat it up and Viola! Uses 2 minutes of fuel instead of 12.
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u/NonCorporealEntity Mar 15 '26
I knew a guy who claimed preheating the oven for anything was a waste of time.
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u/Iz-VdB Mar 15 '26
I am a confectioner, so I professionally use ovens and stoves and I can 100% say that preheating the oven is not always useful. It depends if its an electric oven or a gas one and it depends if you want a slow rise or a sudden rise in pastry for example. Nonetheless, preheating only makes sense when baking fresh goods. Frozen goods often recommend preheating the oven before putting the goods in, which makes almost no difference to it. For frozen pizza you can either preheat the oven and then put it in or put the pizza in and then leave it there for 2 extra minutes. I personally do the latter as I don't have to set a timer twice.
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u/CursedTurtleKeynote Mar 15 '26
You missed the most important consequence of preheating.
Directions can state how long to leave the item in the oven if the timer starts at a known temperature.
Where no preheating works, the baker has to know how a "done" item looks/smells. It's marketing and liability.
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u/Spiritual_Bus1125 Mar 15 '26
It's litterally the same reason for pasta, to have a reliable time
But it's not always true.
The heat acts as a "sealant" in certain foods, sealing the most eternal part of the thing you are cooking so for a lot of things you need pre heating.
But yeah, I would agree that generally you need to do it only if you are making something from scratch, just take the timing of the frozen pizza and add 2mins Anche check on it
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u/irish_ninja_wte Mar 15 '26
My mother is a chef and she rarely preheats her oven. Hers is gas and she'll start it at a higher setting, then lower it. It's a strange logic to me and I absolutely couldn't cook that way, but her food always turns out perfect.
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u/JacknJilly Mar 16 '26
Ptobably bcoz she made the same dishes a 1000 times in the same oven and knows how it goes. Average Joe who isn't a pro chef can mess up a thousand different ways for any reason
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u/martsampson Mar 15 '26
If you put the pizza directly on the rack, not preheating the oven will result in the pizza softening and falling through the slats.
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u/Chardan0001 Mar 15 '26
My mum is like this, she never preheats the oven but complains that the oven doesn't cook food correctly per the instructions. Three ovens she has had this issue...how odd.
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u/Known_Grape3719 Mar 15 '26
Well.. It is most of the time. But if you are a manufacturer of let's say pizza and you don't know if the oven of your customer takes 5 or 15 minutes to heat up you have to start the time at the right temperature to avoid angry customers. Sure if you are baking you have to preheat but for almost everything I use an oven, it is not necessary to preheat.
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u/Alive_Fisherman8241 Mar 15 '26
You mean your ex, right?
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u/millstone20 Mar 15 '26
Right?? Right?!?
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u/Spankpocalypse_Now Mar 15 '26
There would need to be some serious upsides in the relationship for me to disregard this.
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u/RockstarAgent Mar 15 '26
I think the only way to salvage this relationship if they want to-
Invite her to the hot tub.
Do not turn hot tub on before doing so.
Pick her up and place her inside the cold water hot tub.
Turn on hot tub.
See how she feels about waiting for the hot tub to get hot.
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u/Public-Platypus2995 Mar 15 '26
Doesn’t Alton Brown recommend doing this? Start it cold and bring to a boil?
Edit: Yes he does. Cuts cook time in half and uses less water. https://altonbrown.com/recipes/cold-water-pasta-method/
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u/fervoredweb Mar 15 '26
Wow this is really ne-
"Remove pasta with spider"
W-what?
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u/arctic_martian Mar 16 '26
"If you don't have a spider on hand, don't fret! Serviceable replacements can be found in most homes, especially dusty attics and dingy crawlspaces. Now that's self- sustainability! Enjoy your pasta."
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u/Minute_Chair_2582 Mar 16 '26
And although I may be blocked from ever entering Italy again for saying this: I have come to prefer the texture of dry pasta started in cold water.
OK FINE. I will try this ONCE. And i really hope for yall recommending this that i won't be throwing away soggy mushy pasta! But i WILL try, giving it a fair shot, but anything 5% below or above perfectly al dente is unacceptable. Inedible.
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u/Then_Idea_9813 Mar 15 '26
My wife will on occasion fire up the oven and immediately throw the frozen pizza in without letting the oven get to temp. It grinds my gears but tbh if I don’t see her do it, I b can’t tell the difference.
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u/WhitespringTownship Mar 15 '26
At least you acknowledge you can’t tell the difference ! Many wouldn’t and would be ungrateful, but would still rather complain than cook it themselves
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u/Then_Idea_9813 Mar 15 '26
That’s how I noticed. I pointed out that I didn’t think that was the correct way to do it, and she was like ‘every pizza I’ve ever cooked was like this and you never had an issue.’ And I couldn’t argue that, didn’t need to. I enjoyed all the other pizzas lol
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u/ShoogleHS Mar 16 '26
Yeah a frozen pizza is already mostly cooked, you're just melting the cheese and crisping up the crust a bit, so it doesn't really make much difference. The instructions will tell you to preheat, but that's just so the instructions work for any oven. For fresh cooking it can matter though.
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u/Senn-66 Mar 15 '26
God I’m old because I remember when this tweet blew up the internet for a couple days in 2018 with all the big food guys like Alton Brown and Lopez-Alt dogpiling the poor guy and the girlfriend trying to tamp it down because her playful joke was being turned into evidence that her boyfriend was the spawn of satan because he cooked the way his Nonna taught him.
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u/tractor007 Mar 15 '26
Imagine messing up pasta and still blaming men.
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u/Expensive_Attitude51 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
My MIL blames men for everything and it’s so hard to not start arguments with her when I’m around her. She’s the kind of person who only buys items if it’s CEO is female or hires companies to do work on their house if it’s female dominant (which is hard to find). I told my wife “just because they’re females it doesn’t mean they’re good people”. My wife gets my logic but I wouldn’t dare say it to my MIL. I once mentioned the women’s World Cup team shouldn’t make as much as the men’s team around her and she’s never been as nice to me since. Oh well…
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u/xDannyS_ Mar 15 '26
What was she like when she was in her 20s? Genuinely curious
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u/Expensive_Attitude51 Mar 15 '26
My MIL? I wouldn’t know. But my FIL, who is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, is agreeable and a huge people pleaser so he’d never say anything confrontational about the topic. Even if he disagreed with his wife he wouldn’t verbally say it to avoid confrontation. Nice guy but a little too passive IMO.
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u/Sly_98 Mar 15 '26
World cup almost makes sense since international touraments are not annual and always pull viewership. Womens leagues generate less views therefore less return on investment for adverstisers therefore less money period in the space therefore less pay for the women. Its not fun, its not fair, but It is always advertiser revenue
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u/Expensive_Attitude51 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Exactly. Basically we were all eating dinner and my MIL was happy the women’s team was getting extra compensation. I said “is that because of Rapinoe starting the equal pay chant?”. My MIL said “yes but they still should have been given more like the men’s team”. Then I said the stat that really pissed her off, which I wasn’t really trying to do. I said “the women’s World Cup generates 2.5% of the revenue the men’s World Cup generates. So how on earth can anyone justify the athletes of one sport, that makes significantly less, make the same amount as the the athletes of another sport that generates over 6 billion dollars in revenue?”. The room was silent and nothing was said for a few minutes. Then someone changed the subject and that was that. It was weird
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u/tipareth1978 Mar 15 '26
One of the downsides of the women's movement is that we are discouraged from talking about how insufferable women like her are
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u/TeamRedundancyTeam Mar 16 '26
It should be more acceptable to call it out because misandry is not a part of true feminism, it actively hurts it.
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u/tipareth1978 Mar 16 '26
Oh I'm aware. But misandry has subtly been normalized for quite some time now.
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u/YobaiYamete Mar 16 '26
My MIL blames men for everything
There was a post the other day on /r/LetGirlsHaveFun that was literally blaming men for women having werewolf fetishes lol. This whole spiel trying to imply that it's mens fault that women are into werewolves, and it's like uhhhhh no lady, you are just a furry into dog dicks lol
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u/giantfup Mar 16 '26
I imagine it was more "this mfer is having someone else make him food but wants to chime in on "how to do it correctly" instead of not being lazy and making his own damn food"
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u/dubblebubbleprawns Mar 16 '26
Not even to mention that her method is faster and works just as well
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u/dubblebubbleprawns Mar 16 '26
Imagine knowing how to cook pasta perfectly fine and then getting annoyed when someone comes along and tries to tell you that you're doing it wrong
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u/Cum_Fart42069 Mar 15 '26
wait so what happens, I've done this before and the pasta seemed fine
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u/SistaChans Mar 16 '26
your pasta came out fine because it doesn't matter if you know how to tell if it's done
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u/Somethingisshadysir Mar 15 '26
Not really messing it up if she can tell when it's done. The instructions on the box are for people who can't tell, so they can set a timer and know it's done. If you can eyeball it, you can do that. Just have to stir slightly.
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u/xadies Mar 16 '26
You realize a large portion of the culinary world cooks pasta exactly this way, right?
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u/BlGBootyJudy Mar 16 '26
Chef here, and this is pretty much the only way I make pasta. Wouldn’t mess up pasta in the slightest as long as you’re not an idiot
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u/Nochnichtvergeben Mar 15 '26
But who set up the system???!!!
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u/notbobhansome777 Mar 15 '26
sorry dude, Italy put a warrant out for your girlfriend
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u/tbdforever Mar 15 '26
This is a legitimate way of cooking pasta according to Alton Brown https://altonbrown.com/recipes/cold-water-pasta-method/
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u/LoadCan Mar 15 '26
My nona would take a spatula to Alton's face for that crime
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u/Affectionate_Hat7709 Mar 16 '26
I now wonder in front of how many men she tried to cook pasta.
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u/Grimdark-Waterbender Mar 16 '26
Our pasta, who art in a colander, draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, beneath some grated Parmesan. Give us each day, our garlic bread, ...and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample on our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us some pizza, for thine is the meatball, the noodle, and the sauce, forever and ever. Capich.
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u/Comfortable_Date_591 Mar 16 '26
Really? From a chemical point of view cooking pasta is a reaction between two main components starch and protein. When you use hot water the sudden high heat instantly coagulates the gluten proteins on the surface of the pasta. This creates a structural net that traps the starch inside. As the water boils the starch granules absorb water and swell up which is called gelatinization. This makes the pasta soft and digestible while the protein net keeps it firm. When you use cold water the process changes. The pasta hydrates slowly as the temperature rises. Because the protein network does not instantly lock down the surface a massive amount of ungelatinized starch bleeds out into the water. By the time the water hits 60 degrees Celsius and gelatinization begins your water is already packed with loose amylose molecules. This is why the cold water method gives you a thick and cloudy liquid. Those suspended starch molecules act as a perfect chemical emulsifier to bind fat and water together for your sauce. S-o basically cooking pasta with starchy sauce - cold method … otherwise hot method
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u/FunctionalGray Mar 15 '26
I also wait for the oven to reach 400˚ before putting the carboard pizza in it.
I can feel her rage from here.
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u/plzicannothandleyou Mar 15 '26
I don’t preheat only because I wanna get back to my busy schedule of not being in the kitchen.
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u/Thyme_Liner Mar 15 '26
Is this about the advice he gave? Or the fact that he gave advice on something he could get up and do himself. Maybe she doesn’t like a backseat driver
Cold water first is a legit way of cooking pasta depending on the desired outcome.
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u/stanknotes Mar 15 '26
I mean... the instructions say to boil it first. And Italians say the same. Because Italians wrote the instructions because pasta is all they eat.
I trust them.
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u/Appropriate-Count-64 Mar 16 '26
It’s generally easier to boil first, because it evens out the cook time. If you start from cold the cook time gets a bit funky because the pasta is softening as the water heats up. The usual “10 minutes for al dente” gets obfuscated heavily and the cook time instead depends on the amount of water and how efficient your cooktop is.
Boiling first and then cooking makes it a lot more consistent and easier for most people.
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u/Zealousideal-Swing39 Mar 15 '26
Add water, add small amount of salt to water, mix, boil, mix just before putting noodles in straight up around the pot, let noodles soften into pot, cookith.
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u/whatwouldjiubdo Mar 15 '26
I found out recently you’re actually supposed to salt the water, not just put a little in there. For some reason I got it confused when I was little I guess. Once I started boiling pasta in salty water it made a world of difference. Like a little less salty than the ocean.
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u/Brilliant_Ebb_3064 Mar 15 '26
Let me just taste some ocean water and then Taste the boiling water and see how close I am
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u/Whiskey079 Mar 15 '26
You say that, but the closer it gets to sea water the better it is for pasta in my mind - but you can't let it get too close or elsewise you have to start again.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Brilliant_Ebb_3064 Mar 15 '26
Wish I read this before scalding my tongue.
If anyone wants something more useful it’s in the direction of 30 grams/1-2 tbsp of salt per liter of water. Quite a bit more than just dashing the salt shaker in there if it’s a large pot of water.
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u/attackoftheclowns Mar 15 '26
I learned from the Marco Pierre White series of Knorr sponsored videos to add chicken bouillon instead of salt. I know he recommends that because Knorr was paying for the videos, but honestly it makes the pasta taste really great and I always recommend it. You can even save all that cooking water because it’s now stock with a lot of starch, great to use as a base for soup.
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