Why I’ll Never Boil Pasta According to the Box Instructions Ever Again
Whenever a new season of Chef’s Table releases, I race to tune in and nerd out about all the culinary lessons available to absorb. The last series of this food documentary focused on the craft of pizza makers worldwide, and this most recent rollout of episodes covers the starchy wonders of noodles. While obsessively watching, I discovered an ingenious trick that most home cooks are likely unaware of, involving a simple hack for boiling pasta.
If you tune in to Chef’s Table Noodles, which premiered last month on Netflix, the third episode centers on Peppe Guida, the Italian chef behind a beloved Michelin-starred restaurant. Guida vulnerably opens up about his life in many ways while elegantly sharing the most innovative yet straightforward culinary trick for nearly perfecting pasta al pomodoro, or spaghetti in tomato sauce.
“Once the pasta is in the water, then you can start cooking the tomato sauce,” Guida explains. “You start the timer. The pasta’s cooked in eight minutes. Four minutes in the water and the other four minutes in the tomato sauce.”
This simple method of boiling your dry pasta for half the amount of time that the package instructions suggest and then the remaining minutes in tomato sauce is a quick route to infuse your noodles with additional depths of flavor.
At Guida’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Antica Osteria Nonna Rosa, his spaghetti and tomato sauce is called “La Devozione,” which translates to “the devotion” in English. He believes that once people taste this dish, they will become devotees of his pasta.
One YouTube creator, @Recipe30, got to step inside Guida’s kitchen to watch him practice this pasta boiling trick.
One person commented on the YouTube clip demonstrating this pasta-boiling hack, saying, “That’s what I always do. I like the starch from the noodles; it makes the sauce creamier.” Another user mentioned, “I’m definitely going to try this. I like pasta slightly undercooked. This might be the answer to what I have been looking for.”
So, the next time you make a simple pasta dish, consider this trick to upgrade the flavor of your noodles. While Guida focuses on tomato sauce, it doesn’t have to end there. You can try this hack with a creamy Alfredo or spicy vodka.
Further Reading
We Asked 3 Chefs to Name the Best Ice Cream, and They All Said the Same Thing
The “Beautiful” $3 Flower Tumblers at Walmart People Are Buying 2 at a Time
