Some of my friends pour cold water on pasta after boiling it other don't. What do the professionals do? If they pour cold water on the pasta after the boil, what do they want to accomplish with doing it?
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I would strongly suggest not pouring cold or any other kind of water on pasta; it will rinse the delicious starches off its surface, which would otherwise help your sauce cling to it. To counteract the negative consequences of overcooking due to remaining heat (which, as belisarius suggests in his answer, is the reason other stuff is often rinsed with cold water), just serve it immediately. You want to have the sauce (hot and) ready just before your pasta is, so you can drain the pasta, mix with the sauce, and put it on the table. |
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Pour cold water on boiled things when you want to stop the cooking process. Once you get "al dente" stage, the pasta will quickly get past that, so cooling it with cold water helps you manage the final state. Be aware that the pasta will lose temp, that is going to be re-gained when you briskly sautee it afterward (with some salsa, hopefully). PS: for vegetables, quickly immersing them in ice-cold water after boiling helps to retain the bright color (although I don't know why). |
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Your pour cold water over pasta if you don't want the noodles to stick together later. If you are making enough for the amount of servings -- that you will eat right away -- then it is ok not to. As Erik's answer pointed out, the sauce will stick better onto the noodles. So you are cooking pasta in bulk and will refrigerate some of it for later consumption, it is better to dump cold water on it. Otherwise, you'll end up with a glob of pasta that you can't sort out later. |
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