BWW Cooks: The Magic of Pasta Water

Ah, the advice we've been given about pasta. Salt the water. Don't salt the water. Make the water as salty as the sea brine of the Italian coast. Add oil. Don't add oil. Drain throroughly. Don't drain thoroughly. Let the pasta sit in the water. Don't let the pasta sit in the water. If you don't have a Sicilian or Tuscan aunt to rescue you, what should you do?

First off, an easy one - hold off on that oil unless you want to cook your pasta in an oil slick. The rationale for oil in the water is to prevent the pasta from sticking together - but in the pot, that's achieved by adding the pasta carefully and stirring. Oil while cooking doesn't prevent clumping; oil or butter after draining will do that for pasta that's being stored.

Second, also easy - salt your water, and salt it well. There is no salt in pasta itself; it takes on the flavor of the water in which it cooks. Plain water is bland and flavorless; salt in the water means salt not added later at the table, in easy excess. Don't add a measly shake of salt; be generous. Most of the salt will stay in the water. If you really want the flavor of the sea water, and if you want to reduce sodium, it pays to use sea salt in your water. Don't bother with pricey finishing salts; inexpensive sea salt will do. Just be generous. The pasta will not come out excessively salty, as it would with over-salted sauce on it.

How about sitting in the water? This varies. One way to cook pasta is to bring the water to a rolling boil after the pasta is added; clamp on a lid, shut off the heat, and wait the normal length of time for the pasta to cook, and it should be done. It's a trick that works well. Or, if pasta is par-cooked earlier, return it to boiling pasta water for a short cooking time. That's a restaurant pasta station cooking trick, as par-cooked pasta makes short-order pasta service possible. Pasta can also be cooked and drained, oiled slightly so it doesn't stick, and be reheated in boiling pasta water in seconds.

But there's more. Pasta water isn't just water. It's water that's now well salted, into which has leached a fair amount of starch from the pasta that was being cooked. The less water, the more condensed the salt and the starch. This makes pasta water useful for several cooking ideas, so don't just dump it when you drain your pasta. Scoop out as much as a cup of it for mixing with pasta and its sauce.

Pasta and sauce don't naturally combine or adhere well. Pasta water is sticky at its edges, full of strch molecules that are waiting to thicken a thinner sauce, and to glue sauce to the pasta the water came from. It's a restaurant trick to dish pasta into a sauté pan, pour on a bit of pasta water to make things stickier, and then add the sauce. Both red sauces (red gravy in Philadelphia Italian cooking) and cream and cheese sauces benefit from the addition of the salt and starch in binding sauce to pasta. If it helps, know that this concept has been tested for years. Tossing the pasta in a sauté pan with sauce and a splash of the pasta water makes the food meld and come alive.

But there's still water left after making that pasta and sauce. Do you pour it all down the drain? No, no more than you waste the leftover pasta. It's salty. It's got starch. It has the qualities needed to enhance a broth-type soup. Maybe a minestrone. Maybe, ah, a pasta e fagioli.

Take your pasta water, and chop up onion, garlic, and celery. Saute until tender, then add to the water. Add a little chicken or beef base, or vegetable base; it will be a bit thicker than a regular broth. Is there some stray pasta left behind? Cut it down if large, and add to the thick broth with the onions and celery in it. A few more vegetables? Some meat scraps? Add them. Perhaps it needs a cup of wine, or a half a cup of tomato, something a bit acidic. Simmer it all until the soup thickens and the meat scraps are mercilessly tender. You'll have thick, hearty soup. Pasta water with chicken or vegetable base, onion, celery, and some canned beans that thicken cooking well. A bit of parsley, a dash of thyme, a good spoon of tomato paste, and hello, you have minestrone. Don't look for recipes for such things; learn to make them happen with a little imagination and an eye to what's sitting in the larder. There's always something to add. I have taken to keeping the packs of four single-serving vegetables in my kitchen cupboard, because half a cup of peas, half a cup of corn, and half a cup of.... Yeah, carrots... will give you a true American vegetable soup. And again, don't forget that cup of leftover pasta. It has a higher purpose than sitting in the back of the fridge. Minestrone is the highest possible use of all leftovers.

The next time you make pasta, think twice before tossing out the water. From Atlantic to Pacific, there's been plenty of use for it. You can even add a bit of it for mashed potatoes to thicken up. From mellowing and binding sauce and pasta to thickening vegetable soups, there are reasons not to pour it down the drain. It's a possible huge help for everything from A to Zed, so why waste it?

Let your pasta water become useful rather than wasteful. It won't take long to discover many more tricks with it. Enjoy.

To post a comment, you must register and login.