Jan 21, 2023 12:00:00

A scientific way to save money and cook pasta as deliciously as possible

Pasta, the main ingredient of Italian cuisine, is a type of noodle that is eaten all over the world, and is often the subject of scientific research, such as

the pursuit of the perfect boiling method and the elucidation of the physical phenomena when pasta is folded. increase. David Fairhurst, chief lecturer at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, explains how such pasta should be boiled from the perspective of ``saving costs''.

Italy's pasta row: a scientist on how to cook spaghetti properly and save money
https://theconversation.com/italys-pasta-row-a-scientist-on-how-to-cook-spaghetti-properly-and-save-money-191973

Cooking dry pasta consists of two processes: ``water penetrates the pasta'' and ``the pasta is heated, the protein gluten is deactivated, and the starch is decomposed and gelatinized ''. . Depending on the shape and thickness of the pasta, if you boil 100g of dried spaghetti in 1L of boiling water, it will take 10-12 minutes.

The pie chart below shows the breakdown of energy consumption when boiling dry pasta. The most energy is used to keep the hot water boiling to boil the pasta for 10 minutes (yellow), which is about 60%. Next, the energy (orange) used to boil hot water before boiling is 34% of the total. And 5% energy is used to heat the pot of hot water (blue), and 1% energy is used to heat the boiled pasta (light blue).

Therefore, if you want to boil pasta economically, you can greatly reduce energy by using the method of ``turn off the stove after adding the pasta and boil the pasta with preheating.'' This method works well on electric stoves, which are slower to cool than gas or induction stoves.

However, if you use cold water instead of hot water to soak the pasta, you can cook the pasta more economically because it takes less time to boil. According to Fairhurst, dry pasta can be fully reconstituted by soaking it in cold water for two hours.

Furthermore, heating of pasta can also be saved. A

study published in 2018 found that when cooking water-soaked pasta, reducing the amount of water used does not affect the quality of the finished product. So, when Mr. Fairhurst actually reduced the amount of hot water to half to 0.5 liters, he said that it was boiled without problems. However, when the amount of hot water was reduced to 1/3, this time it was a problem of the saturated amount of starch dissolved in the hot water, and it seems that the boiled finish was not good.

Also, according to a study on pasta cooking temperatures announced in 2021, gluten is deactivated at 80 degrees or higher. In other words, you don't need to boil water to 100 degrees, you can raise the temperature to 80 degrees or more, and you can save even more.

Based on the above results, the method of boiling delicious pasta while saving costs as much as possible is to ``return with water for 2 hours in advance and then boil with half the prescribed amount and 80 degrees of hot water''. Also, if you can choose a stove, an electric stove that cools down slowly is better.

In addition, Mr. Fairhurst seems to have considered heating the pasta reconstituted with water in advance in a microwave oven, but although it is heated efficiently, it seems that the boiled condition was the worst, 'How to use a microwave oven is definitely not something to try at home.'