Current Events > The worst crimes you can commit when cooking pasta.

(+) Yeah! (+)

1. Breaking the spaghetti
2. Using a small pot/not enough water
3. Putting oil in the water
4. Not using enough salt in the water
5. Overcooking it.
6. Not putting it into the sauce as soon as it's done cooking (aka, letting it die).

There are more but I feel like those are specific to the recipe you're trying to make. These are all general.

What's wrong with breaking spaghetti

I'm "guilty" of two of them. I flatly refuse to salt the water, and I serve buffet style so people can sauce the pasta themselves. I do mix the pasta and sauce before putting any leftovers away.

I've done all of them at least once, but none of them regularly.

one time i tripped carrying the pot of spaghetti to the sink to strain it and poured the boiling water all down my shorts
boiled my penis
kinda sucked
the ER here didnt have a burn unit so i had to go to the one in the inner city
like gunshot victims and shit waiting to be seen but they wheeled me right in bc the admitting staff thought it was so horrifying

it only hurt for a few hours (morphine on a drip that real shit)
and i had no lasting damage and got like 2 weeks off work
plus i got pasta gangster street cred now

Ketchup on spaghetti, yeah this is a thing and it's nasty when I tried it.

ECW_Originals12 posted...

What's wrong with breaking spaghetti

It destroys the flavor

ECW_Originals12 posted...

What's wrong with breaking spaghetti

really, nothing. But people break spaghetti because they use too small of a pot.

im a minimalist when it comes to water.

i know it's not "proper" but it cooks fine for me and no boil over

Mixing the sauce and pasta together before storing will cause the acids from the sauce to breakdown the pasta making it worse when reheated. If you're going to store left overs of it you should keep them separate. I don't care what your Grandmother from Italy learned 80 years ago before science figured that out.

ECW_Originals12 posted...

What's wrong with breaking spaghetti

Nothing, not gonna fill a big crockpot of water if Im just making for myself

ArsGoetia posted...

one time i tripped carrying the pot of spaghetti to the sink to strain it and poured the boiling water all down my shorts
boiled my penis

You were supposed to boil the noodles not boil your noodle!

I commit all of these, I like to tie up Italian people in my kitchen and make them watch me do it...

I commit 2 often. I don't have enough large pots at home, and sometimes the pasta is less important than other parts of the meal and I have to make the sacrifice.

I'm pretty good at not overcooking it, but for a big meal I might fumble my timing

stabbing someone with the uncooked pasta shards

Scorsese2002 posted...

Nothing, not gonna fill a big crockpot of water if Im just making for myself

It's fine to have it sticking out a bit.

GeraldDarko posted...

It's fine to have it sticking out a bit.

All tastes the same, broken or unbroken

I'd say 6 is the worst, but could be 5 depending on how overcooked we're talking

ECW_Originals12 posted...

What's wrong with breaking spaghetti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hF41qPkJxs

Murder, probably.

squeeze it through a strainer for that authentic rice mouthfeel

I don't like salt and you can make pasta without sauce.

i don't put the pasta in the sauce because whenever i make my family recipe for marinara sauce & meatballs and serve it with pasta, i do multiple kinds of pasta and leave it to each person to mix and match. my dad just likes regular spaghetti, but sometimes i'll do whole grain spaghetti too, or black bean noodles, or zucchini noodles, or sometimes i'll feel like penne. often i'll do two or three of these and put them all on my plate.

Wasting the water used to cook the pasta.

ArsGoetia posted...

one time i tripped carrying the pot of spaghetti to the sink to strain it and poured the boiling water all down my shorts
boiled my penis
kinda sucked
the ER here didnt have a burn unit so i had to go to the one in the inner city
like gunshot victims and shit waiting to be seen but they wheeled me right in bc the admitting staff thought it was so horrifying

it only hurt for a few hours (morphine on a drip that real shit)
and i had no lasting damage and got like 2 weeks off work
plus i got pasta gangster street cred now

I had kind of a similar thing happen. Only I was cooking ramen and I had a seizure.

Looks like me and you are destined to be noodle burn buddies.

Breaking spaghetti is literally preferred

Don't feel too bad, Gordon Ramsey is guilty of at least 3 of these.

I will never put salt into the water.

ECW_Originals12 posted...

What's wrong with breaking spaghetti

An Italian dies for every strand of spaghetti that breaks.

Looks like I'm only guilty of not immediately putting it into the sauce

LordFarquad1312 posted...

Not putting it into the sauce as soon as it's done cooking (aka, letting it die).

Literally never heard of this one before.

ectually, picking up a gun and murdering someone while you cook the pasta would be a worse crime than any of these

toreysback posted...

ectually, picking up a gun and murdering someone while you cook the pasta would be a worse crime than any of these

Debatable.

if the water isn't salted the pasta will come out tasting like trash no matter what

Adding sauce to the pasta after its cooked is more because the pasta or macaroni wont stick together.

my family would take a little bit of sauce and add it to the pasta, then you can add whatever amount of sauce you wanted to it after you plated your dish.

and as others have said - if you make two/three different types of pasta. You dont put all the sauce in one bowl.

eating it raw

I've done every single one of these at one time or the other. I stopped putting oil in the water and breaking the pasta.

About the only 2 I do anymore are not putting the pasta in the sauce right away because sometimes I have to make both regular and gluten free spaghetti due to someone in the house having Celiac.

Also using too small of a pot. I have one pot that's large enough, do when I have to make 2 batches of noodles I have to use what pot is available.

I used to put oil in the water until I read it can cause the sauce to not stick to the noodles. Honestly I haven't noticed a difference though.

AloneIBreak posted...

I used to put oil in the water until I read it can cause the sauce to not stick to the noodles. Honestly I haven't noticed a difference though.

At least you're not tossing oil down the drain for no reason anymore.

Lokison posted...

Mixing the sauce and pasta together before storing will cause the acids from the sauce to breakdown the pasta making it worse when reheated. If you're going to store left overs of it you should keep them separate. I don't care what your Grandmother from Italy learned 80 years ago before science figured that out.

Oh shit.

https://youtu.be/5l8wMlBbgd8

This YouTube chef reccemends using the water as a base for the sauce. You add flavours to it while it's cooking and don't drain it

haloiscoolisbak posted...

This YouTube chef reccemendeds using the water as a base for the sauce. You add flavours to it while it's cooking and don't drain it

Good idea, bad execution.

You set aside a bit of the pasta water with a cup when it's nearly done cooking. Once you add your pasta to your sauce, you add a bit of pasta water into it and mix, as the starches in it help emulsify the sauce.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

You add flavours to it while it's cooking and don't drain it

I've tried something like this once and it did sort of work if you were desperate but I cannot ever see doing it over just any other normal way of cooking pasta. the problem is that the water you cook it in gets a lot of starches from the pasta, which normally you would just dump down the sink, but this way it all gets in the sauce and it turns the whole thing thick and gluey in a sort of gross way. the leftovers, if there are any, are particularly bad

haloiscoolisbak posted...

https://youtu.be/5l8wMlBbgd8

This YouTube chef reccemends using the water as a base for the sauce. You add flavours to it while it's cooking and don't drain it

I dunno man... he adds ranch & mayo to the pasta.

I was nodding along until we got to the part about "letting the pasta die". Dumbest shit I've ever heard. Unless you're eating in the next 10 minutes most sauces will start fucking up your pasta, to say nothing of storing leftovers. You can ice bath most pastas and them sprinkle a little olive oil on them to keep them fresh for days without impacting the quality.

St0rmFury posted...

I dunno man... he adds ranch & mayo to the pasta.

The mustard is questionable too lol

3 isnt a crime its to control overboiling

2 is a non issue. Just use the appropriate amount of pasta. Its not the pots fault

4 is just weird and provocative foe no reason

I have done 5.

Grand theft auto

Naysaspace posted...

3 isnt a crime its to control overboiling

Wrong.

Naysaspace posted...

2 is a non issue. Just use the appropriate amount of pasta. Its not the pots fault

Also wrong. People think adding oil to the water helps to avoid the pasta sticking together. If you're cooking dry pasta, it's pretty much impossible to get the pasta stuck, unless you're using god awful quality pasta. What does cause the pasta to stick however, is not using a big enough pot and enough water so it all clumps together.

Naysaspace posted...

4 is just weird and provocative foe no reason

Enjoy your bland ass pasta, I guess.