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Despite a popular belief that adding oil to pasta water keeps the noodles from sticking together, Laura Schenone, author of The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, says that adding oil does nothing to prevent pasta from clumping.
“Oil in pasta water just floats on top, and when you drain the pasta, most of it will go down the drain,” she explains. “But you’ll also get some of it on your pasta.” This coating of oil makes it harder for the pasta to absorb any sauce added later. The only instance when oil might be useful is with filled pasta; it makes the filled bits less likely to open as they collide in the boiling water. Otherwise, you’re just wasting good oil.
If you don’t want your pasta to stick together while it’s cooking, Giuliano Hazan, best-selling Italian cookbook author and cooking instructor, says to follow these steps:
1. Use a large pot and add a good amount of water so the pasta has plenty of space to move, which helps it cook evenly. Use at least six quarts of water for each pound of pasta.
2. Keep the water at a rolling boil, and cover the pot after putting the pasta in to bring the water back to a boil more quickly. Once the water is boiling again, remove the lid to prevent the water from boiling over. A rapid boil will keep the pasta moving.
3. Periodically stir the pasta while it’s cooking, especially in the first two to three minutes, because that’s when it’s at its stickiest.
I hate it when pasta foams/boils over. If I don't use oil, it usually does this. If I forget to add oil, I usually put a drop in after draining to prevent it sticking together. It's just pasta! Hard to mess it up!
I don't know anyone who uses oil to keep pasta from sticking.
Oil keeps the starchy water from foaming over, and using one or two teaspoons has never had a negative effect on my pasta.
people have seen the recent NYT Dining Section experiment from Harold McGee? related, sorta. deals with using less water to cook pasta.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/dining/25curi.html
sure
The only place I've seen oily noodles was at Disneyland, where the spaghetti definitely didn't stick, but is the last place I'd take culinary advice from.
An advantage of using less water is that some people want the starchier water to use in the sauce. Sticking pasta also isn't a problem if you toss it with the sauce immediately instead of letting it sit in a colander.
sheesh -- FIRST 'al dente' means 'to the tooth', well WHO'S tooth!? I like it cooked to MY teeth -- not yours. If you cook your pasta until you like it's consistency, then it IS 'al dente' BY DEFINITION!!!
Now, oil -- it keeps the water from boiling over, not everyone has a pot large enough for all the various sized pastas if they are going to be serving more than one or two very thin vegans!...+READ
sheesh -- FIRST 'al dente' means 'to the tooth', well WHO'S tooth!? I like it cooked to MY teeth -- not yours. If you cook your pasta until you like it's consistency, then it IS 'al dente' BY DEFINITION!!!
Now, oil -- it keeps the water from boiling over, not everyone has a pot large enough for all the various sized pastas if they are going to be serving more than one or two very thin vegans! Many pasta lovers LOVE their pasta, and for a family of them, you would have to shuttle water to the stove -- and if you are using a home range, it can take a good half hour to bring a few gallons of water to a good rolling boil, so reduce the water, save some energy, and pour a small glug of oil on the surface. Add salt if you like your pasta to have that flavor, leave it out if you don't.
Cooking is an individual art -- and if I imitate you I'm using the part of your recipe or process that I like, and the part I don't like, I don't use. I'm not wrong and you aren't wrong -- there are food nazi's everywhere don't let them ruin your life -- oil on -- or in -- the water -- such a small thing! -- does it REALLY matter? Is it really a black and white issue? Does everyone need every fancy utensil and size of pot or burner that's out there? Isn't there room to play? to invent? to learn? to grow?
How many 'right' ways are there to take the skin off garlic? I can probably name 10 if pushed and 5 without any trouble -- and they are ALL the right way. Just as 'al dente' has as many meanings to me as I have moods -- sometimes I like pasta velvet smooth, other times with a little resistance and others with a fair amount of resistance -- it all depends on what I'm cooking and how I happen to feel that day.
So -- let's all not get in a lather over this-- boil some pasta and have some oil ready, as it begins to froth over add a teaspoon or so of oil, and watch as the froth settles down -- if you like it, use it, if you don't, let the froth become part of your pasta -- because we all know not to rinse pasta after you drain it -- unless you like it rinsed!
There, wasn't that easy?-COLLAPSE
I use salt and a small amount of olive oil. My husband likes his pasta VERY well cooked (no al dente for him) and I find that the oil does indeed prevent the pasta from sticking from colander to plate. I don't need much (a tbl spoon). But I also agree that keeping the water at a rolling boil makes a difference as well.
Hey, has anybody here bought the "Pasta Wave"? Talk about a recipe for failure...
suicidemartini, I use a lot of salt in the water. No oil, just lots of salt.
I don't really see the value oil to the water used to boil pasta, but from a scientific standpoint this article misses two major points:
As has already been noted oil helps to prevent boiling over. The reason for this is that the foaming action in boiling pasta is caused mostly by proteins that break free from the pasta, and the oil creates gap between these proteins.
More substantially, it's...+READ
I don't really see the value oil to the water used to boil pasta, but from a scientific standpoint this article misses two major points:
As has already been noted oil helps to prevent boiling over. The reason for this is that the foaming action in boiling pasta is caused mostly by proteins that break free from the pasta, and the oil creates gap between these proteins.
More substantially, it's just not true that, "Oil in pasta water just floats on top." Modern science has done a lot to challenge the long held idea that "water and oil don't mix." The two biggest challenges to this idea have been based on temperature, and aqueous gas. Experimentation has proven that water devoid of aqueous gases will mix with oil, and it is generally assumed that this means that the less dissolved gas in the water, the more it will mix with oil. As any devoted tea drinker knows, the boiling of water very rapidly depletes the dissolved gases contained therein. With the exception of very quick cooking pastas, like angel hair, the amount of time the water will boil during the course of cooking your pasta will diminish the dissolved gases in the water to the extent that it will mix with the oil to a certain extent. While it would take a very long boiling time to achieve a complete colloid, it's quite obvious, if you add oil to your water, that the two cease to be fully separate after just a couple minutes of boiling. Scientists have long observed that high temperature water mixes better with oil than does low temperature water, though, in light of recent evidence, this may not be a factor of temperature, as long assumed, but of percentage of aqueous gas.
Either way, none of this changes the fact that adding oil to the water isn't going to stop your pasta from sticking to itself, and that, if you're cooking your pasta right, you shouldn't be having this issue anyway.-COLLAPSE
it is funny how you will still see "chefs" on food network add oil to their pasta prior to boiling. Well, I guess rachel ray isn't really a chef.
Second the boiling-over trick and I add salt as well, I like both for when I add the water to my sauce
I don't get the whole "colliding" thing either, Mr. Eaty. As for boiling over, you're right about using more water helping that. It's only recently happened with ravioli, probably because some of it broke and the meaty insides distributed a lot of proteins in the water. And I probably didn't have enough water.
I dunno how the whole thing got started. Oil doesn't stop it from sticking, and in this day and age if you don't know how to cook pasta, there are thousands of places to get instruction, darn near all of which emphasize at least a gallon of water per pound of pasta, which in addition to stirring is the only real way to cook it right..
"The only instance when oil might be useful is with filled pasta; it makes the filled bits less likely to open as they collide in the boiling water."
I don't quite understand how this would work since most of the colliding will be going on under the surface of the water which is, as is pointed out, where all the oil is anyway.
I haven't had any problems with pasta water boiling over for quite...+READ
"The only instance when oil might be useful is with filled pasta; it makes the filled bits less likely to open as they collide in the boiling water."
I don't quite understand how this would work since most of the colliding will be going on under the surface of the water which is, as is pointed out, where all the oil is anyway.
I haven't had any problems with pasta water boiling over for quite some time now and I hadn't really considered the reason why. It seems like boiling over might be a symptom of not having enough water for your pasta, resulting in very starchy water that's more prone to foaming and boiling over.-COLLAPSE
If this doesn't become the most commented story in Chow history, I will be shocked. I can still remember the Chowhound entry that got something like 200 replies, on this subject alone.
Adding oil does reduce foaming and makes the water less likely to boil over. That's the only reason I'd add it. I usually don't, but when I have I haven't noticed any residual oil on the pasta itself after draining.
Just my two cents.