Pasta is one of the ultimate comfort foods of all time, irrespective of what season it might be. While many of us might not be so confident about our pasta sauce skills, most people would generally assume that at least they do know how to boil their pasta the right way. But turns out, it’s not completely true.
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As per a report by Huffington Post, quite shockingly, we all might have been boiling pasta the wrong way. The pasta giant, Barilla, which is one of Italy’s largest pasta brands has advised customers to embrace ‘passive cooking’ when it comes to pasta.
Passive cooking pasta
The passive cooking technique is credited to Giorgio Parisi, a Nobel prizewinning physicist. Barilla is promoting this cooking technique because it could limit CO2 emissions by up to 80%, and of course, save energy costs.
The report quotes a promotional statement by Barilla stating,
Passive cooking is a technique that has been around since the mid-19th-century. Around 16 million tonnes of pasta are produced worldwide.
If passive cooking was adopted by a large number of people, it would make a real impact on the planet.
As per Barilla, here is how to passive cook your pasta: simply turn off the stove after 2 minutes of active cooking, cover the pot with a lid and wait for the cooking to finish passively, till the time prescribed by the recipe.
Reactions to the technique
As per the report, not all chefs are in agreement with the advice of passive cooking pasta. Francesco Mazzei, the Italian chef-patron at Sartoria, London does not agree with the new method, saying
If you want to save energy just cook something else. A lot of things can be cooked in three or four minutes.
Why would you jeopardise one of the most amazing foods in the world? I wouldn’t cook a Yorkshire pudding in a steam oven
However, chef Gennaro Contaldo, a pioneer of Italian cooking in Britain is reported to have tried the method and found that it works. He says,
My only point would be to reduce the waiting time by a couple of minutes so it is perfectly ‘al dente’.
If it means saving CO2 emissions, then I’m all for it!
Sources used:
Huffington Post: ‘Here's Why We Might Have Been Cooking Our Pasta All Wrong’
