Wife swears blind you should always put olive oil in water when cooking pasta as it stops it sticking.
I swear blind it makes no difference and just makes cleaning the sieve just that bit more difficult.
What’s the consensus?
Complete cowboy shit.
You’re 100% right and she’s 100% wrong.
Ride away clean.
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Invoice her for the oil she’s wasted over the years.
Makes no difference when cooking but a lot of people pour olive oil over once cooked because it stops it sticking and it tastes really good.
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Main thing I think British people don’t do is to put enough salt in when cooking. The water you boil the pasta in should taste like sea water.
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i don’t bother with olive oil but a wee hack i’ve seen recently is putting a couple of tablespoons of the pasta water on top after its been drained (put it in a glass or something)
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I used to add olive oil but stopped bothering and noticed no difference. Cool story eh?!
I’ve heard this before but never had an issue of pasta sticking together ever so haven’t even thought to try it
Saving pasta water and adding to sauce/ pasta combo is a winner though, helps sauce stick to pasta
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I always put Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the water, not to stop it sticking, but to raise the boiling temperature, which makes the pasta al dente a bit quicker! Also, tastes slightly better…
…I did see some celebrity chef on TV saying it was waste of good olive oil though.
It is. You must stop this.
Or just pour your nice oil straight into a food bin. It’s the same thing.
Oil won’t lower the boiling point because oil and water don’t mix.
Salt is the way to do that and it makes the pasta taste good too.
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PS. I thought this was going to be about the Paul Schmitt Nine Club where he was talking about moving Schmitt Stix to California. He mentions someone’s name, which I couldn’t work out what he said, so I turned on Youtube subtitles. It translated it as PASTA.
I listened for a while longer and realised he was talking about the Bay Area, so deduced he was talking about Fausto…
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Salt > oil.
I think I might’ve accidentally flagged Les’s comments.
Definitely tastes nicer - I add a tiny amount of salt, plus a fair bit of black pepper, which makes yer eyes hurt!
I usually have a very minimal amount of sauce on my pasta.
My cooking skills are very low…
A penne for my thoughts at this difficult time
Salt is good because of osmosis - it keeps the paster firmer when boiling and speeds up the cooking time. There’s no need to add anything else to pasta water you can add whatever you like afterwards.
Oh and I was wrong - adding salt raises the boiling point it doesn’t lower it. So your water takes longer to boil but boils a little hotter.
This is a really great thread.
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i’m fond of a tagliatelle lately, impress that dinner party by twirling it on a carving fork for a little ball.
if im making pasta for lunch its going to be conchiglie.
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