The right way to sauce pasta (2024)

“I'd like a glass of grappa, please,” I said to the bartender at the Italian restaurant down the street from my house.

“You're the first person I ever saw order,” she exclaimed in response. I asked her how long she had worked there and thought this might be her first week or two. “Almost two years,” she said.

You see, this isn't the kind of Italian restaurant where you go to order grappa. It's the kind of Italian restaurant where the house wine comes in a box and the Parmesan cheese is grated in a shaker. This is the kind of Italian restaurant that Billy Joel raves about. I actually dolike itthese types of restaurants, in a cheap way (literally and figuratively). I love tearing off chunks of overly soft and saturated garlic bread and the waiters coming around with the big pepper mill as if it can save limp baby spinach (with dressing always served on the side). And then there are the meatballs as big as your face, and the extra-extra fried calamari with a bowl of tomato sauce for dipping.

The problem of combining pasta and sauce on the plate

The only thing I don't like about them? The way they serve pasta. It's almost inevitably a plate with a nest of reheated noodles tossed in oil to keep them from sticking together, with a large ladleful of sauce poured over the center. What exactly is the problem? Still can't get pasta and sauce on your plate? Who cares if it's thrown together ahead of time, right?

The problem is that pasta heated in the skillet with sauce has a very different and superior taste and texture compared to pasta simply fried on the plate (and we did that too).did the tastings to prove it). The fact is that no matter how delicious the sauce you can make, you are missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures if you don't sauce your pasta properly. Conversely, even a mediocre store-bought marinara sauce can be improved by a good finishing touch.

How to properly sauce your pasta, step by step.

This is how you sauce your pasta (correctly) in the pan

Step 1: Heat your sauce separately

With a few exceptions (such as when you use asauce a pesto style), the pasta should be mixed with sauce that is already hot and clear. You don't want your cooked pasta to heat up in a cold pan of sauce, causing it to slowly absorb more water and become mushy.

I use a wide pan - the sloping sides of a pan make it easier to stir pasta than a pan with straight sides - or a large skillet for my sauce.

Step 2: Cook your pasta al dente (really)

In a separate pan, bring a few liters of salted water to the boil. Remember youDon't want your pasta water to be as salty as the sea. You should aim for a salt content of one to two percent, which amounts to about 1 or 2 tablespoons of kosher salt per serving. liter or litre. You don't need a lot of water either, just enough to keep the pasta moving. For small shapes, such as penne or fusilli, I use a saucepan or saucer. For long, thin shapes, such as spaghetti or bucatini, I use a 30 cm frying pan.

There was a time in this country when pasta was boiled into porridge. Nowadays we seem to have the opposite problem: people are usually so afraid of overcooking the pastabelowmade food. Pasta should* be cooked al dente – “to the teeth” – meaningjust nowuntil it is done. If your pasta has a chalky or brittle center, it is undercooked. Let it continue!

*Actually, as long as you don't mind being labeled a heretic by people who probably have more important things on their minds than how other people cook their pasta, it should be cooked exactly how you want it. Mushy, chalky, whatever makes your tortellini tick.

Another option is to deliberately undercook the pasta for a few minutes before adding it to the sauce so it can finish. Cooking pasta in the sauce instead of boiling water increases the cooking time. It's a good technique if you want to delay serving your pasta for a few minutes. Be sure to keep the sauce diluted with pasta water, as the pasta will be fully cooked if you use this method.

Finally, whatever you do, don't toss cooked pasta with oil; that makes it much harder to get the sauce to stick to it.

Step 3: Transfer the cooked pasta to the sauce

There are a few ways to get your pasta from the pan into the sauce. The easiest way is to take long thin pasta tongs or a metal spider, fish out short pasta shapes and put them directly into the pan with the hot sauce. You can also drain the pasta through a colander or a fine-mesh sieve. Make sure to save some of the pasta water.

Step 4: Add pasta water

Once the pasta is in the sauce, add the pasta water. This is the most crucial step in the process. Starchy pasta water not only helps thin the sauce to the right consistency; it also helps it stick to the pasta better and emulsify with the fat and cheese you'll add. It doesn't matter what sauce you make, whether it is a thick saucemarinara, a rich and heartyBolognese ragù, or a simple onecarbonara— it should have a creamy consistency that sticks to the noodles.

I start by stirring a few tablespoons of pasta water into each portion of pasta and sauce mixture. We will add more as we go to adjust consistency.

Step 5: Add fat

If you have a sauce with a very low fat content (such as tomato sauce), this is the time to add extra fat. A small amount of fat (extra virgin olive oil or butter) is essential for a good texture of the pasta sauce. Without fat, you'll have, at best, a watery sauce (no one ever said, "Waiter, my pasta isn't quite wet enough"), and at worst, a sauce that thickens too much with just starch and takes on a doughy consistency.

With extra fat you can get an emulsion that makes the sauce creamy but still loose. Fat also brings its own flavor and ensures that the fat-soluble flavors in the sauce reach your tongue. I add a small dollop of really good extra virgin olive oil or a knob of butter (depending on my mood and the specific sauce).

Step 6: Boil hard and fast

Once everything is together in the pan – cooked pasta, hot sauce, pasta water and extra fat – it's time to simmer. Simmering not only reduces the liquid (which thickens the sauce), but also contributes to mechanical stirring, which allows the starchy pasta water to do its job of emulsifying the sauce with the fat and ensuring it coats the pasta. The hotter your pan, the more vigorously the sauce will bubble and the better the emulsion will be. I turn my burner up to maximum heat and cook, stirring and stirring the pasta constantly (to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom), adding more pasta water as needed until it's the perfect juicy consistency.

Finishing pasta is, as you will notice, a game of constant adjustment. Pasta water is added throughout the process to adjust the consistency. Don't be afraid of it!

Step 7: Stir in cheese and herbs off the heat

When the pasta and sauce are where you want them, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cheese or chopped herbs. With thicker, well-emulsified sauces, it is generally safe to add the cheese directly over the heat, but with a slightly thinner sauce or one that contains little more than cheese; adding cheese while it is still on the heat can cause it to clump.

Step 8: Adjust the consistency

Thought you were done with that pasta water? Not quite yet! You're about to serve the pasta, which means this is your last chance to adjust the consistency. (And it should: the cheese has thickened the sauce a bit, the pasta has continued to absorb water from the sauce, and some of that water will have evaporated.) Once the cheese has emulsified in the pan, you can safely add more. pasta water and reheat the sauce on a burner until everything is exactly the way you like it.

Step 9: Decorate as desired

Place the cooked pasta with sauce in a preheated serving bowl or on individual plates and add any final garnish. This can be anything from chopped fresh herbs to grated cheese to a generous amount of black pepper. I also like to drizzle some fresh extra virgin olive oil at this time. Making sure all your serving plates are warm is the key to good pasta consistency: what looked perfect in the pan will stick and become way too thick when you pour it into a cold bowl.

Step 10: Serve immediately

Pasta waits for no one. Once the pasta is in the sauce, there is a countdown timer that starts automatically and cannot be paused. The pasta will continue to cook and soften as it sits. The sauce will begin to cool and thicken.

The only solution is to serve it right away and eat it with gusto.** If you've done everything right, this shouldn't be a problem.

**It's Italian for "with enough speed to stain your tunic with splatters of sauce."

February 2016