THE CORRECT WAY TO COOK PASTA! - How to prepare mushrooms - Does alcohol burn off once cooked - Searing and salting meat

THE CORRECT WAY TO COOK PASTA!


PASTA:
NEVER rinse pasta after it has cooked - Unless using it cold for a salad.
Rinsing pasta after it is cooked washes away the layer of starch clinging to it, which is necessary if you want your sauce to cling to the pasta. This is what makes pasta stick to itself once cooled. Rinse pasta only if you are planning to reheat it in boiling water before serving (an old restaurant trick) or if you plan to serve it cold in a pasta salad.
For Hot Pasta Dishes: Always have your sauce hot and ready. Once your pasta is cooked just quickly empty it into a large strainer - shake-shake and immediately once drained toss it whilst still steaming hot into your sauce OR what I sometimes do (If calories allow) is quickly after shake-shake - I trickle on some oil or garlic oil and once again give it a shake-shake - toss-toss which prevents it from sticking together and serve it separately on the side or together with my meat sauce. This is the only way you can keep it apart with the oil.

DO NOT ADD OIL: Oil washes off pasta whilst it is boiling and does NOT prevent it from sticking together! Solve the problem and just use a larger pot so it swims more freely. ;)


For further reading..

This one I have yet to prove - It's been doing the rounds on the internet: Adding salt to a pot of beans will make them tough - According to Harold McGee, author of "On Food and Cooking it isn't true! According to Food Science acidic ingredients like tomatoes will react to the compounds in their skins which make the beans tough. However, the only effect of adding salt is to make the beans cook faster.

Alcohol burns off once cooked. Umm!  Click here! ;)

Salting meat before cooking makes it dry and tough.
It's true for salted meat if left alone too long it loses some of its water content, making it dry and tough. This isn't always a bad thing in a world of delicacies like ham, bacon, corned beef, salami, and pastrami. However, salting steaks, pork chops, or hamburgers right before cooking does nothing but season the meat and everyone prefers their meat well seasoned.

You shouldn't wash mushrooms because they'll soak up water.
Mushrooms consist of about 80 percent water and don't soak up any more water than rinsed broccoli does. View demonstration here The cooks at America's Test Kitchen Yes, go ahead and wash your mushrooms before you eat them or cook them.

Searing meat seals in their juices ? 
Well, it appears not to be so. - The notion was published somewhere around 1850 by German chemist, Justus von Liebig - See Wikipedia.

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