Saturday, February 23, 2008

The Spaghetti Chronicles

Since I moved into my apartment over 6 months ago, I've been attempting to "fend for myself" with the few culinary arts that I learned in my years at home with family. If there is anything that I can say I know how to do with the utmost certainty its boil pasta.

This seemed to change when I moved to New Bern. Any pasta that I have made since I started living here has been, in a word, slimy. Normally drained pasta dries rather quickly after boiling...mine however gets very sticky...like the gluten from the wheat is sticking to the outside and making it well, slimy. It even leaves a residue on my colander. Its been a baffling case I've been attempting to solve for going on 6 months now.

Experiments thus far:

1. Your Colander Sux
While I didn't find the root cause in this experiment I did what types of colanders do and dont suck. Avoid cheap plastic ones if you can, they drain poorly and are a bitch to clean. Same goes for small holed metal as well...I dumped a potful into some cheapo i got at wal-mart and it took 5 mins to drain fully. The best I've found is a wire mesh, and you can use it to strain as well if it pleases you. But sadly, the colander was not the root cause of my slime problem.


2. A water problem?
I had thought that because I was on city water there could be impurities fuxing up my pasta. So I tried spaghetti using filtered tap water. Unfortunately, this didn't solve the problem (///.-)

Future experiments:

Hard/soft.
I have no idea if we use any sort of water softening device here at the APT so I'm actually considering buying some bottled water and using that...see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, then I think I will have come to the inevitable conclusion...

ITS THE POT
When I knew I'd be moving out I bought a relatively cheap cookware set from target. Everything is this non-stick crap but IDK what it is since its certainly not teflon. ANYWAY, I was used to boiling pasta in a big ol stainless pot back home so I may have to venture to replicate said pot for another experiment.


Yes. I am a little bit strange aren't I? Well this is what happens when you live alone...your mind...wanders

1 comment:

Scott said...

Add salt to the water before it boils.

Personally, I don't like sticky spaghetti; I usually put a dab of olive oil on it and toss after it drains.