Comment by africanboy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by africanboy | Hacker News Reader

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as an Italian, according to my personal understanding, "al dente" means the point where pasta is cooked but not yet overcooked (it starts becoming softer).

The meaning of cooked and overcooked depends a lot on personal taste, but generally al dente it's when it's still elastic but not mushy, like if you apply pressure with the border of a fork, it goes back to the original shape when you relieve the pressure and doesn't fall apart.

But that's simply the help visualize it and it's not even applicable to all kinds of pasta, practically we taste the pasta while it's still cooking and decide if it's all dente or not based on our experience.

Usually when pasta cooked the exact amount of time specified on the package it should be "al dente", but you shouldn't trust it and start tasting it a couple of minutes before that point.

Anyway not all pasta makes sense al dente, fresh pasta or stuffed pasta like ravioli or tortellini for example cannot (and shouldn't) be cooked al dente.

and start tasting it a couple of minutes before that point

As a lazy person, I continue to be disappointed pasta scientists and designers have done little to make that part easier and less work.

Easier ways of cooking pasta probably run into other issues. If you’re boiling the pasta it’s not hard to be there and pick a piece up, and really you can boil pasta in any vessel.

It’s different, from, say, a rice cooker, where all rice more or less gets cooked the same way with varying times, you can definitely screw up cooking rice in a pot, and you don’t, say, need to reserve rice water for anything. Also rice cookers keep rice warm for hours on end in a manner that doesn’t detract from the taste or dry it out, but I don’t know that that would work for pasta.

If you’re boiling the pasta it’s not hard to be there and pick a piece up

You say this but we're deep in a thread with terms like 'saucibility'. Surely if pasta science can address a problem that's also neatly solved by simply adding more sauce, it can spare a few mighty braincells on 'standing by a pot for two minutes frantically fishing out and tasting hot undercooked noodles'. Maybe every packet of pasta can come with a couple of noodles on teabag strings.

restaurants use pasta cookers[1], they use brands of pasta that they already know and don't need to taste it (also because it's a system that doesn't scale) they already know the cooking time.

Of course is not a science, sometimes it's not gonna be perfect, but on average it is

consumer models also exist, but are quite expensive.

My girlfriend bought a Cookeo[2] (it's an electric multi-cooker for different kinds of food, including pasta) and after a few failed attempts we have been happy of the results. It's quite cheap.

p.s. tasting pasta while cooking it at home is kind of a ritual here in Italy

[1] http://ifea.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Italgi-pasta-c...

[2] https://www.moulinex.it/COTTURA/Cookeo/c/Cookeo

So I may be navigating that Cookeo website wrong, but 150-250EUR is very expensive. I have a rice cooker that costs that much, but it's a high-end brand. You can get a pretty good mid-range rice cooker for $40 and a serviceable one meant for college students runs $20 USD.

Had he started later in the day, Piet Hein might have written,

  There's an art of knowing when
  Never try to guess
  Cook until it's soft and then
  Ninety seconds less

Beautiful. Thanks for the mock Piet Hein.

Eh it is just an excuse to snack while cooking.

Usually when pasta cooked the exact amount of time specified on the package it should be "al dente", but you shouldn't trust it and start tasting it a couple of minutes before that point.

Where did this idea come from?

I used to believe this too and did exactly as you suggest. But I always left it in longer.

So I started following the timing on the pack. It always works for me for normal dried pasta.

I never look at the timings, I just taste at regular intervals after the pasta starts feeling "right" under the fork.

How much the pasta cooks after you drain it varies a lot depending on what you do to it after. For packaged dried pasta, I find the time on the box is only right if I rinse the pasta after draining it (or am doing a dish that involves adding a lot of room-temperature sauce); I'm too lazy to do that, so I subtract a minute if I'm using an already warm sauce.

To me the essential question is, do they taste it repeated times with the same spoon, double dipping it and getting their germs in there the way I see it on TV shows? Also, given your opening credentials, username noted with confusion.

Though it's not desired obviously, when testing pasta you're retrieving it from boiling water. Germs aren't a huge concern.

Beyond that, reusing spoons to taste test is more often done on fictional shows. Cooking shows usually either use different spoons or pour a bit on a saucer and drink from that.

Finally, ignoring all the other ways Afro-Italians exist, some Italian islands are technically part of Africa.

> some Italian islands are technically part of Africa.

Not aware of this. Maybe you’re thinking of the Pelagie islands, which are very close to North Africa?

Yes, geologically they are part of the continent of Africa. I think Pantelleria is also part of Africa, but there's still some debate there as it's existence may predate Europe and Africa's breakup.

It’s boiling water. What do you think will survive? The only reason not to do it is to maintain the habit so you don’t contaminant other things.

I know you’re right in theory but I’m slightly grossed out anyhow

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