Step one: make mayonnaise. Or not.
Step two: boil pasta to two minutes before it is completely done. But how do you know when it is two minutes before completion? By testing individual pieces as the moment approaches and removing it while it still has some bite to it. That is, remove the pasta from the hot water before it becomes mushy. If you are cooking macaroni, that means ignoring the directions on the box. Those instructions are written to please children, and children don't know no nuth'n 'bout no noodles. <--Fact. 98% of American cooks severely overcook pasta. <-- Scientific fact, backed by maths. If you don't believe me then go to Italy order pasta and see for yourself.
This is one of the rare times when It would be acceptable to douse cooked noodles with cold water to halt the cooking and to chill it for the salad. Usually, the pasta would be removed from the boiling water three minutes or so before it is completely cooked and transferred sopping wet directly to the sauce so that the surplus starchy cooking liquid carried over by the noodles blends with the sauce or with the flavored oil to form a thin sauce. The pasta absorbs part of the sauce as it completes cooking within it. It is the sort of touch that Italian mamas teach their children. Am I recalling correctly the scene in Moonstruck where Cher tosses strands of spaghetti on the kitchen wall to see if it sticks to test for doneness? A wall is shown with noodles stuck on it as if Italian kitchens were messy that way. Do I have that right? If I am remembering correctly, then nonsense! I would imagine that to be a little offensive, actually. Practice tells when spaghetti is near to completion by the way it bends around a fork when lifted from the water.
[When I was nineteen years of age, fresh but much more serious than I am today, I proudly consorted with girlfriend who was totally babealicious, highly desirable, completely adventurous, up for anything, an unselfconscious fiend in the sack, in short everything a teenager could ask, who one day chirped while I was preparing spaghetti for the two of us with prepared sauce from a jar,
"I tried to make spaghetti once. Made a mess of it so I gave it up."
Puzzled by her uncharacteristic admission of defeat, I go, "What went wrong?"
She answered, "It all stuck together in one solid clump."
I was dismayed with her steady refusal to analyze the mistake, to learn. Stir it, you dumb ass, I thought to myself but wisely did not blurt. We did not last. That incident left an indelible mark upon my impressionable self, much like a tattoo.]
The orange sections are not properly supreme(d) although nearly so. The central portion of each segment was sliced off to remove the connective gunk at the center and the seeds, but the membrane that separates each segment was left on. I'm too clumsy to fuss with all that.
Topped with flecks of the incomparable Parmigiano.
Mint and cilantro because that's what I had on hand. The mint, no longer fresh and on it final leg, gave up its last breath of aromatics.
2 comments:
You know, Chip, I would comment here more, but I assume you'd get sick of the same old comment constantly repeated, post after post:
"Oh, my God, that looks yummy! Also, you just crack me up."
So just assume it's there, m'kay?
Signed,
Faithful [R]eader[_iam]
(via Bloglines)
Early on in our dating relationship, my now-husband put down his fork and said to me, "You know, you *never* overcook the pasta." Now, this was well before he'd actually used the "l-word" to me yet.
But I knew what he meant... .
; )
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