I've been adding pasta to water before cooking it for a weeks now. It's a new thing for me. Fettuccine and linguine have been my latest victims.
I use a 9" stainless steel pan, break the pasta in half, drop it in, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium-lowish, cover with a lid and cook for about 12 minutes or until most or all of the water's absorbed.
I usually add butter, EVOO and heavy cream for a base, then drop shrimp or ham in and cook until the seafood or meat's done. (I'll also add one of more of these depending upon my mood: parsley, spinach, tomatoes, some of the Creole sauce Other Person made last week, and so on.)
All things said my beginner's luck held so my first attempt, with just fettuccine, heavy cream, butter, parsley and shrimp, was best. The pasta was firm, soaked in the sauce and was magnificently tasty.
The downfall to this method is the pasta sticks to the pan like whoa if you don't keep scraping the pan and stirring every few minutes, and every time I've done it so far (three times?) the water's boiled over, necessitating the cleaning of burner covers and the underside of the stove.
Successive attempts have found me less and less enamored with one-pan/no-drain cooking as the sticking and scraping and boiling-over and burner cleaning all really is A Thing and the next few tries have just not lit me on fire like that first pan of pasta. Not sure what's off.
no subject
I use a 9" stainless steel pan, break the pasta in half, drop it in, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium-lowish, cover with a lid and cook for about 12 minutes or until most or all of the water's absorbed.
I usually add butter, EVOO and heavy cream for a base, then drop shrimp or ham in and cook until the seafood or meat's done. (I'll also add one of more of these depending upon my mood: parsley, spinach, tomatoes, some of the Creole sauce Other Person made last week, and so on.)
All things said my beginner's luck held so my first attempt, with just fettuccine, heavy cream, butter, parsley and shrimp, was best. The pasta was firm, soaked in the sauce and was magnificently tasty.
The downfall to this method is the pasta sticks to the pan like whoa if you don't keep scraping the pan and stirring every few minutes, and every time I've done it so far (three times?) the water's boiled over, necessitating the cleaning of burner covers and the underside of the stove.
Successive attempts have found me less and less enamored with one-pan/no-drain cooking as the sticking and scraping and boiling-over and burner cleaning all really is A Thing and the next few tries have just not lit me on fire like that first pan of pasta. Not sure what's off.