In a cool, damp place, or when, as is usually the situation on a boat,
you’re watching your water consumption, the conventional way of
cooking pasta is far from satisfactory. The instruction tell you to
fill a large saucepan with water, bring it to a full rolling boil,
plunge in the pasta and boil it, uncovered for the apppropriate length
of time. In anywhere that isn't actually hot, with all the hatches
open, this method
steams up the boat and in any situation, it uses far too much water. I
have
two ways of cooking pasta, which both yield very acceptable results
without resulting in a steamed-up boat or using excessive amounts of
water.
Even
North American cookbooks bottle out and resort to ounce measures when
including recipes for pasta, because it's usually fiendishly difficult to guess
how much to make. a thrifty voyager doesn't not want to waste pasta
and it's one of the least useful leftovers unless you happen to have a
passion for pasta salad. Of course, if you have a new pack, you
can work out that you need a quarter, or whatever, for 2 servings,
but many voyagers – and I am one of them – decant their pasta
into large, plastic containers to save them from weevls. Moreover, once
you've taken out the first serving, it becomes more and more difficult
to divide up what's left, let alone remember how many servings have
already been removed. I am therefore assuming this is the
situation and as we can’t use scales underway, I am giving my
measurements by the handful. I generally use about 4 handfuls of
pasta for 2 people, assuming a generous amount of sauce, because
this is a main course, rather than the smaller amounts used more to
flavour the pasta, of traditional Italian cuisine. I have small hands, but after experimenting,
I reckoned that a handful is about the equivalent of a cup. Of
course, this only works for small pasta, but if you follow the same
plan, I’m sure you’ll soon work out what is appropriate for you. I'm afraid it will be a matter of trial and error. With spaghetti, or linguine:
pull it out of the
container and make a column of pasta with a diameter of about 25 mm
(1 in). this seems to be about right for two. You can actually get
sticks with holes in them for measuring long pasta, and they're very
good. I've had two in my time, but both got thrown overboard (not by
me!). I generally use Method 1, but Method 2 is useful when preventing
the cabin from steaming up is really important.
VOYAGERS’
PASTA
Serves 2
3
cups water + 1/2 tsp salt OR 2
cups fresh water, 1 cup seawater
4
handsful pasta OR 25
mm (1 in) column spaghetti, etc
1
tbsp olive oil
Method
1
- Heat water to boiling point.
- When the water is boiling rapidly, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
- Cover and turn down the heat so that the pan doesn’t boil over – it needs to be very low and often you need to move the lid slightly to let excess steam escape. Cook for +/- 10 minutes until the pasta is the texture you like. The only way to check this is by sampling a piece. A pasta spoon (the type with spikes) or kitchen tongs are ideal for this.
- Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.
Method
2 uses a pressure cooker and although unconventional, keeps steam
to a minimum.
- Heat water to boiling point. Add olive oil or a knob of butter to help prevent the pasta from frothing up and boiling over. This will mean that the sauce won't cling to the spaghetti as well as you'd like, but it will stop the vent from getting clogged.
- When the water is boiling, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
- Put on the lid and clamp it; keep the heat fairly high until the cooker comes up to pressure.
- Lower the heat and cook for no more than 3 minutes - you may need some trial and error with this, depending on how hot your flame is, how big the pressure cooker and at what pressure it cooks.
- Remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let the pressure reduce gradually – if you de-pressurise rapidly, the pasta collapses. The pasta will cook perfectly with this method.
- Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.
Notes:
- If you’re cooking for more than 2 people, keep a careful eye on things when you close the lid, to ensure that the liquid doesn’t froth up into the vent. This is unlikely to happen unless the pressure cooker is more than half full and you forgot the oil.
- If you’re very concerned about condensation, lift the pasta from the pressure cooker with a pasta spoon or tongs, rather than tipping it through a colander, which always produces clouds of steam.
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