Long Ago and Farfalle

How many rules of pasta preparation can we break without a decline in quality — or even an improvement?

One afternoon, my mentor Adam Mastroianni sat me and Violet down in the conference room and showed us a YouTube video by America’s Test Kitchen. In the introduction, the host, Lan Lam, shares a confession made by one of her friends. Her friend admitted that when making macaroni and cheese, they don’t wait for the water to boil before adding the pasta. Instead, they put the noodles into cold water and boil everything together. 

My initial reaction to this was shock and dismay. How could a person break one of the cardinal rules of cooking pasta? This quickly turned to confusion. What if the person was right? What if all these years I had been following the conventional wisdom of "Big Pasta" and waiting for my water to boil, when all along I could have been making my pasta in a million different ways? 

Listen, people have very strong opinions on the best way to make pasta. If you ask the internet “What happens if I don’t add salt to the pasta water?”, an “executive chef” named Roscoe Giuriati will show up and tell you, “Your family will disown you, Dante will create a new place for you in purgatory, even the French will pity you.” The New York Times says that unless you continue cooking pasta in the sauce, “al dente” is undercooked. Meanwhile, Bon Appétit claims that cooking pasta “al dente” means it's actually overcooked. All the while, people are debating the true meaning of “al dente” on Reddit.

I myself am a big pasta head. Spaghetti, ravioli, and fettuccine Alfredo (I have very strong opinions about the best canned Alfredo sauce, RAGÚ® — Classico can go to hell), I love ‘em all. In the early days of Snapchat and Instagram, my go-to usernames were ruthyalfredosauce or ruthyravioli. Because of this, I like to think of myself as an expert in such matters. 

Violet and I were about to throw a party, so we figured this was a chance to get to the bottom of things. Of course, if you throw a party, you need to conduct some sort of experiment. What else are you going to do with a roomful of people trying to have a good time? Play a board game, maybe? Do shots? No way, science has to happen! Humanity needed answers and the opportunity was right in front of us.

SPAGHETTI OR NOT, HERE WE COME

Our design needed a control pasta to give us the baseline. After some deliberation, we decided to follow the box instructions: bring salted water to a rolling boil and cook the pasta for 8 minutes.

In addition to the control condition, we chose three variations, for a total of four conditions: 

• Control: pasta cooked with salt

• No Salt: pasta cooked without salt 

• Cold Start: pasta added to cold water and brought to a boil together

• Used: pasta cooked in re-used pasta water

We tested pasta without salt because salting your pasta water is one of the most common pieces of advice. We tried pasta in cold water to test the story that Lan Lam shared about her friend. And we tried cooking pasta in water that a previous batch of pasta had been cooked in because we heard that some restaurants do this, and claim that it makes the pasta more delicious. Each variation was tested both with and without sauce. 

We briefly considered trying a fifth way of preparing pasta. Violet came to me with an interesting proposition: why don’t people make their pasta in the microwave? Some preliminary experiments showed us the answer was simple. Cooking pasta in the microwave 1) makes a huge mess and 2) is really gross. Violet also tried pouring boiling water over dried pasta and letting that sit for a while. These noodles turned out undercooked on the inside and mushy on the outside. As a result, neither of these variations were included in the study.

With our plan in hand, we gathered supplies. We strolled into a small, intimidatingly fancy Italian grocer (especially for a humble RAGÚ® fanatic like myself) and selected the dried pasta and sauce we would use. Time to get cooking. 

USING OUR NOODLES

For each condition, we counted out 45 pieces of farfalle and boiled them in 3 cups of water. For the conditions that included salt, we added 1 ½ teaspoons to the water before boiling. After cooking, we added 1 teaspoon of olive oil per batch to prevent the noodles from sticking. We collected used pasta water in a big pot in the sink for our used-water condition. 

We opted not to use a timer for the pasta cooked in cold water. If we set it to take out the pasta 8 minutes after boiling, that would likely result in overcooked pasta, which wouldn't have the best texture. Instead, I conducted taste tests every minute or two, aiming to match the texture of the control pasta as closely as possible. This earned me the title of “Pasta Sommelier” from Violet. 

With all the pasta cooked, it was time to set up the experiment. We divided the 4 different pastas and applied Marinara sauce to half of each batch. This left us with 8 conditions for the subjects to try. It was decided that Violet should be the “Keeper of Secrets” and randomly numbered the batches so the rest of us could taste-test them blind. The plates each featured a number to show the pasta type. Individual pieces of farfalle were skewered with toothpicks for easy eating.

As our guests shuffled in, we confirmed that they had received the survey. Nervous excitement and the smell of tomato sauce permeated the air. I was about to uncover the answers I had been seeking for so long (3 whole days to be exact). We led everyone through the process and the tasting began. 

Party goers were asked to fill out the survey on their phone, and prompted to rate each preparation’s taste and texture on a scale from 1 (not good at all) to 7 (very good). People ate one of each condition in whatever order they wanted (although only one person ate them out of order, which was extremely annoying when it came to analysis). 

Raw data and the analysis script are available on the OSF.

LOST IN THE SAUCE

Here are the results: 

Error bars = 95% confidence intervals

It turns out, people couldn’t really tell the difference between the various methods we used to cook the pasta. Noodles cooked without salt had a slightly lower average rating on taste, but only when they weren’t served with sauce. Once sauce was added, people rated the taste just as high as the control pasta that had been cooked with salt.

Across the board, people preferred pasta with sauce over plain pasta. However, I don't think we needed to run a whole study to figure that one out.

People liked pasta cooked in the traditional way, with or without sauce. They liked it about the same when it was cooked without sauce, cooked from a cold start, or cooked in pre-used pasta water. People like pasta, and that doesn’t seem to be very sensitive to different cooking methods, despite the common advice we hear.

It seems like the traditional rules of pasta-making might not be as crucial as we thought. Whether you're a traditionalist or a rebel willing to break the rules, remember that in the world of pasta, the sauce is king, and there's plenty of room for innovation. Carb in whatever way your heart desires.