Why Italians Never Break Spaghetti Before Cooking: 3 Reasons Every Gourmet Should Pay Attention To

09.04.2024 10:39

Spaghetti is one of the most popular types of pasta.

Before putting the food into a pot of boiling water, many domestic amateur cooks break these long flour “threads”.

But Italian chefs never do this.

Chefs living on the Apennine Peninsula know: spaghetti must be boiled whole.

But why will an Italian gourmet never break long pasta? There are three reasons, as told by the expert of the online publication Belnovosti in the field of cooking, cook, fourth-class baker Yulia Arkhipova .

Spaghetti
Photo: © Belnovosti

Starch extraction

A broken product will release a lot of starch during cooking.

As a result, instead of a normal side dish, you will get a stuck lump that looks unsightly and is not the most appetizing.

Broken pasta does not absorb sauce well.

Spaghetti is usually eaten with some tasty sauce. And it is important that the dish absorbs the liquid seasoning well.

If you break the pasta before cooking, the dish will be a collection of short "strings".

In this case, it is unlikely that you will be able to properly wind the spaghetti on a fork. You will not get a thick pasta layer, so you can forget about fully absorbing the sauce.

You can buy short vermicelli

There is another reason why Italian foodies are surprised when they see a man breaking spaghetti.

After all, on the Apennine Peninsula there is an unwritten rule: “If you need to cook short pasta, that’s the product you need to buy.”

Italian chefs think like this: “Why break spaghetti if you can buy the product of the right length in the first place?”

Earlier, gourmets were told what to add to the soup first - potatoes or carrots.

Author: Kurchev Anton Deputy Editor-in-Chief
 
Expert: Julia Arkhipova Expert / Belnovosti

Content
  1. Starch extraction
  2. Broken pasta does not absorb sauce well.
  3. You can buy short vermicelli