• 2 months ago
Depending on if you want it al dente or well-cooked, between 7 and 14 minutes is the recommended time for cooking pasta—so what happens if you boil it for 45? Professional chef Jack Logue joins Epicurious to take us through the process, minute by minute, to see exactly what happens to pasta when you cook it.

Director: Joe Pickard
Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia
Editor: Kristopher Knight
Talent: Jack Logue
Director of Culinary Production: Kelly Janke
Creative Producer: Tyrice Hester
Culinary Producer: Mallary Santucci
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Amy Haskour
Production Manager: Janine Dispensa
Production Coordinator: Tania Jones
Camera Operator: Jeremy Harris
Audio Engineer: Brett Van Deusen
Fact-Checker: Ryan Harrington; Ketaki Malaviya
Post Production Supervisor: Andrea Farr
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Arts and Graphics Lead: Lea Kichler
Transcript
00:00We've a pot of boiling salted water and a handful of pasta,
00:03and we are going to taste this at every minute.
00:11So our first taste is going to be a piece of raw pasta.
00:14I do not recommend doing this at home,
00:16but we are gonna do this for you.
00:17As we can see from the raw pasta,
00:19it is nice yellow, stiff, no pliability, no bendability.
00:24If we do this, it's gonna break and shatter just like that.
00:27And we're gonna eat.
00:31It is not the most edible or fun thing to do.
00:33Because the starches and the proteins
00:34have not broken down by heat in any way, shape, or form,
00:37our bodies aren't really meant to consume raw flour
00:40in that way, but for the purposes of this test,
00:43we are here to see what pasta is gonna taste like
00:45for the entirety of 45 minutes.
00:47It's kind of a little bit of an unknowns.
00:51All right, so time to pull our first noodle after one minute.
00:56As we can see here,
00:57we see that the water shaped it a little bit.
00:59It's somewhat pliable, but still snappy.
01:02This is gonna probably taste a lot
01:04like the original pasta cracker.
01:07And it does.
01:08But we do feel a little bit of gumminess
01:10off the very tip of the tongue.
01:11I can feel some of the starches in my fingers
01:13just that release of the starch.
01:15You're basically letting the pasta have some texture,
01:18a little bit of substance to it.
01:20I'm thinking that between around seven and 14 minutes
01:23is gonna be from al dente to the most cooked
01:26to where we're gonna wanna have it.
01:27Probably eight minutes, give or take,
01:28is where we're probably gonna wanna be pulling it,
01:29but we'll see.
01:30I think going from 15 to 25 minutes,
01:32we're gonna start to see the difference
01:34between flavor loss and texture loss.
01:36And then after that, I really don't know.
01:37We are starting to release some starch,
01:39which is actually a perfect time now to agitate a bit.
01:42A big common mistake is people don't agitate the pasta
01:45when the starches are starting to release,
01:46and that's why you get those big clumps of pasta.
01:47If you just put the pasta in the water,
01:50you're gonna end up with a big pasta clump at the end.
01:52So it is important to agitate once or twice
01:54and then let it go.
01:55All right, timer's back on.
01:57Let's go for test number two here.
02:03One other thing to note when we're cooking pasta,
02:05we want to be putting the pasta into boiling water,
02:09but then we don't wanna boil the pasta.
02:10So boil the water, not the pasta.
02:13The reason for that is after 185 degrees Fahrenheit,
02:16we are not going to be having any more cooking
02:19of the proteins or the starches,
02:20so you're really just over-agitating and over-cooking
02:22and just essentially speeding up the process too much.
02:24You do want it to be at a rolling boil
02:26because when the pasta goes in,
02:27you're going to naturally be cooling
02:28the water temperature down,
02:29but we are starting to get some starch almost visible
02:32on the outside, that little sheen, that little film.
02:34I can feel it in my fingers.
02:36We're getting a lot of different shapes now,
02:37but it still snaps without much effort at all.
02:44While you would never wanna serve pasta like that,
02:47it's considerably more edible at this stage.
02:50It breaks with little to no effort,
02:52but again, that softer outside layer,
02:54the water's starting to penetrate.
02:56It's starting to hydrate a little bit.
02:58We're approaching our next noodle at three minutes.
03:09At even only three minutes,
03:10we're seeing considerable pliability.
03:12We can now bend it.
03:13We're starting to get to a level where color change
03:16is a little bit more obvious.
03:18It's clearly starches on the outside.
03:20More pliability, but still very big breakability
03:22as we can see on the inside there.
03:24We still very much see that white ring of starch.
03:27Again, this probably won't be very edible.
03:30Still a crunch in the mouth.
03:32We can feel it.
03:33We can taste it,
03:35but we can also see a real transformation
03:37from the very beginning.
03:38Right now, what we're trying to do
03:39is cook the pasta long enough
03:40to properly break down the starches
03:42and break down the proteins that are in the pasta.
03:45This way it's more edible for us to consume,
03:47but also this way it tastes the best.
03:49Most people would say that we were looking for an al dente.
03:53This box says that's gonna be around 10 minutes.
03:55Let's find out if it's correct.
03:57Now let's check it after four.
04:03All right.
04:05So even after only four minutes,
04:06we are starting to see the pasta start to get hydrated.
04:09Pasta will hydrate much quicker with hot water.
04:12That's why we tend to cook it in hot water.
04:14Look at that.
04:15Nice little bow.
04:16Still no break, still no break.
04:18So that's after only four minutes.
04:20We're almost hydrated.
04:21Again, not quite cooked,
04:24but the hydration point is happening very quickly.
04:27Even on eating it,
04:29the starches on the outside are actually fully hydrated.
04:31It's soft.
04:32And while I think every single guest
04:34would send this pasta back at this stage,
04:36you could eat it.
04:38If you'd never eaten pasta before in your life,
04:39you might actually even think
04:40that this is what it's supposed to be.
04:41Even at this stage, it's gonna carry over cook.
04:45There's gonna be a little bit of cooking time.
04:47So as we get closer and closer to where we want it to be,
04:49we're gonna be more careful about when we pull it.
04:54And here we go for a minute five.
04:55I mean, look at that.
04:56That's after only five minutes here.
05:01I mean, if you didn't know it was only five minutes,
05:03you would actually think this is probably cooked pasta.
05:07Look at that color, the pliability.
05:09We're using Brie, Italian pasta, spaghetti, the classic.
05:12They say 10 minutes is their al dente.
05:15For me, if I see 10 minutes,
05:17I'm gonna probably try to at least check it at seven
05:20because at five, we already see how hydrated it is.
05:24On the taste, it still has a little bit of tooth,
05:26but it's not very far off.
05:28We're actually starting to taste the flavor
05:29of the starches come out.
05:31We're tasting the pasta now in the mouth.
05:34Honestly, it feels pretty great.
05:35If you could cook that at that point in some sauce
05:38for about two to three more minutes in the sauce,
05:41it's almost servable, which is quite surprising
05:43since it's half the time the box says.
05:45And look at that.
05:51We have pasta, ladies and gentlemen.
05:55So six minutes in and we're already starting
05:57to look like what we want as the finished product.
06:00We have an almost white yellowish hue, full pliability.
06:04It's not bending, it's not snapping.
06:07We can do whatever we want with it.
06:09And look, I even tried to snap it
06:10and at this stage it won't snap.
06:11So now we know the hydration level
06:12is very close to being where we want it.
06:17There's a little, little crunch at the end,
06:19but for the most part,
06:20this is a fully hydrated and cooked piece of pasta
06:22at six minutes, mind you.
06:23One thing too, at this stage especially,
06:25we should remember we put the pasta into boiling water.
06:29However, we don't want it to be boiling
06:30while we're actually eating the pasta.
06:33We want it to be around 185 Fahrenheit.
06:35So boiling point would be 212.
06:37185 is really where you want the actual pasta to be cooking.
06:39That's where the proteins and the starches
06:41stop cooking anymore.
06:42Boiling the pasta just overboils it.
06:45It basically takes the starches
06:46and turns them against the pasta.
06:48Here we are at seven minutes.
06:49For me, seven minutes with a store-bought pasta
06:51is the perfect temp.
06:52Let's see if I'm correct with that one.
06:54But this is gonna be our perfect al dente.
06:56We actually have a string, we have a pull now,
06:58but a little bit of a snap.
06:59So here we are a little undercooked.
07:04But very close.
07:05I'm gonna say that eight minutes is gonna be our mark,
07:08but we'll see.
07:09We're looking for al dente,
07:10which, for those of you who know Italian,
07:13means to the tooth.
07:14You should have a little bit of a bite to it.
07:15There should be some texture to it, but just no snap.
07:18So the snap is the thing that we're looking to avoid,
07:20but otherwise we want the pasta to actually have texture.
07:23We don't want it to be soft and mushy.
07:31Okay.
07:32So this is minute eight here.
07:36And she feels great.
07:38Look at that.
07:39I mean, we could tie it in a knot.
07:41All the pliability in the world,
07:42but still that texture that we're looking for.
07:45The color, as we can see, still has some yellow hues to it.
07:48It isn't overly saturated, it isn't overly hydrated.
07:51Little bit bend.
07:58Bellissimo.
07:59This is perfect right here.
08:00For me, I would wanna take this out.
08:02It's gonna cook a little bit of extra just by existence.
08:04It's gonna cook extra in the sauce,
08:06whatever you're using it with.
08:07But to me, this eight minutes
08:08is the perfect texture for the pasta.
08:12I'm gonna guess that over the next five to six minutes,
08:16the pasta is gonna change dramatically.
08:24So, here we have the nine minute noodle.
08:29Feels great.
08:30This stage, perfect color.
08:32Really nice pliability.
08:33No snap.
08:35You can wrap it around your finger.
08:37Really great.
08:38Great noodle of spaghetti right here.
08:43We're right in the zone.
08:44At this point, I'd say for the next two minutes,
08:47this is exactly how we'd wanna serve it.
08:49At this stage though,
08:50you wouldn't wanna cook it too much anymore in the sauce
08:52because it will start to overcook in the sauce.
08:54So, if you're gonna go for that nine minutes
08:55instead of the eight minutes,
08:56make sure the sauce is ready to go.
08:58Pasta in.
08:59Use some of that starchy water that we have accumulated
09:02to help thicken the sauce and then serve right away.
09:09All right, this is our 10 minutes.
09:10This is our box time.
09:13So, if we were following the directions,
09:14for those of you rule followers out there,
09:15I am not one of those people when it comes to cooking.
09:18I like to make my own rules sometimes.
09:20However, if we were following the box,
09:23I think they got a pretty spot on.
09:25This would have to go straight to the sauce and to the plate.
09:28You can already tell that it is starting
09:29to get a little bit wilty.
09:31You know how we had that last noodle
09:32and had a little bit more snap and bend?
09:34This is very bendy.
09:36Almost too much so for my taste.
09:38As you can see, there was zero, zero snap with that.
09:43But still, we're in that zone, we're in that toothy zone.
09:46The pasta has texture.
09:48It doesn't just disintegrate in the mouth.
09:50It feels good.
09:52We could still call that al dente.
09:56I'm gonna go out on a limb and say
09:58that's the last time we can call it al dente,
09:59but maybe I'll be wrong.
10:06Feeling very Pavlovian at this stage.
10:09One minute at a time, an 11-minute pasta noodle.
10:12Very pliable.
10:13As you can see, it's wilting completely.
10:16It is bendy.
10:17There is still some texture to it.
10:18The color's starting to get a little lighter as we hydrate.
10:20We're gonna see this color get almost white
10:23the more we go on this test.
10:25There's still some snap to it.
10:30There's still some body,
10:31but to me, there's already starting
10:33to get a little bit of over-hydration, over-saturation.
10:36The proteins are starting to cook a little bit,
10:38not too much, but we're getting a little mushy.
10:41So we just went in two minutes,
10:42the difference from perfect to a little bit mushy,
10:45which I think is a really important thing
10:46because we have to think about the fact
10:48that we're cooking the pasta,
10:49but then we're also putting it
10:50into another hot sauce, potentially.
10:52You don't want the pasta to be perfect
10:53coming out of the pot.
10:55You want the pasta to be just under-perfect.
10:58The second the pasta's perfect in the pot,
11:00the pasta will be overcooked on the plate.
11:03Okay, so here we have a minute 12.
11:05We're losing texture already.
11:07Pliability is there.
11:08We can feel the starches on the fingers.
11:13But see, it's too much.
11:18There's no snap.
11:20You don't hear anything.
11:21Again, edible, for sure, servable even,
11:25but already it's disintegrating.
11:27I can't taste the pasta anymore.
11:29And that's the other thing we were looking for,
11:30is flavor.
11:31When the pasta is at a proper cooked temperature,
11:34you get more flavor from the pasta.
11:36As it starts to get oversaturated, overhydrated,
11:39the starches break down too much,
11:40all these things happen, we lose the flavor.
11:43So we're going to go ahead and add a little bit more water.
11:46We're going to add a little bit more water.
11:47We're going to add a little bit more water.
11:49We lose the flavor.
11:52At the end of the day,
11:53we should remember that this ingredient
11:55is literally just durum flour and water.
11:57So if we overcook it,
11:58we're taking out all the flavor
12:00that existed in the first place.
12:02So here we have minute 13.
12:06As we can see, the pasta is cooked,
12:10starting to get a little bit more white in the middle.
12:13Very pliable.
12:14I think for the next probably 10 minutes,
12:17it'll be around the same elasticity,
12:19but we're just going to have it be more and more hydrated,
12:21more and more mushy in the mouth.
12:28There is still a little bit of body,
12:30but the outer layers immediately start to be mush.
12:34If you were serving just pasta
12:36without putting into anything else,
12:38without putting into a sauce,
12:39for whatever reason you just want to eat pasta noodles,
12:41this is probably around the last
12:44that you would want to just eat it.
12:45If you were going to put it into something else,
12:46it'll overcook.
12:51All right, so here we have our 14 minute noodles.
12:57We're very cooked at this point.
12:58As we can see the steam coming off of it,
13:01that's actually still pasta cooking.
13:03Even though it's out, it's in the air,
13:04whether it's on a pan,
13:05even if you put it into a colander to drain,
13:07I don't recommend that.
13:08I always use the tongs to take that out
13:11because you're actually letting the starches
13:12from the pasta water help to thicken the sauce.
13:14Colanders are just draining out all the good stuff.
13:17Please do not rinse the pasta with water.
13:19Don't put the olive oil on the pasta when it comes out.
13:22Olive oil is going to basically detract
13:23from the sauce to be able to stick to the pasta.
13:25You want to use the starches.
13:26That's your best friend.
13:28However, as we can see on the tray, it's still cooking.
13:30So even though we pulled it out at 14 minutes,
13:33it's actually going to probably cook
13:34for another two minutes,
13:34even if we didn't put it into any sauce.
13:37So we should always remember that.
13:38So at 14 minutes, we still have a little bit of body,
13:43but a lot of the flavor is already gone.
13:46The texture is very soft.
13:49We would not pass the al dente test from anyone.
13:5215, you can already feel it.
13:56See how you can already feel
13:59that this is going to be overcooked.
14:03Yeah, immediately.
14:05Put it into your mouth, onto your teeth, and it goes away.
14:08What's the point of eating pasta
14:09if you're not going to taste it?
14:11They have a saying in Italy, risotto is about the sauce,
14:14risotto is about the pasta.
14:15So that's the whole point,
14:16is to actually want to taste the pasta.
14:18At 15 minutes, we've already cooked out all the flavor.
14:20So for the next 30 minutes,
14:22we're going to be eating flavorless pasta.
14:24It almost feels like the noodles are getting longer.
14:26The pasta goes in the mouth, you chew a couple of times,
14:28and it sort of leaves.
14:29There's no real purpose to it.
14:31I mean, we are just so hydrated at this point.
14:34It's not pasta anymore, unfortunately.
14:37And here we are, minute 20.
14:40I think this might be the first time
14:41I've ever cooked pasta for 20 minutes.
14:44It almost feels like the noodles are getting longer, right?
14:46That's because there's so much elasticity.
14:48At this stage, without any effort,
14:50we can pull it probably 50% longer than it started.
14:54That's a very good sign that you have overcooked your pasta,
14:56if you can pull your pasta that far.
14:58We want to hydrate and cook the pasta,
15:02but we don't want to destroy the pasta.
15:03Zero bite, zero germ.
15:05I mean, I don't know if you can see that,
15:07but it is completely hydrated at this point
15:09all the way through.
15:10From here on in, we're just gonna be over-hydrating.
15:14There's nothing left for the pasta to take in,
15:16but more water.
15:17Everything's been broken down by this stage,
15:19especially from the starch content.
15:21So it's just gonna start soaking and ballooning up almost.
15:24It's for the next five minutes.
15:25Nothing molecular is really changing
15:27or evolving in the pasta at this stage.
15:29We're starting to get into the inedible range for me.
15:33No texture, no flavor.
15:37So that's interesting.
15:38We have our first disintegration here.
15:40So at 25 minutes,
15:41we can't even get the noodle out completely,
15:43which means we've completely broken down.
15:45We've gone past the point that we want to go with it.
15:47Honestly, we are starting to get
15:48a little bit more hydration here.
15:50It's actually, if you can see,
15:51it's getting a little bit bigger, a little bit thicker
15:53than some of our al dente ones, especially.
15:56I would venture to guess that we won't have much changes
15:58until 28 to 30 minutes.
16:00We're so hydrated at this point.
16:01At this stage, safe to say the water is more flavorful.
16:07We do still have some texture in terms of,
16:10it's not breaking on the tongs, which is good to see.
16:12Wow, look at that elasticity.
16:14I mean, it's almost, I think,
16:1775% larger than our original one.
16:20Yeah, I mean, we're actually close to double
16:22in size of the original one.
16:23That's how much this is hydrated,
16:26how the starches have just completely broken down.
16:28I mean, it falls apart in our hands.
16:35Pardon my expression,
16:35I just don't like eating tasteless things.
16:38It's not my favorite time.
16:41That basically took two chews and immediately it was gone.
16:44We can tell by that pliability and elasticity
16:46just how much hydration that the noodles have had
16:51at 30 minutes of cooking.
16:52I'm actually very curious now to see what happens next
16:54because this is uncharted territory for me here.
16:57The pasta is gonna continue to hydrate.
16:59It's gonna continue to get whiter.
17:01Pliable, sticky.
17:02From here on in, 50-50 chance of having a noodle
17:04with integrity come out of the pot.
17:06Massive elasticity, wow.
17:08There's nothing going on here anymore.
17:09I'm not sure what it tastes like.
17:12Okay.
17:13All right, so now we finally hit 35 minutes.
17:16Every five or so minutes, we do see some change.
17:19Here we are talking about extreme elasticity.
17:22Look how long that is, just holding it there.
17:24We are starting to see the outside starches
17:27get a little chalky.
17:28So that's gonna be, I think, our next flavor profile.
17:30We went from mushy to now,
17:32I think we're gonna get chalkier and chalkier.
17:34You see the little white speckles on the outside?
17:36So that's a sign that the starches have now
17:39just completely gone out of the pasta.
17:42They're overcooked.
17:43They're turning to chalk.
17:44I mean, you can feel it in your hands even.
17:47And I'm scared to put this in my mouth.
17:50We're working with mush at this point.
17:52There is no more integrity to the pasta
17:54in terms of the texture.
17:55We lost the flavor at around 20 minutes.
17:57We've now lost the texture.
17:59No substance noodle.
18:02I hope no one ever calls me then.
18:03We can really see those white specks now.
18:05I'm a little surprised we're still able to eat the pasta.
18:08Fully, fully, fully gone.
18:11There's no flavor.
18:12There's nothing left.
18:13Okay, this is minute 40.
18:15No idea what's gonna happen here.
18:17We still have pasta.
18:19We're gonna compare this to the original size here.
18:25So now we've more than doubled in size at this stage,
18:29which is not what's supposed to happen.
18:34We really haven't had much change in flavor or texture.
18:38I'm not sure what application that that would be useful for.
18:41Now the water on the other hand
18:43is starting to look really great.
18:45Just no fun to eat.
18:47Just absolute disintegration.
18:49I'm trying to be gentle.
18:50I mean, that just fell apart in my hand.
18:52I mean, how plump it's gotten is wild.
18:54All right, here we have it.
18:5745 minutes and we got two out properly.
19:00Look at that.
19:0145 minute pasta here.
19:03I mean, it's kind of beautiful in its own way.
19:06I know it doesn't taste good
19:07and I know that it really is not healthy for you
19:10or has no nutrients, but it's pretty cool.
19:13It's more of a sciencey thing.
19:14I mean, look at how many starches are on the outside.
19:17And yet it didn't completely disintegrate,
19:20which I am a little surprised and shocked at 45 minutes.
19:23Again, the temperature is key for that, right?
19:25Because we were able to achieve an al dente
19:27in two minutes before the box time at 185
19:30without boiling it.
19:34So now we have 45 minutes of cooking pasta.
19:36We have our dry pasta straight out of the box.
19:39After one minute,
19:39when the starches are starting to release,
19:40you do want to agitate the pasta a little bit.
19:42If you just put the pasta in the water,
19:43you're gonna end up with a big pasta clump at the end.
19:45So it is important to agitate once.
19:47And then we see right around that five minute mark,
19:49six minutes especially,
19:50we notice a difference in the color,
19:51a difference in the texture.
19:52Cruising into the eight minute mark,
19:54which I think was the perfect time
19:55to take out this particular pasta.
19:57And then as the box said,
19:5810 minutes out of the pot was a perfect cook.
20:00To me, that will overcook a little bit in the sauce,
20:02so I wouldn't want to take it out there.
20:03But that is a proper cook
20:05if you were just gonna take out the pasta
20:06and eat it as such.
20:07Right around that 14 minute mark,
20:08it's starting to go into more of the whitish hue.
20:10And then between 15 and 20 minutes
20:12is when we started to lose taste specifically.
20:1421 to 25 is when we lost all the texture.
20:17And from 30 to 35,
20:18that's when we were able to stretch it.
20:19We literally had it over doubled in size.
20:21The 45, we literally got it to be over two times
20:24the original size of the pasta.
20:25For me personally,
20:26I go with that eight minute.
20:29Do you wanna try a 60 minute noodle?
20:31Let's try a 60 minute noodle.
20:33I am so surprised that this is still intact.
20:36Although we can clearly see just by taking it out
20:38how much starch has come out of it.
20:40It's hanging on by a thread, but wow.
20:43I mean, it's pretty impressive.
20:47I will say,
20:50it's not as bad as I thought.

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