American producer and director Adam McKay has said that ‘nothing is funnier than confidently doing the wrong thing,’ which means I’ve been an absolute riot for the past 30 years.

Allow me to explain…

While researching for my soon-to-be-released cookbook, I learned that I have been seasoning pasta incorrectly since, well…I started preparing pasta dishes. Imagine the mortification! I felt like a paralegal who finally realized that John Doe is a placeholder name and not an eerily large grouping of men with the same name.

The best way to season pasta, as I learned, does not involve cooking it until pleasantly chewy, draining it, and combining it with sauce (or just adding the sauce on top). This now “outdated’ approach adversely affects the texture of pasta and, by logical and tragic consequence, dampens our enjoyment of the finished dish. Wonder of wonders! No one was more surprised than I, for everyone I have ever known in Italy does not use this technique. It is a mystery to me, then, how something as important as a technique for preparing optimal pasta could have escaped my cooking radar…but here we are.

As you might imagine, I immediately tried it out and found that it indeed does produce plates of pasta that are practically perfect in every way. Because of this I now highly recommend adding this additional “seasoning” step, which creates what in Italy is called pasta saltata in padella, or “sautéed pasta.” Before I explain the steps involved, allow me to explain what it does.

Pasta, especially dry pasta, is very porous by nature. Once added to boiling water, its unquenchable thirst begins (which is why it plumps up as it cooks). This absorptive quality doesn’t stop once the pasta is drained; in fact, pasta remains as parched as ever. The worst thing we could do at this point is to drain it and let it sit while we futz with the sauce. Lacking any liquid to absorb, the pasta quickly becomes pasty and excessively chewy instead of tender and pleasantly chewy.

The “seasoning” step prevents this small disaster from happening by keeping pasta nice and hydrated until it is plated and served. It does so by combining almost fully cooked pasta with a little bit of fat and some reserved pasta water and then by cooking it the rest of the way in the sauce. In the process, the technique accomplishes two additional things:

It melds the pasta and sauce more effectively, thanks to the starch in the reserved pasta water, and
It enables the pasta to absorb some of the flavoring from the sauce, resulting in an even tastier finished dish.

And if that weren’t enough, the technique itself is quite easy, doesn’t require dirtying additional pots, and only takes about 3 minutes. To execute:

Cook the pasta in salted water according to package instructions and drain it 2 minutes short of its directed cooking time (it would be considered slightly too firm to eat).
Reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water (for 4 servings) right before draining it.
Drain the pasta and return the pot to the burner. Immediately turn the heat to high, add a ½ tablespoon of oil (for oil-based sauces) or ½ tablespoon of butter (for butter-based sauces) and the reserved pasta water, making sure to have both items measured out and by the stove before draining the pasta.
Quickly add the just drained pasta and toss until the oil/butter and pasta water have been absorbed. This usually takes about 30 seconds or so, which goes to show you just how thirsty the pasta is.
Immediately add all or part of the sauce, depending on what the recipe directs. Continue cooking the pasta on high heat, tossing continuously, for another 1 ½ minutes or so. Done!

If you want to prepare pasta with a fresh, uncooked sauce like pesto, make sure to reserve 1 cup of reserved pasta water. Then, simply cook the pasta in salted water until it is perfectly firm for eating, or al dente, drain, and then transfer it back to the pot. Add 1/2 cup of reserved pasta water, toss and then immediately add the sauce and toss again. If the pasta seems a little dry, add a little more reserved pasta water until you reach a nice sauce consistency.

Now that I’m using the seasoning technique, I guess I will need to find some other way to be a hoot when I cook.

garganelli pasta with fava beans, pancetta & roasted cherry tomatoes

(Garganelli Pasta with Fava Beans, Pancetta & Roasted Cherry Tomatoes appears in “The Ultimate Pasta and Noodle Cookbook,” slated for release on October 24, 2017.)

Making this pasta dish requires an hour of passive time as the cherry tomatoes roast, but otherwise is pretty easy and straight-forward to make. Fresh fava beans mean springtime and lend a beautiful light green color to this tasty and nourishing sauce. Also known as broad beans, fava beans are smoother, sweeter, and creamier than most other beans and would probably be more popular if they didn’t need to be peeled twice before using. If you purchase them still in their pods, you will need to first shell them as you would peas. Secondly, you will need to remove the thick, whitish skin that envelops each bean. I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to blanch them in a large pot of salted boiling water for 1 minute, drain, and cool under cold running water, then squeeze each bean out of its skin with your fingers. To add a splash of vibrant color and aromatic, savory flavor, I roast the cherry tomatoes with thyme.

garganelli pasta with fava beans, pancetta & roasted cherry tomatoes

Created by Serena Cosmo on August 28, 2023

Serves: 4
Category: Pasta

Ingredients

1 pint cherry tomatoes
Leaves from 2 sprigs fresh thyme
5 tbsps. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cups shelled (not peeled) fava beans, 2 ½ pounds fava bean pods, or 1 cup peeled, frozen fava beans
4 to 5 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
4 ounces pancetta (or bacon), finely diced
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 cup chicken broth
3/4 lb. pasta
1/3 cup freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese

How To

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Toss the tomatoes with the thyme, 2 tablespoons of the oil, a couple pinches of salt, and a good crack of black pepper on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Place the sheet on the center rack, and roast, turning once, until the tomatoes are blistered and beginning to burst, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and tent loosely with aluminum foil to keep warm.
Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Once it’s boiling, add salt (1 tablespoon for every 4 cups water) and stir. Add the fresh fava beans, bring the water back to a boil, and cook for 3 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold water, then pop the beans out of their skins by squeezing them at one end. (If using frozen peeled beans, skip this step.)
Heat a large, deep skillet over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil and turn the heat up to medium. Once the oil begins to swirl on the surface but is not yet smoking, add the scallions, pancetta, and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring every few minutes, until the scallion whites are golden brown and the pancetta has rendered its fat, about 12 minutes. Add the fava beans, broth, and a couple pinches of salt. Stir and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once gently boiling, reduce the heat to low and cook until the broth reduces by half and the fava beans are tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer two ladlefuls of fava beans to a blender or food processor and reduce them to a puree. Stir the puree back into the skillet and taste for seasoning, adding salt if needed. Keep warm over very low heat
While the favas are cooking, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once it’s boiling, add salt (1 tablespoon for every 4 cups water) and stir. Right before removing the favas to the blender, add the pasta to the water and stir for the first minute to prevent any sticking. Cook following the package instructions, though you will drain the pasta 2 minutes prior to the directed cooking time. The pasta will be soft but still very firm. Right before draining the pasta, reserve ½ cup of the pasta water. Return the empty pot to the stove. Immediately turn the heat to high, add the remaining tablespoon oil and reserved pasta water, and stir. Add the pasta and toss until the water is absorbed. Add the fava bean and pancetta mixture and cook, tossing continuously, for 2 minutes, then gently stir in the tomatoes.
Divide the pasta among four warmed bowls and serve piping hot.