IF YOU PUT OIL IN YOUR PASTA WATER

[East Coast Hustle]

Putting oil on pasta after pasta is cooked: tasty and yummy

Putting oil in water with pasta while boiling: stupid, pointless, and a waste of good oil...

you are using good oil, right? Cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil? none of this canola bullshit...

Grandpa had an Italian restraunt/bakery for about 50 years and I spent a lot of time there,
so even I know that the only oil to have in a kitchen is cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil.

And he never added oil or butter to the water when he boiled pasta.
He kept a spray bottle of olive oil and sprayed a little bit on the pasta after it was cooked.

I would kill for some of Grandpa's homemade ravioli right about now.

*gives Bella five with a snap at the end*

that's what I'm talking about!  Now...I happen to have a stash of Grandpa's homemade ravioli...you will meet me at the corner of Hollywood and Coahuanga and await further instructions on the killing part....tell no one, or the deal is off...

[Horab Fibslager]

i always use furnace pressed, extra slutty olive oil...

[East Coast Hustle]

Extra slutty? Where do you get it? Do they ship internationally?

[Anonymous]

*gives Bella five with a snap at the end*

that's what I'm talking about!  Now...I happen to have a stash of Grandpa's homemade ravioli...you will meet me at the corner of Hollywood and Coahuanga and await further instructions on the killing part....tell no one, or the deal is off...

Shhh.......This is Bella under deep cover.

It's a date.

ps: I'll bring the salad.

[B23.77]

You don't need oil for spaghetti.  Just pop it in the microwave for 23 minutes.  But remember my sons, if you do need oil, KILL for it.

[East Coast Hustle]

*Decides to unilaterally invade a small southern european country under the auspices of removing a threat to our american way of life*

*cares nothing for innocent civilians*

*really just wants to protect his supply of olive oil*

[Horab Fibslager]

Extra slutty? Where do you get it? Do they ship internationally?

i buy it from teh azn underaged rub-and-tug parlours.

[LMNO]

It's supposed to prevent the water from boiling over.

WRONG ANSWER.

IT IS TO PREVENT THE PASTA FROM GETTING STICKY.  COMPETENT CHEFS DON'T NEED IT.

Both wrong.

Oil in water does not change any physical properties of water so it boils the same, and unless you poured a gallon of it over the water it wouldn't prevent a boil-over (but then it'd make vapor bubbles form under the oil and explode, sending boiling oil all over, which is WORSE).

Oil in water does not make the pasta un-sticky. It does not even gets inside the pasta because pasta is polar in nature and repels oil. So it has no flavoring purpose and no un-stickifying purpose.

The oil at the top of the water breaks the surface tension of the water (which at this point contains gluten from the pasta), and prevents boiling over.

Alton Brown is The Man. (and is related to Pope Gregory XIII)

[namu]

Somehow I don't think the oil breaks the water's tension, since drops of oil in water stay round instead of immediatly spreading over the largest surface of water available.

I rest my case.

[LMNO]

Seeing as how I cannot find any science to back me up, I'll have to cede this one to you, sir.

::cedes::

[namu]

Well, I could experiment with boiling water and oil, but I'd hate to waste all that just to prove a point :/

[East Coast Hustle]

if you did, I think you might find that the oil does indeed spread itself out and break the surface tension of the water...just don't put any pasta in the Infidel Oil-Water or you too will be first agains the wall when the revolution comes...

[East Coast Hustle]

addendum to previous post: this may vary according to the viscosity of the specific oil, and the temperature of the oil and the water....I am strictly speaking for olive oil and boiling water...

[Felix]

I think making pasta is a lot like cunnilingus.  Everyone has thier own way, and it's all just about as good.

[East Coast Hustle]

if you ask the girls I know, who tend to be brutally honest about those kinds of things, then no...it's not all just as good...being that my current career is heavily dependent on the correct cooking of pasta, I'm gonna have to say that your analogy is flawed on both ends...sort of like my ugly pet frog...he has a club foot...and he's lost one eye....