I have a question for you cookery snob fuckers, especially ECH. You are vehemently against oiling any noodles, I know. But your reasoning - that the sauce will slide off the pasta - doesn't seem to work for me. Is that because I use fat, not oil? I keep a tub of animal fat, rendered every time I roast anything, that I use in place of almost all oils in cooking, including when I need to grease pasta for purposes of running a cafeteria for my children. It seems to make sauce stick more, not slide off.
Opinion on this? Does it make a difference that I use grease, not oil? Don't tell me not to do it, because I won't listen. Nobody is paying me to do this shit and my job is for it to be reasonably presentable, palatable, and versatile enough to work for three little assholes who don't all want the same thing on their noodles, plus one boyfriend who may or may not be late.
Never tried animal fat. I will, though. Next chance I get. Because as men of science, we have an obligation to test the hypothesis.
My understanding was that oil in the water makes the pasta less flavorful, among other things.
Quote from: Sigmatic on December 15, 2010, 02:39:56 AM
Never tried animal fat. I will, though. Next chance I get. Because as men of science, we have an obligation to test the hypothesis.
My understanding was that oil in the water makes the pasta less flavorful, among other things.
I usually don't oil the water, or if I do it's just a butter knife dipped in to stop it boiling over. But I do grease it after it's cooked.
Afterwards should be fine, at least in my experience nothing bad happens and everyone likes it. But then again, my pasta sauces are generally super viscous.
I don't understand how oiling the pasta water makes the pasta less flavorful. I want someone to explain the physics of that to me.
Er, not the actual pasta. It's a "nonsticking sauce" contention, you see.
I will meekly state that I don't think either putting oil in the pasta water, or oiling the pasta after cooking makes very much difference. I think the major factor with non-sticking sauce is rinsing the starch off the pasta (which helps the sauce adhere) after it's cooked.
That being said, in Japanese cooking one is supposed to rinse noodles after cooking to improve the texture. If you've ever made soba noodles and found them unpleasantly gummy, that's probably the case.
The starch? Interesting, I hadn't considered that as an explanation.
Quote from: Sigmatic on December 15, 2010, 04:36:23 AM
Er, not the actual pasta. It's a "nonsticking sauce" contention, you see.
Yeah, but I mentioned that in the OP. :? I said that it doesn't seem to be a problem to me, and that the grease seems, if anything, to improve sauce stickiness. To clarify, this thread is specifically about the question of whether meat-based grease has different properties on pasta from vegetable oils.
Hm, it would be my guess that if the pasta is served cold, or coolish room temperature then the meat grease, being a saturated fat, would solidify and therefore improve the cohesiveness of the dish, more than an unsaturated fat like olive oil. Other than that I can't really imagine a difference, but who knows?
It requires science!
Cold pasta? Gross! No, I serve it hot.
Oh, silly me, I was thinking something like pasta salad but then I realized that pasta salad doesn't have a "sauce" in the first place.
Well then I'm stumped.
Quote from: Nigel on December 15, 2010, 04:50:17 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on December 15, 2010, 04:36:23 AM
Er, not the actual pasta. It's a "nonsticking sauce" contention, you see.
Yeah, but I mentioned that in the OP. :? I said that it doesn't seem to be a problem to me, and that the grease seems, if anything, to improve sauce stickiness. To clarify, this thread is specifically about the question of whether meat-based grease has different properties on pasta from vegetable oils.
It does not improve sauce stickiness, unless your sauce is for some reason oil-based instead of water-based. If you were using pesto sauce or just tossing it in XVOO and herbs, it wouldn't make any difference but any tomato-based sauce or cream-based sauce or anything else with a water-soluble base is not going to stick as well to oiled noodles. The starches on the surface of the noodles will bond to any water-soluble sauce and that process is made impossible if the noodle has been oiled before tossing in sauce. That's also why the pasta should ideally be tossed with the sauce in a hot pan rather than just piled on a plate and sauce poured on top of it.
But you're not selling it for $20+ a plate so I'd say just keep doing whatever works for you and the kids. The reality is that most people probably don't have a developed enough palate to notice much if any difference, or just don't give a shit as long as they've got something to eat.
I'm content with my feedbag filled with nutritious soybean mash, thankyouverymuch.
I plan to try using animal fat, just to try it. I mean, animal fat makes everything better. Will inform of results when I get around to it.
Most of my sauces are not fat-based but most do contain some fat in the form of cream or meat.
Yeah, but that won't overcome the water-solubility. but like I said, if the kids dig it then it's really just a minor point of science and snobbery.
Still doesn't explain how her mostly-water-based sauces still stick to animal-fat-greased pasta, though. Unless the effect is minimal, and it sticks just a littlebit less, but not enough to be a problem.
What I wonder is why grease the pasta at all, and not just add the extra fat to the pasta-sauce right away? Does that make a difference to the taste, Nigel?
Probably so she can make a vat of us that the kids can attack and not worry about it congealing into a lumpy mess they may not be able to control.
Eh? A vat of us? :?
my understanding is that Nigel's kids will all eat the noodles but all have different sauces that they will or won't eat with those noodles, so oiling the noodles allows her to hold them warm and portion them out without them sticking together in unappealing clumps.
Yes.
Here's how it works. I make a nice sauce and a pot of noodles. One kid wants sauce. One kid is still at Starbucks with her friends. One kid just wants cheese. Boyfriend is still in Clackamas teaching a class. Greasing the noodles means that instead of standing in the kitchen making batch after batch of fresh noodles, I can serve myself and whoever else is there/ready and then get back to what I was doing, leaving the rest of the noodles in the pot ready to serve without cooling into a repulsive, inedible congealed mass. They can also easily be warmed up for seconds.
One difference between my kitchen and a restaurant is that I don't have a line cook and I sure as fuck am not going to be one.
Animal fat does have a distinctly different viscosity than vegetable fat, so that probably helps. I especially notice the difference with heavily sausagey sauces and cream-based sauces like the fish sauce the kids love so much.
I don't use vegetable oil on pasta partly because I don't like what it does to the sauce and partly because I can't stand the taste. I dislike vegetable oil in most applications, actually. It's pretty gross. Cold-pressed seed and nut oils are OK for certain things, but for the most part, it's lard or GTFO. I get a huge pot of it every year when the Darrels do their annual pig roast; they give me the carcass for stewing and rendering, and I end up stocking my freezer with gallons of the best broth in the world and pounds of deliciously smoky lard.
Totally. It cannot be replaced with ANYTHING. It's well worth roasting a young hog once a year for no other reason, IMO.