Cookthink

What's the point of putting oil in my pasta water?

There is no point. Oil and water don't mix, remember? Some people -- including certain Italian grandmothers -- add oil to their pasta water because of the received wisdom that it will prevent pasta from sticking. In fact, if you add oil to your pasta water, it will merely float to the top of the pot. Worse, it may give your pasta a slick surface, preventing sauce from being properly absorbed, which is the trick to a good marriage of pasta and sauce. If you want to prevent pasta from sticking, stir it. The only thing you need to add to pasta water is a good dose of salt to season it. Properly seasoning your pasta -- while it cooks -- may result in less salt consumption overall, since you won't need to compensate by adding extra salt at the table.

How much salt should I add to a pot of boiling water?

The wisdom about how much salt to add to a boiling pot of water is vast and varied. Cooks will recommend anything from 10 to 50 grams per liter. Traditionally, it is thought that salty water helps green vegetables hold their color and makes pasta water boil more quickly, although both theories have their naysayers. French culinary guru Joël Robuchon always adds two giant pinches of gros sel to a pot of boiling water for pasta or green beans with his pudgy and knowing fingers. He tells us that salting the water is our only chance to flavor pasta and help the vegetables stay bright. And while both pasta and vegetables will need additional salting after they're cooked, they will need less than if you neglect to salt them during the cooking process.

How to cube a potato

When we're sautéing potatoes alone or with other vegetables, making soup with them, or stirring them into stews, we usually cut them into cubes. It's not always necessary to peel the potato (especially smaller, waxier varieties), but sometimes you'll want to.To start the dice, cut the potato into planks lengthwise, You can vary the width of the slices depending on the size cubes you want.After you've cut the potato into planks, roll it a quarter turn and cut the planks into rectangular strips lengthwise.Holding the strips together, turn them and cut across the them crosswise to make cubes. This is a good time to use a knife with recesses along the blade, like a Santoku. The small indentions keep the potato from sticking to the knife during slicing.

What's the point of covering a pot of water you've set to boil?

A watched pot never boils? Well, put a cover on said pot and it will boil before you know it, even right before your very eyes. Putting a cover on a pot of water you've set to boil is one of those time- and energy-saving tricks that is so obvious that it just may take years for it to dawn on you. Covering your pot will trap heat, prevent evaporation, build pressure, and get your water boiling faster. Just remember that once you remove the lid, it will take the water a moment to return to a full boil.

Root Source: Flat-Leaf Parsley

what you should know Can we just skip the part where we talk about how parsley is more than a garnish? Okay good. We love the bright, grassy flavor of parsley in everything from soups to sauces to salads. And because it has more essential oils than curly-leaf parsley, we normally use the more flavorful flat-leaf, or Italian, parsley. get fresh Jeanne Kelley, whose book Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes we're giving away in this week's Root Source Challenge, notes how hearty parsley is: "I make a habit to buy it weekly at the farmer's market, and often return home to find the previous week's parsley in the fridge looking as perky as ever." it's a keeper It is okay to have too much parsley. Before tossing into the fridge, wash and dry the bunch, then wrap it in a paper towel and cover it with a plastic bag. Parsley also freezes well, but don't bother with the ho-hum dried stuff. knives down The best way to prep parsley is to hold the bouquet at an angle over a cutting board and run your knife across the top. If you get some tender stems, that's good. Stems have a lot of flavor. what you need Though you can manage your herb prep with any old pair of scissors, we like the multi-blade action of this pair of herb scissors from SNIP. Nancy Verde Barr's Make It Italian is a clean, straightforward and intuitively designed cookbook that overflows with good uses for parsley. We had no idea there was an Herb Society of America until we found (and immediately dug) its Essential Guide to Growing and Cooking with Herbs, edited by Katherine Schlosser. what you do There are hundred of variations and thousands of uses for this traditional Italian green sauce. Try spooning it over roasted potatoes or on top of pan-roasted fish Speaking of green sauce and potatoes, try this chimichurri potato salad. Added while the potatoes are still hot, the flavor of "Argentina's ketchup" really soaks in. Barbara Kafka's invigorating parsley soup will put to rest any doubts you have about parsley's ability to carry a dish. With just a handful of ingredients, Greek lemon-egg soup is a simple, fast way to renew your spirits. The parsley is what cuts through the rich layers of this ravioli with sweet potatoes and mascarpone Featured recipe: We can't wait to make Helen Graves' celeriac soup with parsley oil and Lancashire cheese toasts. The recipe comes from Helen's blog Food Stories and is the winning recipe of this week's Root Source Challenge.

What is the difference between a yam and a sweet potato?

Although the terms sweet potato and yam are often used interchangeably, the two vegetables are not technically related. Yams, which are native to Africa and Asia, are related to lillies and grasses. Sweet potatoes, on the other hand, are in the morning glory family. If you look closely, you can tell them apart. Sweet potatoes are typically more uniformly shaped and have tapered ends. Yams have rough scaly brown or black skin and off-white, purple or red flesh. Sweet potatoes typically have yellow, red, purple or brown skin and yellow, orange or orange-red flesh. In terns of flavor, yams tend to be sweeter and moister. Sweet potatoes differ in flavor depending on the variety -- paler, thinner-skinned sweet potatoes have lower sugar content and are dry and crumbly in texture, similar to a white baked potato. The more common, darker-skinned sweet potatoes have vivid orange flesh and are sweeter in taste and more moist in their texture -- these are the sweet potatoes often mistakenly called yams. Despite their differences, commonly available varieties of both sweet potatoes and yams are fairly similar in taste and texture, you can generally use them interchangeably in recipes.

What do we mean by shimmering oil?

Shimmering oil is hot oil that is nearing its smoke point. At room temperature, common cooking oils like vegetable and olive oil seem fairly thick. Put them in a pan and heat them though, and they thin out when you swirl the pan. As they get hotter, they tend to "flow" and coat the pan more easily. In the right light, when you look at oil that's at a good temperature for sautéing -- nice and hot, but not yet smoking -- it shimmers. It forms "tines" like those on a wine glass. It looks colorful, iridescent even. Shimmering oil is good for sautéing because it increases the chances that the food won't stick. Hot oil immediately seals the bottom of food, creating a natural barrier between it and the bottom of the pan.

What is agnolotti?

Agnolotti ("priest hats") are stuffed, fresh pasta from the Piedmont region. Agnolotti are traditionally made by folding small, thinly rolled rounds of pasta dough over fillings into a half-moon (or rectangular) shape, and crimping the edges to seal. Italian food historians say that the differences between agnolotti and its close cousin ravioli were once more marked. Agnolotti, made in the richer, carnivorous northern regions of Italy, were stuffed with meat; the poorer central and coastal regions stuffed their ravioli with cheese, fish and vegetables. But the lines have blurred since World War II, and like ravioli, agnolotti may be filled with cheese, meat or vegetables, and spices (particularly nutmeg). In Turin, every cook has their own version, and fillings often depend on what leftover ingredients -- braised beef, roast pork, calves brains, veal -- the cook has on hand. Agnolotti can be gently poached, pan-fried in butter, added to broth to make soup, or served with a sauce.