Garofalo No. 12 Linguine

PRO TIPS

If you’re going to cook great pasta, know the WHY of it, and why a pasta like Garofalo, helps you look like a pro. Remember these tips:

• Boil your noodles with kosher salt. Salt is a FLUID EXCHANGER. When you add it to the boil, it helps the “hooks” in the pasta impart more flavor into it.  For many dishes, I’ll toss in a clove or two of garlic, to establish a flavor.  You can also use a boquet garni, cheesecloth with herbs, or spices, tied into a pouch.
• Watch your boil. Once you achieve a rolling boil, and put the noodles in, lower the heat. Use a thermometer to keep it around 95-100°C/200-212°F. If it’s rolling, and foaming, you’re overcooking the pasta, extracting starches, and flavor, that you want to preserve. You can keep pasta in very hot, non-rolling water and cook it perfectly. Avoid “traditional” overcooking that relatives have taught to you.
• Forget the oil myth – An old grandma’s tale is that you put oil in to SOFTEN the pasta. First, the only way to do that is to overcook the pasta. Oil is HYDROPHOBIC. It sits on the surface. To boil it enough that the oil breaks down, you’re also breaking down what’s good in the pasta. You’re also turning the oil, any oil, bad. Hydrolyzing oil, in boiling water turns it gummy. That’s great, for bad pasta, that has no adhesion, which is probably why people, using cheap pasta, notice that it works, to some level. On the other hand, you’re also changing the nature of the fats, in the oil, to a kind of unstable trans-fat, which isn’t good for you. BASTA! Buy great bronze-die pasta, and let the “burrs” do the work of opening up the noodle to the flavors.
• Saucing Secret – If you’re going to toss the pasta in oil, or egg/cream, then cook it straight to al dente, around 11 minutes. If you’re going to use it in a thinner sauce, like marinara, wine/butter, or broth/stock, remove the pasta with about 3:00 minutes remaining, and put it into a hot pan of that broth or sauce, already cooked, to soak up the flavor, and finish both. Remember to make the sauce about 5-10% more hydrated (more liquid), more the higher the altitude, to allow the pasta to finish fully. If it’s still too al dente, just add a bit more water, and cook a bit longer. 

WHY LINGUINE?

Linguine is a wonderful entry point to the flat noodle. It’s not wide enough, like a tagliatelle, or pappardelle, to be a ribbon that brings a lot of dense food products into your mouth. Linguine is more subtle. A hybrid between the spaghetti tube, and the flat noodle.  

It has enough surface, when spun around small bits, that it will pick them up. That is why it accents clams, and other seafoods. because you can experience the texture of the fish, clams, shrimp, etc. and the pasta is the bonus that conveys the seafood and sauce to your mouth. People often like to “see” some seafood, like shrimp, because they enjoy the texture. 

Some fish, like sardines, or tuna, texturally are inconsistent, or not good mouth feel, to some. Chopping them finely, with other ingredients, integrates them into a tastier whole, without the mouth feel, or visual anxieties, that some types of seafoods can create.

In the case of a sauce, like a pesto, it gives the small bits of the ingredients more adhesion space, therefore more flavor in the mouth. Always remember to use the heavier ingredients in moderation. 

Particularly with Garofalo, you get a noodle that will drag a lot of flavor with it. The possibilities of improvisation are almost limitless, as long as you respect the main components of the dish that it transports to your happy face!