25 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:That pasta looks really good, @shain! When you say the "pasta was lightly toasted before boiling," how do you do this? Does it affect the texture or do you taste a "toasty" flavor in the finished dish, or both?
Thank you very much!
Toasting the pasta is mostly a matter of flavor, but it does effect texture in a way. It gives it a flavor of lightly toasted nuts or a golden toasted bread, very pleasant. I use it for many pasta dishes, in any place where the flavor is appropriate to the sauce (not for tomato sauce, for example). It does effect the texture in a way, making the cooking time longer and highly reduces the chance of over cooking it (it can get past al-dente, if you are not really not careful, but it will take a real long time for it get mushy).
The method that I use to toast it is exactly the way I like to toast nuts. Spread the pasta in a single layer over a baking tray, and place it in a cold oven (this helps to get an even bake). Set the oven to 150 dC (300 dF) and toast until it gets pale golden-copper and smells nutty (get it out of the oven when you notice a reddish tint). If you toast it for too long, it gets quite red and will start to crack, this is not serious, it's just likely to break when boiling if this happen. The toasted color will fade somewhat when cooked, but the scent of it while cooking is amazing, like a pound of toasted pine nuts.
This works good with both short and long pasta shapes, and obviously, only with dry pasta.
