Try Cooking this Garlic Pasta in Less Water

Over at our sister site TreeHugger, we've looked at whether or not it's necessary to preheat the oven, had a debate on microwave versus stove cooking and how much water you should put in your kettle for tea and here on Planet Green, whether your crock pot saves energy. Now The New York Times is looking at the amount of water needed to make pasta. As author Harold McGee points out, Americans cook upwards of a billion pounds of pasta each year, so cutting out some cooking time would translate into an awful lot of saved energy.

High school math wasn't my forte, but McGee reckons that several trillion B.T.U.s would be saved directly in the home kitchen, which translates into saving between 250,000 and 500,00 barrels of oil. Ah, but I can hear you asking, won't my pasta end up in nasty hard clumps without all that boiling water to keep it separate? Mr. McGee decided to asked famous advocates of Italian cuisine, Lydia Bastianich and Marcella Hazen for their thoughts.

He put his dried pasta into the bottom of a pot, added 2 quarts of cold water and 2 teaspoons of salt and turned on the heat. It took 8 minutes for the water to reach the boiling point and another 10 to cook the pasta entirely. Then he reduced the water to 1 1/2 quarts to see if the pasta would still cook properly, and although the pasta tasted fine, it was more work to keep the pasta submerged while it cooked.

When Ms. Bastianich tried it out, she felt you could reduce the cooking water from 6 quarts to 4 quarts without any ill effect, however, she didn't like the taste of the pasta cooked in cold water. Ms. Hazen felt there was too much work involved in cooking the pasta in cold water and it outweighed the energy saving advantage. Mr. McGee went back to the drawing board and tried cooking the pasta in hot water, but reducing it to 1 ½ quarts, and that required less stirring. He prefers the cold water method, although he admits it requires more attention.

I gave this a try, at breakfast, no less and it worked out pretty well. I think I had the stove on about 7 or 8 minutes less than I would normally. I didn't have any trouble keeping the pasta submerged, but I found it stuck to the bottom of the pot a bit. I'd definitely give this a try again, especially to experiment with different shapes of pasta, and also with homemade pasta.

One Pot Pasta with Garlic

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 pound dry or fresh spaghetti, linguini or fettuccine

2 teaspoons salt, or as needed

½ cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley

½ teaspoon piment d?espelette or other crushed red pepper, to taste.

1. In a 12-inch skillet or Dutch oven, combine 1 tablespoon oil and the garlic. Place over medium heat and sauté garlic until golden. Using a slotted spoon, transfer garlic to a plate and set aside.

2. Set aside a colander placed over a bowl. Place pasta in the unwashed skillet (if pasta is very long it may not lie flat on bottom until it begins to soften). Add 2 teaspoons salt and 8 cups cold water.

3. Place over high heat and cook uncovered, stirring frequently to keep pasta submerged, until pasta is almost al dente, 8 to 10 minutes, depending on pasta. Tilt pan and spoon off as much liquid as possible into a bowl, so that very little is left in pan. Add remaining 1/4 cup oil, reserved garlic, parsley and red pepper. Return just enough cooking liquid to pasta, tossing them together, to make a creamy sauce. Adjust salt as needed. Serve immediately.

From the New York Times, Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Difficulty Level: Easy