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Cooking with fresh pasta is a treat because it has a different flavour and texture than packed spaghetti. Fresh pasta, while made with only flour, eggs, and water, has a robust flavour and a delicate, velvety texture. It takes only a few minutes in boiling water to cook, in contrast to hours for dry pasta. While fresh pasta just takes a few minutes to prepare, it does require close monitoring to prevent overcooking. Here we will explain why fresh pasta is well worth the effort and show you how to make it taste delicious. Get ready for the improvement in the quality of your homemade fresh pasta recipes!
Boiling
When making fresh pasta at home, you can proceed straight from shaping the noodles to boiling them. Most chefs, however, will tell you that drying the pasta beforehand will improve the texture and help it hold its shape. Complex air systems and drying racks are used in restaurants and large-scale pasta factories. Pasta can be dried successfully at home by spreading it out over cooling racks or draping it over dryers for a few hours. You can cook it right away if you're in a rush or don't care if the spaghetti keeps its shape, though.
Salt
One must have surely come across the advice of generously salting the water used for cooking pasta, and indeed, this is accurate. However, when dealing with fresh pasta, it is vital to adopt an even more strong approach. When preparing fresh pasta, it is important to note that its cooking time is significantly shorter compared to dry pasta. As a result, the fresh pasta spends only a brief period of time immersed in the water, which limits its ability to absorb the flavoursome essence of the seasoned water. To ensure optimal salt absorption, it is crucial to employ a generous amount of salt while preparing your pasta.
Gentle Care
Since fresh pasta is more fragile than dried, you should drop the noodles into the water very slowly and carefully rather than hurling them in. Because fresh pasta is so delicate and sticks together easily, it's best to boil it in batches if you're making for a large gathering. Pasta shapes like farfalle, which have fewer structural components, twirl about more freely in the water and require less attention. If there's too much pasta in the pot, the long shapes, like pappardelle, will tangle and cook unevenly. Since this is the case, it is recommended that long noodles be gently stirred with a wooden spoon or other tool while they cook.
How to know doneness
Fresh pasta is cooked when it floats to the surface, so the old saying goes. That's not a failsafe method of determining when something is done, but it can be helpful. This can be thrown off by the amount of pasta in the pot, the intensity of the boil, and the size of the pasta, all of which can cause you to drain the pasta before or after it is done cooking. Trying some out is your best bet.
