Pasta pros assemble!

Forums: Cooking, Food, Recipes, Pasta, Tomato Sauce
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I would like to recreate this pasta dish that my neighborhood Italian joint serves.

They use linguini for the pasta and it is coated with a tomato based sauce that isn't like a gravy. The coating is very light, not very red, but has a lot of tomato flavor. They serve it with meatballs.

What might this type of coating be called? How do they get it to stick to the noodles so well? They make their own pasta -- could that be part of the trick? If so, is there anyway to duplicate it using dried pasta?

Any help appreciated!

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@boomerang,

Nobody? I thought for sure someone here would know how to do this.

I'm going to experiment.......

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@boomerang,

One trick to getting a light sauce (or any sauce, really) to stick to the pasta is to add a ladle full of pasta cooking water into the sauce just before you drain the noodles. The starch in the water will help the sauce stick to the noodles.

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@JPB,

I've been reading about that!

It's actually a little trickier, or so it seems. From what I hear you can just end up with watery sauce.

I've been reading that to really make that trick work that you need to cook your pasta not quite enough, drain it well and toss it in your sauce to finish cooking, add 2-3 TBSP of pasta water to the sauce and reduce.

That's what I'm going to try.

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I also learned that you want to look for pasta cut with a bronze die. Apparently that makes the pasta rougher and that makes the sauce stick to it better.

I went to the little gourmet store near my house, where they sell more brands of pasta than you can shake a stick at, and not one of them mentioned what kind of die the pasta was cut with.

Humph.

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@boomerang,

Get a good quality pasta and cook it on the low end of the recommended cooking time. Mix the pasta and sauce before serving and let it rest for a couple minutes for the pasta to finish cooking and absorb the extra water from the sauce. That way the sauce actually cooks into the pasta. I use a 1/2 cup ladle for a full pound of pasta. Less for smaller amounts.

Pasta pros assemble!

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