Peter Aitken wrote:

> "Bob (this one)" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>John Gaughan wrote:
>>
>>>I tried whole wheat pasta the other day. My wife and I both think it
>>>tastes good, but it does not hold sauce well. Most likely this is due to
>>>the fact that it has less starch, which helps bond sauce to the pasta.
>>>
>>>Is this true of all whole wheat pasta? What brands do you guys
>>>recommend? Any cooking tips, should I cook it differently than normal
>>>pasta? Normally I boil it until al dente, rinse in hot water, and toss
>>>in olive oil.
>>
>>Talking about one pound of pasta. Boil, drain, DON'T RINSE, toss with
>>about 2 tablespoons butter so it doesn't stick together (drop the
>>butter into the pot you cooked the pasta in; it'll still be warm
>>enough to melt the butter quickly). Sauce at service on the plates.
>>That way, the rest of the pasta (if any) can be used for other dishes
>>with no regard for the sauce used for the first presentation.
>>
>>Butter will leave a surface better able to accept and hold sauce than
>>oil will. Rinsing removes the surface starch that would
>>(ever-so-slightly) thicken sauce that touches the pasta. 20% of butter
>>is water and that helps retain the surface starch.
>>
>>Pastorio
>>
>
> This ignores the fact that the taste of butter is incompatible with many
> sauces. Also, it seems unwise to compromise tonight's dish in order to have
> unsauced pasta for tomorrow.

The amount of butter - one ounce - is insignificant given a whole
pound of pasta. It contributes virtually no flavor to a sauced pasta.
It does prevent it from sticking and helps sauces coat the pasta
better because surface starch is gelatinized by the water in the
butter. This is how we prepared pastas in my restaurants when we
offered 10 shapes of pasta and 10 different sauces; mix and match for
100 permutations. In literally hundreds of thousands of servings, not
once did anyone ever say anything about it.

It isn't a compromise at all. Beyond the fact that it's how I learned
to deal with pasta from my grandparents from northern Italy. I saw a
lot of this when I lived there.

A standard finishing technique for many, many sauces is mounting with
butter. A dab of butter is swirled into the sauce just before service
to give sheen and depth of flavor.

Pastorio