Our recipes ask you to save some of the cooking water when you drain cooked pasta. The reason for this is that the cooking water, which has starch in it from the pasta, as well as flavor and some salt, is a much better moistener than, say, the olive oil most people are tempted to use. If you keep adding oil to a pasta dish to moisten it, you’ll end up with a very oily dish. If you add pasta water, you’ll end up with a dish that is light, flavorful, and the sauce will thicken just the tiniest bit from the starch in the cooking water.
July 10, 2010
