6 Little Known Pasta Fundamentals that every great chef uses.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
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There are over 10,000 pasta videos on youtube, but none of them explain the 6 fundamentals that every great pasta chef uses every time they make pasta.
📚 ALL VIDEOS, BOOKS, ETC REFERENCED IN THIS VIDEO:
▪ My videos:
- Is expensive pasta worth it?: • Is expensive pasta act...
- Why cacio e pepe is so hard to execute: • Why traditional Cacio ...
- Are you buying the right olive oil?: • Are you buying the rig...
▪ Italia Squisita Channel / italiasquisita
▪ Tuna Pasta: • Pasta col tonno: origi...
▪ Alex video on dried pasta: • How I Buy Pasta Like A...
▪ Anthony Bourdain Oprah Interview: • Anthony Bourdain: The ...
Recipes from my website:
▪ Cacio e pepe - www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooki...
▪ Traditional - www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooki...
▪ Fiery Carbonara - www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooki...
▪ Spinach-Garlic: www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooki...
🧅 Join the Pickled Onion Club ➡ community.ethanchlebowski.com/
🍳 The Mouthful newsletter (free)➡ www.cookwell.com/newsletter
- Books mentioned:
- Essentials of Classic Italian cooking by Marcella Hazan: amzn.to/3MAjCb7
- Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat: amzn.to/3Tdpbho
- Mastering Pasta by Marc Vetri & David Joachim: amzn.to/3T7EIj1
Answer Key! Every moment fat was added in the [Tuna Pasta video]( • Pasta col tonno: origi... ):
1. Olive oil & basil are added to the tuna chunks to soak & infuse
2. Some of this oil is added to the pan to infuse with garlic and cook the tomato sauce
3. Chili oil is added to the cooking tomato sauce
4. More olive oil from the tuna bowl is added to adjust the sauce consistency
5. After plating, aromatic basil olive oil is drizzled over the pasta
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
1:06 1 - Layering Salt
5:05 2 - Layering Fat
11:17 3 - Sauce Consistency
16:20 4 - Choosing the 'right' Pasta
18:43 5 - Ingredient Quality Matters
20:15 6 - Plate like a Pro
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MISC. DETAILS
Music: Provided by Epidemic Sound
Filmed on: Sony a6600 & Sony A7C
Voice recorded on Shure MV7
Edited in: Premiere Pro
Affiliate Disclosure:
Ethan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to [Amazon.com](amazon.com/) and affiliated sites.
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Hope you all enjoyed this type of video, I would love to do another covering another food category, let me know what you want to see ✊✊
I'm literally the 1,000th like to this video
Thanks man, appreciate the fact that you are cool to us who are starting out in the quest of fun cooking! Cheers
Great video.
x
Can you a breakdown like this to soups and stews since we are getting into the colder months?
You forgot to mention one extremely important step in the plating proces. Warm up your plate! In my experience pasta can cool down very quickly if you drop it on a cold plate. Put your plate or bowl in the oven while making the dish and serve it on a warm plate when done cooking. This is the easiest of all the small details that improve your eating experience as it is the only one you can't screw up, unless you forget it.
An absolute must for carbonara!
Dude, I definitely forgot that step a few days ago. It's pretty cold where I live, but the change of season came up fast, this year. Simply forgetting that the cupboards get cold, made all my cooking efforts take a nose dive on delivery. Great reminder!
I use plastic, its an insulator.
That may make sense in a restaurant but why would u do that at home when you'll eat it immediately?
@@heyheytaytay like he said, pasta cools very quickly. On a warm plate, it stays warm until the last bite. And for dishes like carbonara or cacio e pepe, it keeps the sauce creamy. Try it!
It's difficult watching other cooking TH-cam channels when you've got Ethan with this level of quality content, detailed, concise, and approachable.
My favorite thing about Ethan is that there's no ego in his videos. It's not about him - it's about the food. Not going to name names, but I feel like there's been surge in channels that rely on a loud personality rather than an informative and honest approach to food. I'm so glad I found Ethan's channel.
agreed I am sick of watching 10 min recipe videos or meal prep videos. Which honestly it's just a bunch of the same recipes derivatives of classical ones but lazier. Very little videos of actual cooking info and practical ones at that.
I also enjoy Adam Ragusea for this!
@@RawrFishAE The food network and people like Gordon Ramsay really set a shitty precedent for cooking content.
cannot agree more!
My go-to emulsifier for suspension-based sauces is mustard powder. It takes a _shockingly_ tiny amount, and doesn't impact the flavor whatsoever. For a big pot of sauce for the whole family, say a gallon and a half, it takes maybe a quarter to a third of a teaspoon and a quick stir, and the separated oil slick on top of the sauce just vanishes, and the whole thing gets smooth and luscious!
Wow, never heard about that!! For someone who doesn't really see mustard powder sold, could I just put some mustard seeds in a mortar and pestle and grind them up?
@@Quantickzz Yep! Though that will add a _lot_ more flavor. The pre-ground stuff is pretty flavorless, which makes it ideal for use as an emulsifier without changing the color or flavor much.
Mustard powder (and sometimes prepared mustard) is my secret ingredient in salad dressings and “au gratin” creamy cheesy baked veggie dishes (baked au gratin cauliflower, etc.).
Mustard powder is my go to emulsifier-a tiny bit in a homemade vinaigrette and your dressing stays cohesive and delish !
I’ve never used it in a tomato sauce though, so love your comment as now I’m going to have to try it!
WOW. Never knew that! I now have a reason to use the mustard powder in my mom's cabinet 😂
Yes mustard powder is the secret ingredient in many dishes including collard greens made with Ham Hock, the only way to keep them from being greasy when plated.
Ethan. Best video yet. The deep dives that explain the “why” and not just the “how to” are greatly appreciated. More of these, please.
Agreed, this is a real “teach a man to fish” video vs basically all videos out there giving us a fish with a standard recipe. This is awesome.
Information sticks best with me when I understand why, notnl just what or how. It just sticks in my head and I can remember it. Finally made fantastic roasted vegetables after watching one of his videos.
Why is it better? Simple. It isn't!!
He is comparing high class chefs with basic home cooks.
Have you ever been to a normal restaurant around the corner? The food is just normal. Its not better or worse than you would have cooked yourself.
Its just more convenient to pay, for someone to do: buying ingredients, cutting, cooking, serving, cleaning, running getting drinks.
You dont pay for better food, you pay for convenience.
Pasta for 8€ in the restaurant around the corner is just good/ok. Its not amazing.
Pasta for 27€ at the 4,8star restaurant in your city, yes those will be amazing.
When did you last make 4 potions with ingredients for 100€? Probably fucking never. Thats why this tastes like something you have never eaten before.
if you like these kinds of vids you'll love Adam raguesa
@@ellethetransgirl3515 as long as you like his smugness along with it, Ragusea is a douche
My wife's a vegan so creamier sauces were tough UNTIL we came across cashew cream. It's basically boiled raw cashews, blended like crazy usually with a non-dairy milk. It provides an AMAZINGLY creamy base for all manner of sauces. The flavor is very neutral and takes up flavorants well while providing that nice mouthfeel. I honestly prefer it to some milk-sauces and it's a lot less finicky than some.
Totally agree! When a sauce requires cream it makes me cringe how much you need to pour it in. I rather use cashew cream. Unfortunately, cashew nuts are grazy expensive! Especially the raw cashews
@@YeeSundo you know how cashews are harvested?
Thanks for the hint!
Cashews=seed oils. Heating any seed/nut (including its juice) turns it rancid. Oleic acid through the roof. Don't do toasted or cooked seeds yikes.
+1 on Alex's Pasta series ("deep dive" is a bit of an understatement I think - his quest for dried pasta at home gets wild)
Since Alex's pasta series I'm buying better pasta (even for "weeknight cheater" dinners where we use jarred sauce with some added browned ground meatball mix or Italian sausage and herbs) and it's made a huge difference just knowing what to look for when buying.
That Alex dude is cringe AF, don’t know how y’all have the patience to watch him, his content is childish in comparison to this well-researched experiment!
@@jessehachey2732 You say its childish but to me its someone that is genuinely enjoying his research and having fun doing what he does.
I feel like Alex hit the obsessive nerd phase in his chef's journey; Ethan is like the engineer, compiling all the info and making something useful with it.
@@hardcoreplur I'd kinda' agree with that. Alex goes above and beyond what any home cook will ever bother with. No one is building his pasta drier. No one is building a home made Wok grill, nor are they even making their own dough laminator. But watching him do that stuff will help you understand why that stuff matters, and how much. It will help appreciate the pros out there and help set your own expectations for achievement in your home kitchen. And if you want to go nuts about it.... it might provide direction.
I’ve never had pasta at a restaurant that was better than what I make at home. I have always followed not only these rules but a few more as well, including making my own sauce, canning my own tomatoes, and growing my own herbs.
Agreed
Same here, although I think that's more to do with where I live and the quality of restaurants/ chefs than my own skills 🤣 I did try Jamie Oliver's Italian once, was pretty underwhelming.
That's what I was thinking when I read the title. I would say my homecooked food is better than the food served in 80-90% of restaurants but to be fair I can afford best quality ingredients that a normal restaurant cannot buy because they would raise the prices for their dishes so high noone would buy them. I only go to restaurants when travelling but lately I found the quality in many restaurants is so underwhelming you would have a nicer "dinner" just buying a high quality sandwich.
@@michaelkores6860 I found the same thing, when I go to most restaurants I think "I can make this better". I thought it might be because my own cooking had improved (it has), but it's just because the restaurants have become worse? Is that a post-covid thing? You'd think all mediocre restaurants wouldn't have survived that period.
I think that more and more restaurants use too much convenience products and frozen products because they save manpower and labour is most expensive (don't forget that it was common until some years ago to avoid taxes and pay your staff partly in cash which isn't that easy anymore).@@erwintimmerman6466
Ethan, your videos are so well structured, written, edited and have a positive approach. It takes a lot of nuance to make these things accessible to home cooks.
Thank you, mate.
BTW, if you ever consider making that Torchys Diablo Sauce, I'll be looking for that notification.
Thank you! This video was a bear to nail down the script in a coherent way, so glad to hear that it hit the mark!
@@EthanChlebowski No worries, it hit the mark, and then some. I’ve never given so much thought to pasta, but this all makes so much sense. Exceptionally well done. But then again, so are all your vids.
@@EthanChlebowski I definitely come to your channel to understand the method of cooking more than just a recipe. I've learned a lot here! Thank you 😊👍
Definitely keep making vids like this, I love the food science and easy breakdown of concepts. I'd say that your channel is like 60% of the reason I've become a much better cook over the past year and a half.
I love these videos. As a young man, it was Alton Brown who really struck me and gave me the inspiration to cook, myself. Most of the time that was due to the breakdown of science, technique, method, interpretation, history, etc. You are really expanding on the aspect of "cooking media" that got me into this, in the first place.
This is the most informative channel I’ve ever seen
One of my all-time go to pasta recipes is the tomato pasta Andrew from About to Eat made in his “how I cooked 20 pounds of tomatoes” video. Adding the basil and garlic right near the end before blending it absolutely transforms the flavours of the dish
Hot/warm plates are another key thing for me, especially when it comes to dairy & emulsion based sauces.
If the pasta cools down to quickly, the sauce will thicken up too much and give the impression of being dry, especially as the parm topping is mixed in while eating.
yeah but remember pasta cools down too much in a restaurant because all their chefs and waitreses are running around like headless chickens trying to make 10 other dishes other dishes and people happy at the same time, they can easily forget serving time within 1-10 minutes or longer.
Meanwhile at HOME it's just YOU and the PAN you Eat as SOON as it's settled.
you don't need a hot/warm plate at home only restaurants need it.
@@mentalasylumescapee6389 I used to work at an Italian restaurant and we'd get the pasta out to the table within 2 minutes as the absolute max. With heat lamps and hot plates there was hardly ever an issue.
If I cook for myself, I sometimes just eat right from the pot. It also depends on the sauce, a tomato-based sauce won't need hot plates so much, but if you let an dairy based sauce like Alfredo or an emulsion based sauce like Carbonara cool down even a little too much it's one big sticky mess.
@@timhaubeil what did you serve "2 minute noodles"? HAHAHAHAHA
I really appreciate the blend of art and science. As a (now) former chef and science nerd, I really got into Alton Brown's Good Eats back in the day. Your channel really brings me back to that. Subscribed. Thank you!
alton has a youtube with his wife
@@LastbutNotFirst is it still quarantine quitchen?
I watched a couple. It’s not Good Eats. And sometimes you just gotta move on to next.
Absolutely superb video. If you've been a fan of Ethan's and have been watching him for some time now as I have, this video is a culmination of tips he has passed on through prior videos. One thing to keep in mind, practice makes perfect. Whether it be pesto or even the very simple Marcella Hazan tomato sauce, every attempt will help you dial in your consistency and execution. Don't sweat it if you think you "failed" the first time. Pasta is finicky business. This is just a very thoughtfully put-together general instruction manual. Well done sir. I think this will be the blueprint to which many home cooks turn when searching out how to become better at making pasta.
Here it also depends on which restaurant one goes to eat ! Because in most cases, I as an Italian, the pasta dish I make at home is much much better than many restaurants ! (and here I am particularly referring to so many so-called "Italian" restaurants around the world).
Yup, grew up with an italian mother. Going oit for italian is a waste of time and money.
I'm not Italian but I lived in Naples when I was a kid and I find 99% of the pasta from American "Italian" restaurants boardline inedible.
I really loved the canned tomato video. I was pretty happy to hear that I wasn’t being fooled by spending more for the DOP San Marzano. I am seriously digging these types of videos.
You’re raising the bar higher and higher with each video. Way to go man
My way of making homemade pasta be more restaurant grade is to plate smaller portions haha
"There are over 10,000 pasta videos on TH-cam - I, myself, added probably at least 20" that had me rolling. Thanks you are humble but good.
Crazy how well made these videos are. Very well thought out, everything you need to know, things you never even considered but actually really matter, all shot very well, with nothing you don't need.
Hello, great video I would like to add an element though -
When I was in college I thought that pasta shape was something that I could really save some pennies and shelf space, however I think the pleasure you loose is not worth it the savings.
Oil based sauces (e.g. pesto genovese; olio aglio peperoncino) -> flat string pasta like spaghetti or bucatini - you don' t really want to eat all that oil.
Tomato loose sauces (e.g. puttanesca; tomato sauce) -> shaped pasta like orecchiette, penne, mezze penne - the sauce gets in the shapes
Thick sauces (e.g bolognese; carbonara) -> Flat rough pasta like tagliatelle and fettuccine -grip better the little pieces of meat
Soups -> ditalini, stelline - seriously I don't know why to buy them at all.
As side note:
Fusilli are like a "joker" in deck of cards for oil and loose sauce pasta - please no fusilli carbonara, please.
Paccheri and cannelloni are nice to be stuffed.
Farfalle, ruote and other arguable shapes - I highly encourage to leave them on the shelf.
I made cannelloni marinara one time. _One_ time. 🤣
Ethan, I'm a huge fan, I'm learning so many things from you and your videos and I'm so glad I ended up on your channel many months ago! I'm italian (as in "from Italy") and during the whole video I was like "... we don't cook like this"; but then when I was trying to explain what was different I just... didn't know how to explain it? Italian cuisine is really deep into habits, traditions, and instinct, so it's not easy to say why the ways you cook pasta look so alien to me. So you know what? I'm perfectly ok with this video, it may be far from italian traditions, but that's fine, you never had the presumption to call it traditionally italian and I embrace different interpretations of our cuisine, it's also very informative and many of the things you explained are things I do instinctively, which will benefit those who lack this kind of "tradition-induced instinct"!
P.S. just put no water in aglio e olio like we do in Italy and you'll never mess up the sauce :) I've been using a wok to make mine lately as it allows me to better dial in the quantity of oil and mix it into the pasta
Thank you so much for this, love this type of video. I feel like home cooks like me learn to really cook by thinking like a chef and understanding why you're doing what you're doing rather than just following recipes. Definitely make this a series!
The only thing i enjoy seeing is someone talking about a subject that THEY themselves are enthralled and impassioned by. Thats pretty much why i love watching anything created by Ethan. Thanks for all the great lessons and high-level quality production creations. This channel is such a high caliper level it's easy to forget you're not nationally syndicated....but defiantly should be. You're GREAT !
I have really upped my pasta game in the past three or four years, and this video would have been really nice to have through that journey. 😂 That said, these are great fundamental concepts! I’ve been casually watching your videos for a while but this pushed me to subscribe. 🎉
Ethan your videos are so analytical and educational! I feel I'm turning into a professional from a home chef with your knowledge! Thank you!!
Truly enjoying your more in-depth videos on techniques and food science. They seem very well balanced and provide just the right amount of information for home cooks like myself that are trying to up our game a bit while holding down a day job. Good old fashioned recipe videos are of course always appreciated, but please keep these instructional/deep-dive vids coming, too!
This was fantastic, Ethan. A veritable compendium of pasta knowledge. Bravo!
I would love to see more like this for other dishes 🙏
Your series of videos that break down the step-by-step information like this has elevated my cooking to fantastic levels. I find myself a great deal more inventive and exploratory in the kitchen, and it is all thanks to you. Thanks, Ethan. Your videos are amazing.
One of your best yet. You and Adam Ragusea I follow with great interest as you get behind the science in cooking and not just whipping together whatever. Thank you.
Can’t tell you how many pasta dishes I’ve destroyed because all I ever here from other videos is GENEROUSLY salt the water.
Love this video! The biggest step by far in my home cooking of pasta was the emulsification. It makes such a difference to properly agitate the pasta and get the pasta properly coated by the sauce and get it all smooth and silky. Game changer.
Always enjoy watching these deep dives into the theory/science of how to make foods taste better and trying to incorporate the lessons into everyday cooking. Thanks for all of the awesome content!
Excellent, comprehensive breakdown. This feels a bit like a sequel to your "why are restaurant vegetables better?" video and honestly, I'd love to see more of these, this would make for a fun series. In fact, this video easily could have had a title more in line with that previous video, like, "Why are restaurant pasta dishes so much better than homemade?"
Awesome work as always Ethan 😊
I love your videos. Instructive, well-edited, and varied. I have used them in my college courses to show students how to look at topics in a complete fashion and explain findings.
Great video. I have done this sort of layering to some degree just because common sense made it reasonable. Nice to see it clarified
For cacio e pepe, I figured out a helpful visual cue to avoid stringy sauce since I don't have a thermometer. I simply wait until there's little to no steam coming off the pasta.
Great info. One detail--I struggled with background music volume (and random diversity of musical styles/moods) in this video. It was often distracting & hard to hear your voice--don't remember music standing out in other vids. Please consider for those of us with some hearing loss and/or executive functioning challenges--thank you!
Fantastic video! I love the in-depth explanations. This is a very unique perspective on making great pasta dishes that will probably change my life for the better. Now I can't wait to make pasta again!
Hi Ethan. Thank you for a great video. This brings back great memories for me. My mother was born in Italy and her family came to Australia. I was the first-gen Aussie, lol. I remember as a kid making sauces and soups, there was a dedicated pasta rolling board that had its own place on hooks on the back door to the kitchen. As a kid, I grew up making fresh pasta and potato gnocchi We had a small garden and when the tomatoes were in season we made polpette and preserved it. I grew up with real Italian food, despite living in Australia. I hope the situation is better where you are. Here I have been to many Italian restaurants here and have always been disappointed. The food has never been as good as my Nonna's. Best wishes.
Damn I just love how detail and well organized your videos are. They make so much sense and are helpful af
I love these "meta" deep dive videos where you teach how to think differently about a category of foods. Please make more!
I love your educational videos. I’m watching them multiple times so I can replicate as close as possible and become a better cook. Thank you for your time and efforts. (I also think plating helps your food look better and people believe your a better cook too)
this and the garlic one are just everything i've ever needed to make the greatest aglio i olio in existence (the babish "chef" recipe + a small amount of very finely chopped raw garlic in the pan in the last seconds of cooking just to add a little bit of pungency + the addition of fresh parm and crisp garlic chips as garnishes). me and my husband ate an entire 500g -- basically a pound -- pot of pasta in a single dinner bc it was just TOO delicious. thank you so much, ethan!
I think it was Nigella Lawson who said "fat is taste". Certainly my elderly aunts in Italy practiced that, but never more than in making carbonara. When preparing the sauce they only use part of the fat rendered from the pancetta (sorry, but they don't use guanciale) and reserve the remaining fat. After the sauce and pasta have been well mixed, they mix in the remaining pancetta fat. Yes, you can feel your arteries hardening just looking at it, but OMG is it ever good !
i rarely find better pasta than what i make at home.
You're already getting praised left and right, Ethan. But I just want to say you are far and away the best cooking channel on TH-cam. I was actually on the phone with my brother, talking about how much I love your videos. Your way of teaching concepts rather than recipes helps so much in the kitchen. I just made pasta using the risotto-style method you talked about in your other video. It turned out fantastic. I will be applying some of the things in this video the next time. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication. You are awesome!
You’re breakdown videos like these and the tomatoes and spice videos are half the reason I’ve become a better cook. I truly can’t thank you enough!!! You excel at the scientific approach to cooking that has helped me understand how to better my cooking (and it’s not even that hard, it’s logical that when I put it into practice it’s like ‘of course!!!’). You’re the best Ethan 🤩
My favourite Italia Squisita video is the one from Luciano explaining the 5 basic ways of cooking pasta and obviously his carbonara and Cacio Pepe videos. A visit to Rome is still the best way of understanding Roman pasta dishes. The mouthfeel, and the correct flavour profile are hard to get if you don’t know what ‘good’ tastes like. Getting the correct ingredients is still challenging in a lot of Europe, let alone in America, like proper Bronze-die pasta (De Cecco is alright if you can’t get the good stuff like Monograno Felicetti), Guanciale, Pecorino Romano but online is a good idea.
With this video and the recent bacon one I feel like I'm learning some really useful stuff. Enjoying the direction you're going in with this channel.
I loved this video. I was surprised at how much difference it made using better pasta. I had always thought the brand didn’t matter so much until Alex’s videos. I appreciate all the tips.
Great video Ethan. For me, understanding how to exploit salt and fat and using a better quality pasta did so much to my pasta dishes. I rarely feel like ordering pasta out because i actually enjoy the pasta I make now!
This channel seriously needs more subscribers with all these good insights. Not just information--INSIGHTS. Stuff that isn't obvious or typically shared by other people, and in a very organized fashion too. 1.29M subscribers isn't enough!
Nice in the aglio e olio to reserve some (or all) of the sautéed garlic and add it on the top :) gives a nice visual/texture contrast, i find when i add the water directly to the garlic it just gets kinda wet/disolves. when you add it on the top it tastes amazing and looks beautiful.
Super helpful! I found this channel when someone one on Reddit recommended it & subscribed right away. Thanks for making this stuff seem accessible to home cooks!
I am always impressed that you turn food into a science. That's why I like your channel.
Mark Ventri’s egg yolk pasta is so legit. It’s my go-to fresh pasta dough for sure!
I now want to scrap my plans for lentil soup and make pasta for dinner to practice my newfound thinking like a pasta chef!
I love your clear countertops that allow room for cooking. Great video and I appreciate your efforts.
Great video, Ethan! Love your clear breakdown of the factors that go into a great dish of pasta. We live in Abruzzo and in the central to southern areas of Italy you lose 3 fats for pasta sauces....eggs, cream, butter. It becomes mainly olive oil and pasta water emulsions, with some tomato sauces, and pecorino/sheep ricotta as your cheeses. What's popular now are pureed veggie sauces like crema di zucchine or asparagus (but no cream, only olive oil!) It helps that the olive oil in those regions is super buttery, not acidic, and they use a ton of it in a dish. It's amazing how creamy and rich the simple emulsions of oil and cooking juices/water are, especially in the seafood pastas along the Adriatic. Definitely an art and technique which I'm finally figuring out after watching a lot of Italia Squisita, Giallo Zafferano, and eating out and dissecting the plates. The main technique that has to be mastered is the "mantecare" or sauteeing in the pan of the pasta with starchy pasta water to create the emulsion, as well as the layering of the fat/salt. In the case of most seafood pastas, no cheese is allowed, so you really have to rely on your technique. I use very little water to boil my pasta to maximize the starch and pull it out when it's still quite al dente...about 2-3 min early. It will finish in the pan. Fresh pasta is a whole different culinary technique, and the further south you go the more you encounter eggless fresh pasta which can be amazing (like lagane in Calabria.)
Having a chemistry background really helped me figure out these things myself. I think one thing you missed in this video is the amount of water: always use barely enough water to immerse the pasta to maximize the concentration of your starchy water. A pan is much better than a pot for boiling pasta. Restaurants use those huge pots because they cook lots of batches of pasta and the water gets very concentrated for amazing sauce creation. In fact I would argue a lot of sauces are impossible to make at home using a large pot and lots of water to boil pasta unless you are making huge portions for a party. And BTW, the "grandma's way" of adding olive oil into the water doesn't work.
I really really love Carbonara because it's entirely self-contained and fool-proof. You don't need to add any extra fat, salt, and emulsifier because every component to make good pasta is built-in to the ingredients. I generally don't like the idea of traditional water-based pasta sauce because it's just plain inferior to using emulsifiers/stabilizers. Making pasta sauce follows the exact same theory as making good stir-fry sauce: in traditional stir-fry technique chefs always use a starch slurry to create an emulsion to get a glistening saucy dish instead of a greasy/watery mess.
I agree with you about the amount of water. Found that out for myself.
"I generally don't like the idea of traditional water-based pasta sauce because it's just plain inferior to using emulsifiers/stabilizers."
Starchy water is an emulsifier. So pasta water is an emulsifier by definition as it is starchy water. You even say it yourself in the last sentence. Use starchy water (starch slurry). So you're saying your method of using starchy water is inferior somehow to other techniques?
i really want a video like this on fried rice
explaining the science and giving comparisions between the execution of different recipes
Great vid, I've basically learned all of this by watching your pasta vids and have been experimenting like crazy! Thanks for the inspiration
Love the in depth videos. I've learned so much from the last few. Love your other videos too but these are incredibly good. ❤🙏🍝
nothing beats the pasta at home, im Italian of course. seriously no one in my home would ever eat pasta out.
Oh I totally get this. I detest getting pasta out. It never tastes right when someone else makes it and it's so expensive!
Yes, of course for us, Italians, it's so much better to make pasta at home, you can adjust it to your tastes, and we can easily make a plate that will put most 'Italians restaurant' abroad to shame. Another issue is especially because if we want to eat a respectable quantity (which in my book is at least 150g of dry pasta per person, but I guess I'm a very hungry dude), you would go out to the restaurant and sometimes they give you only half of that for 15-20€/$, while at home you can make it for 3 or 4. If you cook something else, like meat, you don't save the same amount of money compared to buying a meal from a cheap restaurant or food truck or kebab-type joint.
Okay, for you Italians, I get what you're saying, but do you eat at restaurants much at all? When you do, what do you like to get instead of pasta?
@@j3ffn4v4rr0 Most Italians go out to eat pizza (unless you have a wood oven at home and serious skills it's not easy to make). We also go out a lot to eat fish and meat dishes, which are harder to make home compared to pasta and there's less of a price difference between cooking them home and eating out. Of course we also often eat pasta out, however as I said before paying 15/20€ instead of 3-4 for basically the dame thing is not very convenient. If there's any event, like holydays or birthdays or graduations and stuff, we typically eat a multiple-course meal at the restaurant, and pasta is very likely going to be "primo" or "first dish", which comes right after the appetizer. We would typically only get 2-3 pasta dishes even if we are 10 or 20 people, so the kitchen of the restaurant can make it faster and deliver it in huge plates from where everyone takes how much they want to eat. Eating carbohydrates at the start of the meal gives you high glycemic index (% of sugar in your blood), which in turns gets you a lot more hungry exactly at the times the "seconds" come, meat or fish high in protein and fat that go down a lot easier in this phase. That's how everyone, even children or small people can bare to eat 5000cal a meal on celebrations (and Christmas time in southern Italy maybe even more).
Right? I guess we were spoiled by having the actual grandmother instead of the fake one on the jar. Sauce was made every week, frozen and distributed to family. I've never, ever had red sauce that was better than my grandmothers. It's impossible for people to appreciate the real thing. Like telling the colorblind about rainbows. As far as properly cooking any decent pasta, anyone who can't get that right might as well move into a zoo.
Nutritionist here : Suggesting olive oil is in any way, shape or form 'not healthy' (as is done repeatedly in the video) is not just outdated, but plain wrong. Olive oil by itself has zero negative contribuition to human health, even if added in insane amounts. Why? You can't really absorb a lot of the calories in olive oil, it will act as a laxative.
Secondly, in smaller (tastier!) amounts olive oil - or for that matter any oil - will reduce the glycmic load of carbs. The carbs in the pasta make people fat, cause bad cholesterol to rise and in general have pretty much exclusively negative effects on human health (or are neutral). Adding fats to carbs means despite the total meal calories going up, the total negative effect on human health is reduced. Fats slow down the spiking insuline that carbs cause, which in turn means that the calories are absorbed slower and hence don't cause the cascade of downsides of high insuline (insuline resitance, fat depositing in the belly area etc).
Olive oil can be added to the point it negatively effects flavors, simple. Forget about the calories it contains, and focus only on flavors and textures it adds. The antioxidants and healthy fats olive oil contribute to the meal are a nutritional boon that your body will thank you for.
Not only do we have ample research showcasing the healthy nature of olive oil vs most other fats, but the entire mediterreanean diet is based around olive oil. And for good reason! :)
ETHAN! Your videos are fantastic! I have been cooking and baking for years but I am learning so much from you. Much like Alton Brown and Good Eats, you give us the why and how. Subscribed after the first vid. Addicted! Thank you so much!
This was great! Definitely would love to see more videos like this in the future
Love this. Ethan, you are so knowledgeable. Thanks for sharing your knowledge! I made a sausage/fennel pasta last week using your FABULOUS risotto method -- my husband took a bite, looked up and said, "Wow." 💞
I think you have come a long way with your pasta journey. I love your pasta videos and this video brings it all together. So really perfect to start with this video and get lost into all the rabbit holes later (good links to your additional videos). Just a perfectly defined and thought out video here
extremely helpful framework, thanks
I've been making pasta for a while and I don't think I'm too bad at it, but thinking about layering is quite insightful for modulating my intuition
I LOOOOOOVE Italia Squisita!!!!! Thank you for breaking it down
Dude what a level up. I have been following you since 40k and this new level of production tells me you are on the way right now. Way to apply years of learning and make it accessible. I am passing this along to a fellow teacher of mine who runs the cooking classes at my school.
Ethan your videos are fantasticly informative. Will you do more fast food races with your brother?
I'd love to see more of these, I quite enjoy them!
Yep! We just got done filming another one of those too, should be out in a couple weeks 👍
@@EthanChlebowskiAwesome! Your channel has been an inspiration to get me back in the kitchen. Keep doin what you do!
I love how you explain all of this! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
I really loved Alex videos on pasta topics but your video brings me some fondamental missing information , many thanks for your hard work!!!
For me, pasta is mostly a hearty, volume meal. My sauces are deep and rich, I never skimp on the fat, and I'm plenty happy with the results. If I feel like artisanal cooking, it's not usually pasta that gets my attention, though I do make my own fresh pasta when the mood strikes and then I try for a fussier sauce.
Ethan is the Jeff Nippard of cooking.
Man I love watching this videos, it teaches me so much with little experience and I appreciate you for that
Such a great video. This channel really is a treasure. I appreciate the way he approaches cooking.
This video is a masterpiece. Thanks!
#4 I was amazed when I tried the store brand Imported bronze cut pasta. It was very affordable, held the sauce better, tastes better and both my local Safeway and Kroger offer it. Worth a bit extra.
The graphs always visualize everything so well
please more videos like this, really useful and covers topics i cant quite get by following recipes
Pasta is incredibly hard to learn the first time. But when you’ve made your first successful “pasta”, you will ALWAYS make great pasta for the rest of your life even if blindfolded
I differ. Pasta is incredibly easy to make the first time. That makes a person want to make and eat it more.
After that it's just improvement.
Pasta hard?
Just boil water, add salt, add pasta, wait 9 minutes (or the pasta type time on the package), and done.
Seriously how is this difficult? It's super basic stuff
@@seileen1234 can you eat that on its own? Pasta has a sauce. It takes many many tries to finish a savory, restaurant style “pasta” instead of the kiddie pasta at dennys you come up with on your first 5 tries.
@@jerolvilladolid I'm Italian.
Just take some olive oil, garlic, tomato sauce and basil. Takes literally the time of the pasta to make, super easy and fast and really tasty.
Another one?
Just chop one onion, use some olive oil, and some canned tuna. Same time as above
Oh, and you know we eat pasta with just some butter and parmigiano? Or just with olive oil?
Yes, the horror! No garlic, no bacon, no tomato, no parsil, no strange techniques or other bullshit fake Italian ingredients.
Just put butter and cheese over coocked pasta, it's simple but good, so yes, you can do it.
Italian cuisine is simple but everyone outside Italy seems to have the need to overcomplicate everything, so please, just follow the ultra basic instruction and your cuisine will be unironically more Italian than Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver as those people for example add oil to the pasta water (jesus christ wtf) just to appear fancy.
It's just useless and stupid, like garlic or onions in carbonara
@@seileen1234 no doubt about it. Pasta is the exiest thing in the world to make. It's like saying oatmeal is hard to make.
I try to avoid ordering pasta at restaurants because they often serve thimbles (unreasonably tiny portions) of it.
This is the best video you’ve ever done. Love the style your channel is headed.
I love your deep dives. Keep them coming
It's hard to not get excited every time Ethan puts out a new video, always guaranteeing to learn something that will change the way I cook.
I personally would love to see a video breaking down how to cook high quality meals for large groups of people. Not sacrificing Quality for Quantity.
You can determine the quality of a pasta dish, from smelling the sauce and from looking at the cooked pasta: spaghetti ought to jump when you roll them in the fork, not lay flat overlooked in a sad state😮
So I never had pasta in USA
Thank you for your great content Ethan. Always really educational and interesting. Love your channel.
Great video! I like these deep dives to simple fundamental dishes! I would appreciate a video like this for soups and stews since the weather is getting colder. Thanks again for the amazing content, keep it up!
This video is very focused on European style pasta, does anything change when looking at Asian styles? (outside of potato starch as a thickener, is there anything else different?)
Definitely agree with adding something to stabilise any emulsion. My partner loves shelf-stable mayo, so a dollop of that with its industrial-strength emulsifiers will help bring any sauce or dressing together
im in early! this just so happens to be EXACTLY the video i need lately and at amazing timing. i love your videos and i love that you cite On food and cooking, one of my favorite food science books ive read personally. You make learning culinary skills fun, unlike culinary schools which nearly ruined cooking for me by being so harsh and hells' kitchen esque
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Did you just butcher the carbonara with a blender???
This is a great video, it’s on the “why” something is rather than a “how” to video 😊
Have been searching for this kind of video like a month ago, haven't found one. Now this just come out. Really great and helpful video!!! Thank you Ethan.