How to add the pasta to the sauce – ‘mantecare’ The Italian way
Everyone has been told at some time or another: ‘Don’t throw away your pasta water!’ But why shouldn’t you, and what do you do with it?
It has everything to do with what the Italians call ‘mantecare’ or ‘mantecatura’. It is a word that doesn’t translate properly into Dutch [or English], but it has to do with the technique of producing a creamy texture in a dish. Pasta water plays a major part in that technique, as it contains the starch released by the pasta during cooking. The starch turns the pasta water into a kind of natural glue that you can use to make your sauce even softer and creamier. So, what do you do?
Boil the pasta, drain it but save one glass full of pasta water. Next, add the drained pasta to the pasta sauce in the pan along with a dash of the pasta water (about 60 ml) and cook them through briefly.
Buon appetitto!
