We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about the secret ingredients some Italians add for the perfect pasta sauce.
We’ve shared the unexpected spice Italians swear by for a lot of their sweet AND savoury dishes, too.
But in a recent TikTok, Christopher Kimball, co-founder of America’s Test Kitchen and creator of cooking school Milk Street Kitchen, revealed that we’ve all got “al dente” wrong, too.
What? How?
Speaking to Alexis Aïnouz (of @FrenchGuyCooking YouTube fame), Kimball said, “a lot of people just undercook their pasta because they say that’s ’al dente.”
He called the common misunderstanding “annoying,” and asked Aïnouz to “describe what al dente means” from his point of view.
“Al dente is supposed to be just, some sort of a firm texture,” the cooking pro said. “You are very right ― I think people are using and abusing that term.”
He added, “When it gets stuck in your back molar, that’s the sign that you’re below al dente.”
Kimball laughingly replied, “I’ve been to an Italian restaurant in New York where it was half-cooked!”
“The pasta has a different taste to it [when it’s undercooked],” Aïnouz agreed. “It’s not enjoyable.”
So... what is al dente?
According to pasta-making pros at Pasta Evangelists, the term translates to “to the tooth.”
“Al dente pasta is firm when bitten without being hard or chalky,” they explain.
Though they advise against cooking your pasta to limp misery, Pasta Evangalists say “there is a scale of al dente, and it is possible to overdo – or rather underdo – this approach to the point where the pasta is chalky and hard to digest (in Italian this is known as ‘molto al dente’).”
They advise cooking pasta for two minutes less than the recommended time, then tasting it ― “If the pasta is firm but not chalky, then it’s ready to be drained,” they say.
They add that fresh pasta usually requires significantly less time on the hob than its dried alternatives ― often as little as two minutes in boiling water.
Even though Italians swear by “al dente” pasta, they add, the definition changes from home to home and chef to chef.
So, whatever way you prefer is best.
But if your loved ones have been calling out your perfectly cooked pasta for not being punishingly tough enough in the name of “authenticity,” well, you might want to send them this.