Imperfect Pasta – the Secret to the Perfect Pasta Salad
Like other foods in the mayonnaise-coated carbohydrate side dish category , pasta salad is incredibly polarizing. When it’s good, I can’t stop eating it; when it is bad, it is inedible. I found that the secret to a really good pasta salad isn’t homemade mayonnaise or a good jar of pickles – it’s really bad pasta. Refried pasta in particular.
For me, the only distinguishing feature of a bad batch of pasta salad is crispy noodles, because starches solidify at low temperatures. (If you’ve ever eaten leftover spaghetti straight out of the fridge, you know what I’m talking about.) All you have to do to combat this is to take the pasta salad noodles past the al dente point – the softer they are. when hot, the softer they will be when chilled.
For the best pasta salad, bring a saucepan of very salted water to a boil, add the pasta and cook for at least a minute or two longer than indicated on the package directions. The noodles shouldn’t offer any resistance – but shouldn’t be completely soft – when you take a bite, and they should be noticeably larger than they were at the beginning. Obviously, cooked pasta will always be larger than dry pasta, but overcooked pasta does swell:
All you have to do is let the noodles cool slightly and then season them to your liking. This particular batch of pasta salad was a fridge cleaning number: some coriander and parsley pesto to use, overripe giardia, thawed frozen peas, leftover mozzarella block, and egg jam. for good measure. It was delicious – and even after a night in the refrigerator, the pasta remained completely tender.