Cooking Pasta FBC style

[Curtis B.]

Pasta normally cooks for 10-15 mins. For some reason I have it stuck in my head that pre-cooking it at home and dehydrating it makes it reconstitute faster in the freezer bag with boiling water. Yet tonight when my son asked why, I couldn't tell him. Does it make a difference?

[Jennifer McFarlane]

It's because the pasta you buy at the store is dried from fresh, but was not cooked before drying.
It will rehydrate faster if you precook it and dehydrate it. I find it takes less time to dehydrate in the oven on it's lowest setting than in the dehydrator. I spread it on cookie sheets

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Exactly to the above….since pasta is in a raw form you have to cook it before eating. If you pre-cook and dry at home then your pasta only needs to rehydrate!
As well the starch is removed so you don't suffer from the dreaded small pot starch blob (ie…cooking pasta in a small amount of water constantly tweaked with so it doesn't boil over…..)

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Also….most pasta just will not cook from raw in a bag – outside of chuka soba noodles, ramen, couscous and angel hair. Raw pasta needs moving water and it being at boiling for best results. So…by doing it FBC from pre-cooked you can take nearly any pasta and not have the 4-13 minute cook times or pot/fuel to cook.

[Jennifer McFarlane]

Sarah- I learned what I wrote from you in the first place!

I have adopted many recipes in your book with great success- thank you.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Heh! Thank you :-D

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