Two Minute Pasta

[Scott W]

Spaghetti has been one of my trail staples over the years, but to cut weight, I began looking for a way to save on the simmer-time fuel needed cook it. I was trying to figure out if spaghetti could be cooked and then dehydrated for later quick cooking when I stumbled across something much simpler on a gormet pasta site: Soak regular grocery store dry spaghetti for 90 minutes in just enough cold water to slightly float it – so water circulates a bit between the noodles. If the pasta soaks up all the initial water, add just enough more that the spaghetti floats again – you can be sparing with the water as long as the noodles don’t clump together. After the 90 min. soak, boil the noodles for 1 to 2 minutes – they will be cooked. I have been dumping the rehydrated spaghetti into the pot just as it comes to a boil then starting the clock. In effect, the soaking creates fresh-made spaghetti, just as it comes out of the pasta maker. It’s already moist, so all it needs is to cook. Much of the typical ten minutes to cook pasta the usual way is spent moistening the spaghetti, which can be done with this cold water method. If you’re careful, you can do the 90 minute soak in a ziplock riding in a pack pocket, or in any sort of poly-bottle. Regular spaghetti works better than angel hair for this. Saves fuel on the trail, and makes perfect pasta at home. I have not made a fuel use comparison between dumping the cold spaghetti into the pot once the water boils vs. bringing the cold spaghetti to a boil with the water. A shorter boil time and a pot cozy might also give even more fuel savings. I wanted to get this out there in case it wasn’t already generally known by other trailside pasta lovers.

[Gary Dunckel]

Good post, Scott. I myself do something very similar with a line of Barilla’s they call Pronto Pasta. 60-90 minutes of pre-soak time and then 3-5 minutes to heat things up and rehydrate my FD chicken, tomato chunks, and zucchini, and dissolve my Alfredo or Rosa sauce. Easy, very filling, and pretty darned yummy.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

Good tip, I do this as well.  BTW, have you tried edamame pasta yet?  I have been experimenting with it; it has a high protein level (24 gm/serving) and cooks in 3-4 minutes.  My cross fit daughter recommended it.  I think that it taste pretty good.  My 2 cents.

[Scott W]

I’ll check out the Pronto Pasta, Thanks

[Scott W]

I’ll look for edamame pasta. A protein boost in a starch would be great.

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

FYI – I got my edamame pasta at Costco.

[Ken Thompson]

So how many ounces of soaking water are you carrying around to save how much fuel?

[Gary Dunckel]

No need to carry anything, Ken. I just add water to mine when I first get to the campsite, and let it soak while I’m treating my water or chasing firewood. My container (pot) with a secure lid thwarts the ants and mini-bears from messing with my goodies.

[MJ H]

Do you salt the water you use to soak the pasta or just when you boil? Maybe I’m overthinking this, but I have much stronger opinions about cooking pasta than I do about hiking.

[Gary Dunckel]

I don’t add salt to mine, as the FD ingredients provide all that I need.

[Scott W]

On fuel savings, it would depend on your stove. It’s one to two minutes at a boil compared to about ten on a bubbling simmer. A pot cozy would change the math for either method, but the savings come by moistening it in cold water rather than at a simmer.

As far as ounces of soaking water carried to save fuel. Good question, I got carried away by the idea of short-cooking pasta and didn’t do the engineering analysis. The amount of water I use is the minimum it takes to keep water between the noodles so they don’t clump together. I’ve done it in a Ziplock snack baggy, but prefer a quart sized baggy, and determine the min. amount of water by eyeball. Don’t know the ounces. -later- I checked, 2 ounces of spaghetti an a 1 quart Ziplock soaked in 4 ounces (weight on a postal scale, not fluid ounces) of water gave good results without having to add any during the soak, and not requiring draining off extra water. That’s to yield about 240 calories from the dry 2 ounces of spaghetti. You’d have to work your own numbers with whatever heat source you use to decide if it’s worth it to carry the extra weight for an hour and a half to save the cooking time.

Never have salted the pasta as it soaks. I guess I mainly like the mass and texture. The one to two minute cook time does end up with classic al dente (sp?) texture. I use the method at home when I remember to put it in to soak an hour and a half ahead of dinner.

What I liked about all this was it makes plain old generic spaghetti, which is cheap before a trip, and carried in pretty minimal backcounty stores if I’m running short on a trip, a more viable choice.

 

 

 

 

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

I am somewhat spit balling here (with respect to stove & fuels): assuming 2 cups of water, here is my impression

1. Alcohol (if you have simmering capability), a 10 minute simmer ~ < 8-10 ml
2. Esbit (if you have simmering capability), at Spring/Summer temperatures, 1 tablet should get you a boil and a simmer as the tablet dies down
3. Canister stove ~ 3-5 grams

My 2 cents

[Adam Holbrook]

Have any of you found a dehydrated or FD pasta sauce?  All I’ve seen is concentrated tomato paste in a tube? Thanks for the tips.

[Scott W]

Ken T. got me curious and since I have some time before I start grilling for the 4th, I’ve been trying to minimize the process. 2 oz. dry weight of pasta soaked 4 oz. of water by weight moistens the spaghetti with no clumping, and while it doesn’t need to be drained, leaves some water unabsorbed. Reducing the water for 2 oz. of pasta to 3 oz. still doesn’t require attention to keep it from clumping, so while not an absolute minimum amount of soaking water in the Ziplock, it looks one and a half times the weight of pasta is a trouble free amount of water. I just looked up the weight of a US fluid oz. of water and it is ~ 1.043 ounces weight. In other words I can’t see the marks on a measuring cup accurately enough to worry about the difference.

The neat thing I tried was to experiment with how little water I had to use for the minute or two of cooking I needed. 4 fluid oz brought to a boil was plenty to cook the already moistened spaghetti in 60 seconds once the spaghetti was added and water returned to a boil (which it did in less than a minute). If I were just making noodles with margerine, I think a quarter inch of water in the bottom of the pot would do it if you stir-boiled it, as long as all the fiddling didn’t actually lengthen the time the stove had to burn. I guess another option would be to figure out how much water you might want for, say, hot chocolate, and use that amount to cook the spaghetti, draining the leftover water into your cup for the chocolate. I’m a profligate, I carry a cup in addition to a cooking pot.

My favorite spaghetti sauce is a pouch of tomato Cup O Soup made with only enough water to get the thickness I want, with a couple of tablespoons of parmesan cheese thrown in – all done by eye. So the next round is to measure how much water I need for the Cup O Soup/parmesan to get the consistency I like, and let that determine how much water to boil the moistened pasta in.

[Scott W]

Jon, So would the fuel use be proportionally less for half a cup of water and say three minutes at a boil, or is it more complicated?

 

[Jon Fong / Flat Cat Gear]

I am not sure what you are trying to do here.  One of the reasons (at home anyway) to boil pasta in a significant amount of water is to somewhat dilute the residual starches.  At home, if you make chicken noodle soup, you boil, drain and rinse the noodles separately from the soup.  Conceptually, you should be able to cook pasta with a minimal amount of water, it’s the taste that is going to be a concern (of course, you can always experiment with this).

In terms of lower water/fuel, there could be some fuel savings here as the total mass that you are trying to heat is reduced [half a cup of water (4 oz) and 2 oz of pasta].  IMO, I like good tasting food and the amount of fuel difference that you are talking about (maybe saving 5-7 ml of 2 oz of pasta) just doesn’t seem that significant to me.  Hey I’m a foodie, what can I say.  My 2 cents.

[Scott W]

Hi Jon,

Just try it at home. I’d be interested in your foodie opinion. I get better tasting spaghetti that’s just the right amount of cooked this way than the usual way.

Here are some links. It was an article like these that gave me the idea.

http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2009/08/one-minute-pasta.html

https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/one-minute-pasta-plus-more-revolutionary-pasta-cooking-hacks-you-need-know-0156659/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cook-pasta-quick_us_56c33946e4b0b40245c7d95b

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cook-pasta-quick_us_56c33946e4b0b40245c7d95b

Take care, Scott

[Scott W]

Adam,

My parents used to have a food dryer and my Mom would dry regular jars of Ragu sauce down to something like fruit leather. If I remember right, she would spread it on wax paper until it dried enough to be rubbery, and then removed the wax paper and finished drying it on the rack. It disolved in water and was a lot better tasting than my Cup O Soup concoction.

[James Marco]

Yes, macaroni can be cooked that way. But, the original paste that it is made from can be a problem. Soaking too long can leave an inedible mass of gloop in the baggie. Like Adam, I simply dry sauce and add it to the water at camp, then I boil it for a couple minutes with the spaghetti/macaroni in it. Then let it sit in a cozy about 45 minutes or so to finish cooking and cool down to eating temperature. No, you do not need to boil it the whole time. You need to heat the proteins to the point they shrink, a lot like meat, to prevent it from turning into a paste. Then you have “cooked” macaroni. The rest is just absorbing water to soften. I often carry a 4oz baggie of pastina, little macaroni. it will cook in about 5 minutes, but is really too hot to eat. Just adding olive oil/garlic powder is good too. Adding salt will help a bit by forcing the gluten (mostly proteins) to shrink a little faster, binding the macaroni together rather than turning to goo…

[Matthew / BPL]

Newish channel Ultralight Dandy on Youtube advocates for cold-soaking pasta for culinary reasons, even at home. He explains his reasoning in this video.

[Scott W]

Hi Matthew, Thanks for the video link.

[Adam Holbrook]

Thanks Scott.  I was just trying to avoid dehydrating my own .  I have seen guys who prepare spag with sauce, dehydrate it and take it on trail with good results.  I was just looking for an easy way to get sauce into the field for pasta, tortellini etc.  Thanks all for the tips.

[Scott W]

Hi Adam,

The tomato Cup O Soup option sounds pretty barbaric, but it’s not bad with the parmesan. I guess you could thow in some Italian spice mix.

Spaghetti, garlic powder, a couple of tablespoons of butter flavored coconut oil and parmesan makes a good mass-quantities main course too. All the best.

Take care, Scott

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