Pasta Dishes - What's the trick?

[ChocoholicsAnnomymous]

What's the trick to making a really good Pasta Dish please? Restaurant style.

[allegretto]

Depends on the dish.

[Joinourclub]

Tomato dishes: use pasata

Restaurant ' tricks ' are usually butter and salt

[PurpleDaisies]

What sort of thing do you want to make? I think usually it's having really good ingredients because there's nowhere to hide.

[UniversallyUnchallenged]

Sorry to add in - carbonara?
What is 'the trick' - I love it! But can't make it

[INeedNewShoes]

Anything tomatoey needs cooking slowly for a long time to be rich.

Most dishes will involve garlic which needs to be cooked just enough to give the dish depth of flavour. Overcooked garlic is bitter and nasty.

As a pp mentions, most restaurant pasta dishes will have a generous amount of salt.

[ChocoholicsAnonymous]

Your typical tomato sauce dishes

[Melassa]

Carbonara -you need to set aside some of the pasta water and use it when folding in the eggs. It helps make the effect creamy instead of scrambled egg.

Tomato sauces - I personally dislike passata, I find it too sweet except for in one recipe, where you cook it with butter and rosemary. For other sauces I prefer a good quality chopped tomato and cook it down until it's reduced. The better quality the tomato the less cooking down you need.

[Bobbiepin]

A little spoonful of sugar in tomato sauces. And always add pasta to sauce not sauce to pasta.

[AlternativeTentacle]

Never put the sauce onto the pasta on the plate. Put the pasta into the sauce and then serve.

[UniversallyUnchallenged]

Melassa

Thank you - do you mix it with the eggs before you add them? Roughly how much?

[ChocoholicsAnonymous]

Thanks, I'll have to give these a try

[verybookish]

Buy good quality pasta. In my experience the most common mistake made is to cook the pasta in too small a pot. Cool it in a big and tall pot so the water to pasta ratio is right. Salt the water with proper salt. On 500 gr of pasta I would use two small fists of sale grosso. Don't overcook it. Of course.

[maybeitsbecauseim]

For carbonara, this explains it really well, I think: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/14/rachel-roddy-carbonara-recipe-kitchen-rome

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

The secret to most restaurant dishes is olive oil and salt. They don't worry about trying to be healthy! For tomato sauces I think the key is a long cooking time and a little added sugar.

[UniversallyUnchallenged]

Maybe - thank you. A small teacup size amount of water, looking forward to it!