Although I'm more than up for foraging and baking bread on a Sunday (once I stop huffing), that's definitely not how I eat on many weeknights. Especially if I am only cooking for myself. At those times I revert to the recipes in the "extremely quick and forever reliable" folder in my brain. One of the staples and stars of that collection is frozen tortellini. I'm not proud of it, and if frozen stuffed pasta isn't your thing, then just ignore the rest of the post. Look at the flower.
If you do sometimes rely on frozen pasta, then this is for you. Do you ever screw up the cooking times with your tortellini? That stuff is delicate. If you undercook, you could end up with spinach and ricotta ice cubes inside the dough and if you let it boil for too long, you get disgusting mush. There's about a twenty second window where these guys are perfect (or as perfect as they're going to get), and I have yet to figure out exactly what it is. Sometimes I hit upon it by sheer luck.
Because I consistently strive for perfection in everything I do, I came up with a solution for my disappointing pasta: I steamed it. Yup. I treated them like little Chinese dumplings, threw them in my steamer and let them go for about 10 minutes. Actually, I have no idea how long I let them cook for; I was too preoccupied with my sauce. But unlike boiling, it's fine to ignore your steaming pasta. It's a much more gentle process, so the window of perfection is a lot bigger. I would say between 8 and 15 minutes, although I am definitely making up those numbers. In the end, you get hot pasta with all of it's textural integrity intact. It might even have a nicer texture. Plus you don't have to drain it after. You could also try this trick with fresh pasta. No reason why it wouldn't work.
After I first did this, I forced my flatmates to acknowledge and discuss my brilliance for 20 minutes. The fact that they avoided me in the kitchen for four days afterwards was undoutedly a sign of their respect for my culinary skills.
It's so nice to have you do all of the research for us. It makes our decision making so much easier!! Thanks.
Posted by: MBT Shoes | July 16, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Brilliant! Such a tough thing to time, those little tortellinis!...sometimes rubber, sometimes gluey...UGH! The steamer idea is wonderful and then they also won't stick together. I wonder where such culinary wisdom might originate???
Posted by: Erika Lavigne | April 11, 2008 at 06:37 PM
Deep down I knew you were a frozen pasta user, Jess. How can we help it though? There is something so thoroughly Ottawa yuppie about quick and "fresh" ravioli -- we are but products of our upbringing. (BTW, your extensive use of exclamation marks is why I keep you on retainer (!!!!).) xk!
Posted by: Katie | April 03, 2008 at 12:07 PM
Yes yes yes! This post is amazing! We also cook frozen pasta for random lengths of time, and sometimes it gets all water-logged and nasty! Steaming is the solution! How did i not see it before?!
But seriously, all these exclamation points are heartily deserved. This is truly groundbreaking. Your brilliance is unmatched.
Posted by: jess | April 03, 2008 at 03:49 AM