I have always known this to be a big no in every situation, but sometimes there are exception rules in italian cooking, very rare but there are, today I came across this video where this italian nonna who is really popular on instagram with her cooking did add some oil to her water say that she did it so the pasta won’t stick. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4GeMLkr22Y/?igsh=MW8zNGFrenJib2hlZQ==
by ProteinPapi777
5 Comments
Pici are a weird exception, where they could remain sticky and the oil could help. They are a fresh dough not rolled out thinly like most pasta, so they still retain a fair amount of moisture within them. You have to treat them that way throughout – e.g. don’t leave them on an unfloured surface before cooking or they might stick to that too.
They’re not a normal.pasta because of the way they’re prepared, the gluten is not stretched and the pasta isn’t thin like stuff passed through a pasta maker.
Also grannies get a pass to do whatever they want.
I used to add some olive oil to the cooking water when I was living abroad and I had only access to very poor quality pasta, that would stick very easily to the bottom of the pan. Apart from that, it’s usually not required.
Acqua pazza is another of those Instances. We do fish fillets like that, it is a mixture of oil and water.
The oil is not there to stop the pasta sticking it is there to stop the water foaming and boiling over. You can read about it below;
[Oil stops pasta boiling over.](https://www.bonappetit.com/story/oil-in-pasta-water#)
That is just a common myth. Oil in the pasta water does nothing, the best way to prevent pasta from sticking is to stir it a couple of time