Every day, chapter 8

Pasta, Rice & Noodles

This chapter is about starch and the water it cooks in. Pasta water is not waste: salted to about 1%, it seasons the noodle from the inside, and its dissolved starch is the glue that turns oil, cheese or egg into a glossy sauce. Rice asks a different question each time: stir it and coax out starch for risotto, leave it alone for paella and biryani, chill it overnight for fried rice. Noodles from across Asia reward a very hot pan and small batches. Learn three or four of these by heart — carbonara, a risotto, egg fried rice, a simple tomato pasta — and you will always have dinner. Where a dish leans on a basic, such as tomato sauce, pesto, stock or fresh egg pasta, we send you to Foundations rather than repeat it.

25 recipesOpen the chapter in the app