Key TakeawaysThrough his performing, writing and social media, Stanley Tucci is well-known for his love of meals, notably pasta.Tucci recommends saving your pasta-cooking water, because the starches assist the sauce cling. And he says to not rinse your pasta.As for sauce, Tucci advises to toss your pasta into the sauce as a substitute of ladling sauce on prime.
By means of his performances as Secondo in Huge Night time, Paul Baby in Julie & Julia and host of the Emmy-winning collection Trying to find Italy, actor, author, filmmaker and writer Stanley Tucci has a legacy that’s now inextricably intertwined with meals, and particularly pasta.
The beloved performer eats pasta for breakfast and, together with his 4 books, private Instagram and the CNN collection, has taught many a lesson on put together a superb plate of pasta in sensible, accessible methods. Learn on for a few of his finest pasta cooking recommendation.
Tip 1: Save That Pasta-Cooking Water
Earlier than you drain your cooked pasta via a colander, dip a heatproof measuring cup into the pot to save lots of a few cups of pasta cooking water. This heat, salty, starchy elixir is the important thing to creating silky, emulsified sauces that cling to the pasta strands. It’s the key ingredient in Cacio e Pepe, Carbonara and Spaghetti alla Nerano (the zucchini-basil pasta Sophie Turner says reminds her of residence), which Tucci shares in his 2022 memoir Style: My Life By means of Meals. The pasta water acts as a bridge to assist wealthy elements—eggs and aged cheeses—emulsify to create velvety, creamy sauces that cling to the strands of pasta.
Tip 2: Don’t Rinse It
In his first e book, The Tucci Cookbook, Tucci shares a tip he realized from chef buddy Gianni Scappin. “By no means rinse cooked pasta below chilly water,” he says. “This washes away the pasta’s pure starch and taste, and sauces is not going to adhere as nicely.” That is true for heat sauces, however much more so when one plans to make use of chilled pasta for pasta salad. As an alternative, Tucci recommends draining the pasta in a colander, tossing it with a bit of olive oil, and spreading it out on a baking sheet to chill down. Then you may make your pasta salad or stash the pasta in an hermetic container within the fridge to make use of later.
Tip 3: Know the Guidelines and Additionally Break the Guidelines
A standard false impression individuals have about pasta, mentioned Tucci in an episode of Waitrose’s Dish Podcast, is that any kind of pasta will be paired with any kind of sauce. He cites the favored (outdoors of Italy) mixture of spaghetti Bolognese, which, in its origin metropolis of Bologna, is a meat sauce (referred to as ragù) that will at all times be paired with tender ribbons of tagliatelle or one other recent pasta. Every kind of pasta, in Italian custom, is related to particular dishes and accompaniments. On the identical time, Tucci has no qualms about riffing on Bolognese or combining leftover pasta and cooked beans for an on-the-fly pasta e fagioli on Instagram. In the end Tucci’s message is that meals is supposed to be loved, so don’t sweat the principles an excessive amount of whenever you’re cooking for your self.
Tip 4: Don’t Drown It in Sauce
When requested on Waitrose’s Dish Podcast about his pasta pet peeves that non-Italians make, Tucci answered “an excessive amount of sauce,” a standard pitfall if one is cooking pasta, plating it after which ladling sauce on prime. Tucci’s pasta recipes virtually invariably name for tossing cooked pasta within the sauce so that every chew is glossed with a lightweight coating, fairly than swimming in a pool of it.
Tip 5: Par-Prepare dinner Pasta Much less for Baked Pasta Dishes
Pasta marinara is a household favourite within the Tucci-Blunt family, and in The Tucci Desk, he recommends cooking additional pasta and sauce to make Pasta al Forno, actually “pasta within the oven” the next day. For this recipe or some other baked pasta dish the place you’re pre-cooking pasta after which baking it in sauce, he cautions readers to prepare dinner it very al dente so it doesn’t go soggy and bloated because it bakes.
Tip 6: Use a Diffuser
One suggestion Tucci makes in The Tucci Desk, which will likely be particularly useful in the event you’re cooking on a gasoline range or in a thin-walled pot, is to make use of a warmth diffuser when cooking pasta sauces that simmer for 20 minutes or extra. A warmth diffuser is a steel plate or display that matches over your burner and disperses warmth extra evenly throughout the underside of your pot, so it does not focus in a single space. Far much less expensive than shopping for a heavy enameled Dutch oven, a warmth diffuser will help stop tomato-based sauces from scorching on the underside of the pot.
Tip 7: Making Recent Pasta? Let It Relaxation
Tucci’s love for meals was born from Italian American dad and mom who like to prepare dinner. Even once they have been each working full time, they’d make recent pasta collectively on weeknights, his mom mixing the dough in a meals processor and his father rolling it out. However until you need to combat your pasta dough at each step as you attempt to pressure it via the rollers, a key step in making recent pasta is letting it relaxation after mixing the dough. Resting permits time for the flour to hydrate and the strands of gluten shaped through the mixing course of to melt, guaranteeing they’ll stretch extra readily as soon as it’s time to roll and minimize the dough. Want one thing to do with 20 to half-hour of resting time? Tucci’s obtained you there, too. Go combine your self a Picasso’s Daughter, his gin twist on a Paloma, and skim our full information on important instruments to make pasta at residence.
Tip 8: Recent Isn’t All the time Greatest
There’s a false impression that recent pasta made at residence with flour and eggs is superior to machine-extruded, dried pastas, however Tucci doesn’t take sides. By all means, make pillowy gnocchi or tender egg-based pastas—like tagliatelle or delicate sheets for the large, egg yolk-stuffed ravioli recipe in The Tucci Desk—for the pleasure of the duty and the scrumptious outcomes, but in addition replenish on spaghetti, penne, orzo and different dried pastas for weekday dinner comfort.
Tip 9: Tomato Is Powerful to Beat
The Tucci Cookbook contains seven totally different tomato-based pasta sauce recipes! And in his 2024 diaristic meals memoir, What I Ate in One Yr, Tucci says “I prefer to make tomato sauce every time I return residence after a visit … I discover it grounding.” Day after day, easy tomato sauces seem in his descriptions of the meals he makes himself (and famously brings in his lunch bag to the set of no matter mission he’s filming). They’re a favourite for his kids’s suppers and make a handy meal when tossed with recent pasta or re-warmed leftovers. Whether or not slow-simmered from canned tomatoes or fast, recent chopped variations loaded with basil, Tucci exhibits that you simply don’t really want to overthink issues in terms of saucing pasta so long as you’ve obtained some good tomatoes available.
