For my food experiment, I tested the effects of different flours on the consistency of pasta. I really enjoyed this project, and I found that it helped me learn a lot about what’s actually happening when you make pasta. I have enjoyed making pasta for quite some time now, but I’ve always wondered what the best ingredients are. My results showed that 00 flour, a fine ground white flour, had by far the best texture when compared to all purpose white flour and whole wheat flour. I also learned more about what is actually happening in the pasta when it is cooked and why certain flours are better than others. Understanding the relationship between the type of flour and the strength of the starch polymer complex helps me to better understand how long to cook the pasta for, how many eggs to use, and how long to knead the pasta.

To elaborate on this, pasta is composed mostly of starches and proteins. These starches form a structure, or matrix, that gives the pasta its texture and elasticity. When it is added to boiling water, this matrix becomes saturated and the bonds that hold the starches together begin to break. Because of this, the pasta becomes softer, stretchier, and less crumbly. Knowing this is good in general, but it can also tell us a lot about how long to cook our pasta for the perfect al diente texture. Homemade pasta takes a lot less time to cook than store bought dry pasta. This is because there is already moisture in the pasta from the eggs, whereas in dry pasta, there is none. Inherently, this means that it takes much longer for the starch complex to become saturated in dry pasta than in fresh pasta. I found that most store bought pasta needs to be cooked for at least 10 minutes before it has a desirable texture, but homemade pasta can be cooked for as little as 2 minutes. 

Knowing all of these things has made the process of making pasta much more enjoyable. Previous to this project, I would tend to guess and check a lot, with my egg to flour ratio, how long to knead the pasta, how thin I rolled it, etc. Now, however, I know what to do and to what extent for each one of these steps. This makes the process a lot less stressful and much more enjoyable. I can now step into my kitchen with the intent of making pasta, and depending on how I want the end result to be, I know exactly what steps to take. This isn’t to say that I will stringently adhere to the recipe though. Part of the reason I love cooking so much is that you have the freedom to alter your food however you want. I like to think of it as an ongoing experiment, where every time you make a certain food, you are conducting a new test. But having the peace of mind of knowing what’s happening to your food and why makes every experience in the kitchen that much better.