We Boiled Pasta for 45 Minutes – Here's What Happened Every Minute

We have a pot of boiling salted water

and a handful of pasta,

and we are going to taste this at every minute.

[timer ringing]

So our first taste is going to be a piece of raw pasta.

I do not recommend doing this at home,

but we are gonna do this for you.

As we can see from the raw pasta,

it is nice yellow, stiff,

no pliability, no bendability.

If we do this, it's gonna break and shatter just like that,

and we're gonna eat it.

It is not the most edible

or fun thing to do,

because the starches

and the proteins have not broken down

by heat in any way, shape, or form,

our bodies aren't really meant

to consume raw flour in that way.

But for the purposes of this test,

we are here to see what pasta is gonna taste like

for the entirety of 45 minutes.

It's kind of a little bit of an unknown.

[timer ringing]

All right, so time

to pull our first noodle after one minute.

As we can see here,

we see that the water shaped it a little bit.

It's somewhat pliable, but still snappy.

This is gonna probably taste a lot

like the original pasta cracker, and it does.

But we do feel a little bit

of gumminess off the very tip of the tongue.

I can feel some of the starches in my fingers,

just that release of the starch.

You're basically letting the pasta have some texture,

a little bit of substance to it.

I'm thinking that between around seven

and 14 minutes is gonna be from al dente

to the most cooked that we're gonna want to have it.

Probably eight minutes, give or take,

is where we're probably gonna wanna be pulling it,

but we'll see.

I think going from 15 to 25 minutes,

we're gonna start to see the difference between flavor loss

and texture loss.

And then after that, I really don't know.

We are starting to release some starch,

which is actually a perfect time now to agitate a bit.

A big common mistake is people don't agitate the pasta

when the starches are starting to release,

and that's why you get those big clumps of pasta.

If you just put the pasta in the water,

you're gonna end up with the big pasta clump at the end.

So it is important to agitate once or twice,

and then let it go.

[timer ringing]

Alright, timer's back on.

Let's go for test number two here.

One other thing to note.

When we're cooking pasta,

we want to be putting the pasta into boiling water,

but then we don't wanna boil the pasta.

So boil the water, not the pasta.

The reason for that is after 185 degrees Fahrenheit,

we are not going to be having any more cooking

of the proteins or the starches,

so you're really just overagitating and overcooking,

and just essentially speeding up the process too much.

You do want it to be at a rolling boil,

'cause when the pasta goes in,

you're going to naturally be cooling

the water temperature down.

But we are starting to get some starch,

almost visible on the outside.

That little sheen, that little film.

I can feel it in my fingers.

We're getting a lot of different shapes now,

but it still snaps without much effort at all.

While you would never wanna serve pasta like that,

it's considerably more edible at this stage.

It breaks with little to no effort.

But again, that softer outside layer starting,

the water's starting to penetrate, it's starting

to hydrate a little bit.

We're approaching our noodle at three minutes.

At even only three minutes, we're seeing

considerable pliability.

We can now bend it.

We're starting to get to a level where color change

is a little bit more obvious.

It's clearly starches on the outside, more pliability,

but still very big breakability.

As we can see on the inside there,

we still very much see that white ring of starch.

Again, this probably won't be very edible,

still a crunch in the mouth.

We can feel it, we can taste it,

but we can also see a real transformation

from the very beginning.

Right now, what we're trying to do is cook the pasta

long enough to properly break down the starches

and break down the proteins that are in the pasta.

This way it's more edible for us to consume,

but also, this way it tastes the best.

Most people are say that we're looking for an al dente.

This box says that's gonna be around 10 minutes.

Let's find out if it's correct.

[timer beeping]

Now let's check it after four.

All right, so even

after only four minutes, we are starting

to see the pasta start to get hydrated.

Pasta will hydrate much quicker with hot water.

That's why we tend to cook it in hot water.

Look at that, nice little bow. Still no break.

Still no break.

So that's after only four minutes,

we're almost hydrated.

Again, not quite cooked,

but the hydration point is happening very quickly.

Even on eating it, the structures

on the outside are actually fully hydrated.

It's soft.

And while I think every single guest would send

this pasta back at this stage, you could eat it.

If you'd never eaten pasta before in your life,

you might actually even think

that this is what it's supposed to be.

Even at this stage, it's gonna carry over cook,

there's gonna be a little bit of cooking time.

So as we get closer and closer to where we want it to be,

we're gonna be more careful about when we pull it.

And here we go for minute five.

I mean, look at that.

That's after only five minutes here.

I mean, if you didn't know, if it was only five minutes,

you would actually think this is probably cooked pasta.

Look at that color. Pliability.

We're using Bria, Italian pasta, spaghetti.

The classic.

They say 10 minutes is their al dente.

For me, if I see 10 minutes, I'm gonna probably try

to at least check it at seven.

'Cause at five we already see

how hydrated it is.

On the taste,

it still has a little bit tooth, but it's not very far off.

We're actually starting to taste

the flavor of the star just come out.

We're tasting the pasta now, in the mouth.

Honestly, it feels pretty great

if you could cook that at that point

and some sauce for about two

to three more minutes in the sauce,

it's almost servable,

which is quite surprising, since it's half the time

the box says.

[timer beeping]

And look at that.

We have pasta, ladies and gentlemen.

So six minutes in, and we're already to look like

what we want as the finished product.

We have an almost white yellowish hue, full pliability.

It's not bending, it's not snapping.

We can do whatever we want with it.

And look, I even tried to snap it,

and at this stage it won't snap.

So now we know the hydration level

is very close to being where we want it.

There's a little, little crunch at the end,

but for the most part, this is a fully hydrated

and cooked piece of pasta,

at six minutes, mind you.

One thing too, at this stage especially,

we should remember we put the pasta into boiling water.

However, we don't want it

to be boiling while we're actually eating the pasta.

We want it to be around 185 Fahrenheit.

So boiling point would be 212, 185 is really

where you want the actual pasta be cooking.

That's where the proteins and the starches

stop cooking anymore.

Boiling the pasta just over boils it.

It basically takes the starches

and turns them against the pasta.

Here we are at seven minutes, for me, seven minutes

with a store-bought pasta is the perfect temp.

Let's see if I'm correct with that one.

But this is gonna be our perfect al-dente.

We actually have a string.

We have a pull now, but a little bit of a snap.

So here we are, a little undercooked.

Hmm, but very close.

I'm gonna say that eight minutes

is gonna be our mark, but we'll see.

We're looking for al-dente, which for those of you who know

Italian, means to the tooth.

You should have a little bit of a bite to it.

There should be some texture to it, but just no snap.

So the snap is the thing that we're looking to avoid.

But otherwise, we want the pasta to actually have texture.

We don't want it to be soft and mushy.

Okay, so this is minute eight here,

and she feels great.

Look at that.

I mean, we could tie it

in a knot, all the pliability in the world,

but still that texture that we're looking for.

The color, as we can see, still has some yellow hues to it,

is an overly saturated,

is an overly hydrated, little bit bend.

Hmm, benisimo, this is perfect right here.

For me, I would wanna take this out.

It's gonna cook a little bit of extra just by existence.

It's gonna cook extra

in the sauce, whatever you're using it with.

But to me, this eight minutes

is the perfect texture for the pasta.

I'm gonna guess that over the next five to six minutes,

the pasta is gonna change dramatically.

So, here we have the nine-minute noodle.

Feels great.

This stage, perfect color,

really nice pliability, no snap,

can wrap it around your finger.

Really great, great noodle of spaghetti right here.

Hmm, we're right in the zone.

At this point, I'd say for the next two minutes,

we, this is exactly how we'd wanna serve it.

At this stage though, you wouldn't wanna cook it too much

more in the sauce because it will start

to overcook in the sauce.

So if you're gonna go for that nine minutes instead

of the eight minutes, make sure the sauce is ready to go.

Pasta in.

Use some of that starchy water that we have

of to help thicken the sauce and then serve right away.

All right, this is our 10 minutes.

This is our box time.

So if we are following the directions, for those

of you rule follows out there, I am not one of those people

with, when it comes to cooking; I like

to make my own rules sometimes.

However, if we were following the box,

I think they got a pretty spot on.

This would have to go straight

to the sauce and into the plate.

You can already tell that it is starting

to get a little bit wilty.

You know how we had the last noodle

and we had a little bit more snap,

and bend this, this is very bendy, almost too much.

So for my taste, as you can see, there was zero,

zero snap with that.

But still, we're in that zone.

We're in that toothy zone.

The pasta has texture.

It doesn't just integrate in the mouth.

It feels good it, we could still call that al-dente.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's the last time

we can call it al-dente, but maybe I'll be wrong.

[timer beeps]

Feeling very Pavlovian at this stage.

One minute at a time, an 11-minute pasta noodle.

Very pliable.

As we can see, it's wilting completely.

It is bendy.

There is still some texture to it.

The color's starting to get a little lighter

as we hydrate.

We're gonna see this color get almost white,

and the more we go on this test.

There's still some snap to it.

There's still some body, but to me, there's already starting

to get a little bit of over hydration, over saturation,

the proteins are starting to cook a little bit,

not too much, but we're getting a little mushy.

So we just went in two minutes.

The difference from perfect to a little bit mushy,

which I think is a really important thing

because we have to think about the fact

that we're cooking the pasta,

but then we're also putting it into another hot sauce,

potentially.

You don't want the pasta

to be perfect coming out of the pot.

You want the pasta to be just under perfect.

The second the pasta is perfect in the pot,

the pasta will be overcooked on the plate.

Okay, so here we have minute 12,

we're losing texture already.

Pliability is there.

We can feel the starches on the fingers.

But see, it's too much.

There's no snap.

You don't hear anything.

Again, edible for sure, servable even.

But already it's disintegrated.

I can't taste the pasta anymore.

And that's the other thing we were looking for is flavor.

And the pasta is at a proper cooked temperature.

You get more flavor from the pasta as it starts

to get oversaturated, over hydrated,

the starches break down too much.

All these things happen.

We lose the flavor.

At the end of the day,

we should remember that this ingredient

is literally just derm flour and water.

So if we overcook it, we're taking out all the flavor

that existed in the first place.

So here we have minute 13, as we can see,

the pasta is cooked, starting

to get a little bit more white in the middle, very pliable.

I think for the next probably 10 minutes,

it'll speed around the same elasticity,

but we're just gonna have it be more and more hydrated

and more and more mushy in the mouth.

There is still a little bit of body,

but the outer layers immediately start to be mush.

If you were serving just pasta without putting

into anything else,

without putting into a sauce for whatever reason,

you just wanted to eat pasta noodles.

This is probably

around the last that you would wanna just eat it.

If you were gonna put it into something else,

it'll overcook.

All right, so here we have our 14-minute noodles.

We're very cooked at this point,

as we can see the steam coming off of it,

that's actually still pasta cooking.

Even though it's out, it's in the air,

whether it's on a pan, even if you put it into a colander,

it'll drain, I don't recommend that.

I always use the tongs to take that out,

because you're actually letting the starches from the pasta

water help to thicken the sauce.

Colanders are just draining out all the good stuff

to be honest with you.

Please do not rinse the pasta with water.

Don't put the olive oil on the pasta when it comes out.

Olive oil is gonna basically detract from the sauce

to be able to stick to the pasta.

You want to use the starches, that's your best friend.

However, as we can see on the tray, it's still cooking.

So even though we pulled it out at 14 minutes,

it's actually gonna probably cook for another two minutes,

even if we didn't put it into any sauce.

So we should always remember that.

So at 14 minutes, we still have a little bit of body,

but a lot of the flavor's already gone.

The texture is very soft.

We would not pass the al-dente test from anyone.

15, you can already feel it,

see how, you can already feel it.

This is gonna be overcooked.

Yeah, immediately put it into your mouth

onto your teeth, and it goes away.

What's the point of eating pasta

if you're not gonna taste it?

They have a saying in Italy, risotto is about the sauce,

but pasta is about the pasta.

So that's the whole point, is to actually

want to taste the pasta.

At 15 minutes, we've already cooked out all the flavor.

So for the next 30 minutes,

we're gonna be eating flavorless pasta.

It almost feels like the noodles are getting longer.

The pasta goes in the mouth, you chew a couple times

and it sort of leaves it.

There's no real purpose to it.

I mean, we are just so hydrated at this point.

It's not pasta anymore, unfortunately.

And here we are, a minute-20,

I think this might be the first time I've ever cooked pasta

for 20 minutes.

It almost feels like the noodles are getting longer, right?

It's because there's so much elasticity.

At this stage, without any effort, we can pull it

probably 50% longer than it started.

That's a very good sign that you overcooked your pasta

if you can pull your pasta that far.

We wanna hydrate and cook the pasta,

but we don't wanna destroy the pasta.

Zero bite, zero germ.

I mean, I dunno if you can see that,

but it is completely hydrated

at this point all the way through.

From here on in, we're just gonna be over hydrating.

There's nothing left for the pasta

to take in, but more water.

Everything's been broken down by the stage,

especially from the starch content.

So it's just gonna start soaking and ballooning up almost.

It's for the next five minutes.

Nothing molecular there's really changing

or evolving in the pasta at this stage.

We're starting to get into the inedible range for me.

No texture, no flavor.

Oh, so that's interesting.

We have our first disintegration here.

So at 25 minutes we can't even get

the noodle out completely,

which means we've completely broken down.

We've gone past the point that we want to go with it.

Honestly, we are starting to get

a little bit more hydration here.

It's actually, if you can see,

it's getting a little bit bigger,

a little bit thicker than some of our al-dente ones,

especially.

I would venture to guess

that we won't have much changes until 28 to 30 minutes.

We're so hydrated at this point. At this stage, safe to say,

the water is more flavorful.

We do still have some texture in terms

of, it's not breaking on the tongs, which is good to see.

Wow, look at that elasticity.

I mean it's almost, I think,

75% larger than our original one.

Yeah, I mean we're actually close

to double in size of the original one.

That's how much this is hydrated.

How the starches have just completely broken down.

I mean, it falls apart in our hands.

Pardon my expression.

I just don't like eating tasteless things.

It's not, it's not my favorite task time.

That basically took two and immediately it was gone.

We can tell by that pliability

and elasticity just how much hydration

that the noodles have had at 30 minutes of cooking.

I'm actually very curious now to see what happens next.

'Cause this is a uncharted territory for me here.

The pasta's gonna continue to hydrate, it's gonna continue

to get whiter, pliable, sticky.

From here on in 50/50 chance

of having a noodle with integrity come out of the pot.

Massive elasticity.

Wow, there's nothing going on here anymore.

I'm not sure what it tastes like.

Alright, so now we finally hit 35 minutes.

Every five or so minutes, we do see some change here.

We are talking about extreme elasticity.

I like how long that is just holding it there.

We are starting to see the outside star get a little chalky.

So that's gonna be, I think our next flavor profile.

We went from mushy to now I think we're gonna

get chalkier and chalkier.

We see the little white speckles on the outside.

So that's a sign that the surges have now

just completely, like gone out of the pasta.

They're overcooked, they're turning to chuck.

I mean, you could feel it in your hands even.

And I'm scared to put this in my mouth.

We're working with mush at this point.

There is no more integrity

to the pasta in terms of the texture.

We lost the flavor at around 20 minutes.

We've now lost the texture.

No substance noodle.

I hope no one ever calls me that.

We can really see those white specs now.

I'm a little surprised we still able to eat the pasta,

fully, fully, fully gone.

There's no flavor, there's nothing left.

Okay, this is a minute 40, no idea what's gonna happen here.

We still have pasta.

We're gonna, we're gonna compare this

to the original size here.

So now we've more than doubled in size at this stage,

which is not what's supposed to happen.

We really haven't had much change in flavor or texture.

I'm not sure what application that that would be useful for.

Now, the water on the other hand

is starting to look really great.

Just no fun to eat.

Just absolute disintegration.

I'm trying to be gentle.

I mean that just fell apart in my hand.

I mean, how plum it's gotten is wild.

Alright, here we have it, 45 minutes,

and we got two out properly.

Look at that.

45 minute pasta here.

I mean, it's kind of beautiful in its own way.

I know it doesn't taste good and I know

that it really is not healthy for you or has no nutrients,

but it's pretty cool.

It's more of a sciencey thing.

I mean, look at how many starches are on the outside,

and yet it didn't completely disintegrate,

which I am a little surprised and shocked at, at 45 minutes.

Again, the temperature is key for them, right?

So we were able to achieve an aldente in two minutes

before the box time at 185 without boiling it.

So now we have 45 minutes of cooking pasta.

We have our dry pasta straight outta the box.

After one minute when the starches are starting to release,

we do want to agitate the pasta a little bit.

You just put the pasta in the water, you're gonna end up

with the big pasta clump at the end.

So it is important to agitate once.

And then we see right around that five minute mark,

six minutes, especially we notice a difference in the color,

the difference in that texture,

cruising into the eight minute mark,

which I think was the perfect time

to take out this particular pasta.

And then as the box said, 10 minutes out

of the pot was a perfect cook to me.

I will overcook a little bit in the sauce,

so I wouldn't want to take it out there,

but that is a proper cook

if you were just gonna take out the pasta

and eat it as such.

Right around that 14 minute mark,

and it's starting to go into more of the white-ish hue.

And then between 15

and 20 minutes is when we started

to lose taste, specifically.

21 to 25 is when we lost all the texture.

And from 30 to 35, that's when we were able to stretch it,

we noodle had over doubled in size.

The 45, we literally got it

to be over two times the original size of the pasta.

For me personally, I go with that eight minute,

[Cameraman] You wanna try a 60 minute noodle?

Let's try a 60 minute noodle.

I am so surprised that this is still intact,

although we can clearly see just by taking it out

how much starch has come out of it.

It's hanging on by a thread, but wow.

I mean it's, it's pretty impressive.

I will say it's not as bad as I thought.