In recent times I'm experimenting with different techniques to cook pasta, the pressure cooker is an inspiration I had from Davide Scabin (link in Italian), even though he's surely not the first one who did it. There is indeed even some, not much, "literature" about it on the web.
After a few tries I still have the following problems:
1) The pasta pieces stick gently one to another, but they cement themselves on the bottom of the pot.
2) The consistency of the pasta is tenacious, very different from the usual one but not necessarily unpleasant.
I was wondering if anybody else had the same results, and is eager to share her solutions to the problems listed above.
Thank you for your attention!
Best Answer
I've seen Lagostina pressure cooker recipe booklets from the 1930's that contain pressure cooker pasta recipes. So it's been done for a while.
I make pressure cooker pasta in sauce at least twice a week - we cook all of our short pasta this way so I came up with a technique to address some of these problems.
1) the pasta pieces are sticking together and to the bottom of the pot because there is not enough water (or cooking liquid like stock). The pasta is absorbing all of the cooking liquid before the cooking time is finished.
2) since you're using less water in pressure cooking pasta, the starch will not leach out into the big pot of boiling water and then be thrown down the drain through the strainer. So this extra starch remains and creates a more chewy "al dente" texture.
My technique uses low pressure, water to cover the pasta and half the recommended cooking time on the package. If your pressure cooker only has one pressure (and its the oldy-kind like the one pictured with Davide Scabin) then you only have to pay attention to the cooking time - those pressure cookers already operate at "low pressure."
Here are all the details of my pressure cooker pasta technique.
All of my online pressure cooker pasta recipes.