Usually I cook the pasta in boiling water… add it to sauce in the pan, another 2-3 minuts and done.
But today I've tried to cook pasta in the sauce.
Sauce: pepper + onion + garlic + flour + tomatoes + wine.
I've added a little bit water + Raw spaghetti. They were cooking, covered by the water (sauce). And if usually they done afer 10-12 minutes, at this time it took 20+ minutes. It's because sauce was acidic?
Is there reason to add a little bit acid to the water, where spaghetti usually are cooking? To prevent them from being overcooked.
Best Answer
No, it has nothing to do with the acidity of your sauce.
It took a lot longer to cook because of the prevalent temperature throughout the pan, and the mass of the material being heated.
Sauce + Noodles is a lot to heat up, a lot more than just a pot of water. It's also unlikely you fully boiled the Sauce + Noodles as you would have with water (to a full rolling boil).
If you had left it cook long enough on high heat, eventually the noodles would get overdone and soggy, and if left even longer, the sauce and noodles would burn too.
If you've ever had an overdone Lasagna, you'll have tasted noodles cooked in sauce too long - they're mushy and unappetizing. (Traditionally lasagna noodles are pre-cooked before being layered into the lasagna dish and baked, but it would be a similar effect to cooking while in sauce)
Probably worth noting: by cooking the raw pasta in the sauce, you're adding a lot of starch directly to the sauce, probably making it quite a bit thicker than normal. This may or may-not be good, depending on your preferences.