Originally Posted by
davie355
I'm honestly not sure why chain restaurants constantly overcook pasta. Is there a very short window between perfectly cooked and overcooked? Even if so, you'd imagine they have it down to a science.
Not for standard wheat pasta. It takes 2-3 minutes to get from al dente to soft and for most shapes no one is going to notice an extra 30 seconds, which is an eternity in a busy kitchen with a chirping timer.
The only reason you get soft pasta in a restaurant is because it was deliberately overcooked.
Originally Posted by
kipper
I think there are a lot of Americans who think overcooked pasta is cooked correctly.
...and this is why. An appalling number of people also cook pasta without salt in the water.