The Washington Post - 31.07.2019

E6 MG EE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 , 2019

flavor. Hold off on more delicate

ingredients, such as herbs, until

the last minute. Brandwein also

prefers to add tomatoes at the end

so they don’t get watery and

mealy.

Put it all together. Go as tradi-

tional or eccentric as you

want. “There’s no need to re-

invent the wheel,” Sedgwick ad-

vises. “Pick pairings you know

work: mozzarella and basil;

chicken and tarragon; Parmesan

cheese and, well, anything.” No

matter what you want to include,

it’s worthwhile to take colors,

textures and taste into account.

Ingredients such as capers or

olives can add enticing pops of

briny flavor. Your cheese can be

assertive and distinct (cubes of

feta, curls of Parmigiano-Reggia-

no) or creamy and mellow (ricotta

stirred in, torn pieces of mozza-

rella). Or finely chop some ancho-

vies for an umami hit, as Brand-

wein recommends. Pasta salad

also takes well to the addition of

proteins such as chicken, salmon

and even sausage, which can help

elevate it out of side dish territory.

[email protected]

Dress judiciously. “The flavor in

a pasta salad should come from

its guest stars — fresh herbs,

cheese, vegetables, meat. The oil

and the vinegar just help them

along,” according to Sedgwick.

“Always start with less dressing

than you think you will need.” For

her part, Brandwein is not a fan of

vinegar or vinaigrettes in salad.

She thinks they eat away at the

pasta. Instead, she prefers to

dress pasta salad with olive oil

and lemon juice for acidity. But if

you do plan on using vinegar or a

vinegar-based dressing, especial-

ly if you’re assembling in advance,

you may want to hold off on

adding it until shortly before you

plan to serve the salad.

Prep. When you think about typi-

cal pasta salad add-ins, “a lot of

these things need to be cooked

first,” Brandwein says. She in-

cludes broccoli, cauliflower, zuc-

chini and greens on that list. Hard

pieces of vegetables, especially

with softer pasta, aren’t some-

thing she likes, and raw vegeta-

bles will not soak up flavors as

well. Roasting and, especially,

grilling will improve texture and

soak up flavor.

To throw a completely differ-

ent possibility in the mix, Annie

Petito at Cook’s Illustrated turns

conventional wisdom on its head

by suggesting you cook your pasta

several minutes past the slightly

firm (al dente in commonspeak)

stage. “Just as leftover rice hard-

ens when it is refrigerated, al

dente pasta tastes overly firm

once it cools,” she explains. That

is a result of starch that pulls back

together once the pasta cools and

traps water. When you slightly

overcook the pasta, her argument

goes, by the time it hardens, it will

achieve the right texture.

The fact of the matter is that no

matter which strategy you

choose, your pasta salad will like-

ly be fine. Think about which

method seems most reasonable/

easiest to you, as well as how you

plan to dress your salad and how

much of that dressing you want to

use. You’re experimenting with

pasta, which is pennies per serv-

ing. Don’t sweat it.

Cook it properly. Suggested

strategies differ here, and I can

see the rationale behind all of

them. The most typical advice is

to cook the pasta to the point

where it still has a little bit of bite

left and isn’t completely soft.

Brandwein says the pasta will

continue to cook a bit as it cools

anyway, and keeping the noodles

on the firmer side will prevent

them from turning to mush in the

salad. Her preferred strategy is to

toss the cooked pasta with olive

oil and let it cool on a sheet pan.

Sedgwick recommends taking

the cooling a step further by

rinsing the cooked pasta under

cold water. “Rinsing the just-

cooked pasta extracts excess

starch that can make the pasta

gluey, ensures that the pasta will

stay firm and eliminates the need

for a lot of dressing,” she writes.

On the other hand, Melissa Clark

at the New York Times recently

suggested tossing hot pasta with

dressing to keep the pasta from

sticking together and to help it

pasta, olive oil and salt and pep-

per,” says chef Amy Brandwein of

Centrolina in Washington. “You

don’t really need that much else.”

Pick a few ingredients and let

them shine, ideally without

drowning them in dressing.

Choose a good shape. “Things

with ridges are great,” Brandwein

says. Look for shapes that will

allow sauces and ingredients to

cling to them. Top contenders

include fusilli, rotini, orecchiette,

shells, farfalle (bow tie) and cam-

panelle. After using ditalini in a

pasta salad, I’m sold on adding it

to my playbook. Its tiny tubes

were uniform in size with the

kernels of corn and diced toma-

toes. Because pasta salads are

such common on-the-go, potluck

dishes, stick with shorter shapes

that are easily scooped and eaten

standing up (or hunched over a

desk?). Longer shapes are not

only trickier to eat in certain

situations, but also more prone to

breaking when cold.

BY BECKY KRYSTAL

As much of a recipe and rule
follower as I am, I do enjoy going
off-script and improvising. I get
to feel creative and, ideally, use up
odds and ends around the house,
or capitalize on what looks the
best that moment at the farmers
market.
The summer staple pasta salad
is one of those ideal winging-it
kind of dishes, but you want to
put some thought into it. Here are
tips for making your best one yet.

Avoid the kitchen-sink mentali-
ty. “Just because you’re making a
pasta salad, don’t succumb to the
compulsion to empty the con-
tents of your refrigerator into the
bowl,” former Post recipe editor
Stephanie Witt Sedgwick wrote in

2005. “A well-made salad de-
      serves fresh ingredients.”
      Quality, in other words, is
      much more important than quan-
      tity. At its most basic form, “You
      just need a nice tomato, some

VORACIOUSLY

For a great pasta salad, think quality over quantity

BY MAURA JUDKIS

Under a new Arkansas law,

meatless meat products such as

vegetarian hot dogs and plant-

based deli lunch meat can no

longer be called either of those

things. In an effort to prevent

consumer confusion, the

state passed a law in March that

imposes fines on companies

making meatless meat if they use

words that describe meat — such

as “turkey” or “steak” or “bacon”

— when describing products that

aren’t derived from animals. The

same goes for makers of nut-

based milks, which risk a fine for

using the word “milk,” and even

cauliflower rice, which must be

called “riced cauliflower,” in-

stead.

But is the law really about

consumer confusion, or is it

about protecting the state’s meat,

dairy and rice farmers? That’s

what a lawsuit filed in U.S. Dis-

trict Court by the American Civil

Liberties Union, Good Food In-

stitute, Animal Legal Defense

Fund and ACLU of Arkansas

alleges.

According to the complaint,

“The Act is a restriction on com-

mercial speech that prevents

companies from sharing truthful

and non-misleading information

about their products. It does

nothing to protect the public

from potentially misleading in-

formation. Instead, it creates

consumer confusion where none

existed before in order to impede

competition.” The suit, filed on

behalf of Turtle Island Foods,

which does business as the To-

furky Co., says the act violates the

free speech clause of the First

Amendment by censoring com-

panies that are truthfully de-

scribing their products. The suit

also says the act violates the due

process clause of the 14th

Amendment, and the dormant

Commerce Clause, which affects

interstate commerce.

The lawsuit is not the first of

its kind. Several states, includ-

ing Louisiana, Missouri and Mis-

sissippi, have adopted laws gov-

erning the use of language re-

garding plant-based products,

and vegetarian meat companies

have filed suit in the latter two

states. Labeling laws aren’t just

an American thing, either: In

April, a committee in the Euro-

pean Parliament passed an

amendment prohibiting plant-

based products from being la-

beled as steak, sausage, escalope,

burger or hamburger. The pro-

posal will be put to a vote by the

European Parliament in the fall.

If states are worried about

meat and dairy farmers losing

ground to plant-based food com-

panies, they have a good reason

for concern: Nondairy milk

sales increased 61 percent be-

tween 2012 and 2017. The invest-

ment firm UBS has projected that

the market for plant-based meat

will increase from $4.6 billion in

2018 to $85 billion in 2030.

People aren’t choosing veggie

burgers because they’re being

tricked into thinking they’re

meat, say plant-based protein

companies. They’re choosing

them precisely because they are

not meat, and mandating less-

precise labeling (“veggie discs,”

anyone?) will just make it harder

for consumers to understand the

flavor profile of the plant-based

meat alternative they’re buying.

“Tofurky Co. cannot accurately

and effectively describe its prod-

ucts without comparison to the

conventional meat products

whose flavor profiles they are

designed to invoke,” the suit says,

noting that all of the company’s

products clearly state they are

meatless, and comply with

the federal Food, Drug and Cos-

metic Act’s labeling require-

ments.

Nikhil Soman, the director of

the Arkansas Bureau of Stan-

dards, was named as a defendant

in the suit. He declined to com-

ment to The Washington Post.

“It’s absurdly patronizing that

the government of Arkansas is

asserting that the people of Ar-

kansas can’t tell a ‘veggie burger’

from a ‘hamburger,’ or a ‘tofu dog’

from a ‘hot dog,’” ACLU attor-

ney Brian Hauss said in a state-

ment. “The government should

focus on genuine consumer pro-

tection problems instead of play-

ing word games to benefit special

interests at the First Amend-

ment’s expense.”

[email protected]

VORACIOUSLY

Tofurky sues Arkansas

over the word ‘meat’

STACY ZARIN GOLDBERG FOR THE WASHINGTON POST;

FOOD STYLING BY LISA CHERKASKY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

When making a pasta salad, choose a good pasta shape and cook it

properly, dress judiciously and avoid a kitchen sink mentality.

HANNAH GRABENSTEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tofurky is taking Arkansas to court over a law banning the use of

“meat” in the labeling of its plant-based products.

MD MHIC # 1176

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