But who’s to say that these two phases, water absorption
and protein denaturing, have to occur at the same time? H.
Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa of the fantastic blog
Ideas in Food (blog.ideasinfood.com) asked themselves that
very question, and what they found was this: You don’t
have to complete both processes simultaneously. In fact, if
you leave uncooked pasta in lukewarm water for long
enough, it’ll absorb just as much as water as boiled pasta.
Here’s what they had to say on the matter: “The drained
[soaked] noodles held their shape, and since the starch had
not been activated, they did not stick to one another and
could be held without the addition of oil. Once we added the
noodles to boiling salted water, we had perfectly cooked al
dente pasta in just 60 seconds.” Interesting indeed.
Unsoaked and soaked macaroni.