It's a common mistake. Just this weekend I followed a recipe from a well known cooking website for beef stroganoff that said to brown the beef in batches together with batches of onion. That's not a good idea, the onion will release liquid which prevents the beef from browning and once that cooks off the heat required to brown the meat will burn the onion. So I cooked the beef and onion separately instead. The onion can easily be cooked in one big batch, and if you take care not to burn the fond built up by the beef you can deglaze it with the onion. It's a good way to add extra flavor to the finished dish.
I also had a discussion with a roommate once, he criticized my way of cooking pasta. I keep it just barely boiling, but he insisted I should crank it up to max. I explained that it doesn't matter, the water won't get any hotter. I'll just waste electricity making steam. He didn't believe me so I got a thermometer and proved it.
If you want liquid water to go above 100C you need a pressure cooker.
A single good stir at 1-2min of cooking is enough to avoid all sticking (although I still do it a couple more time just in case tbh, the stirring feel tells me how close to cooked they are anyway)
I’ve always used the rolling boil for stirring when making macaroni or other noodles. Maybe a minute of agitation in the beginning to get it going but it lets me set and forget. Maybe add a teaspoon or two of an oil to knock any bubbles out to avoid spill over / foam.
I've thought about that but it's not a problem for me. I throw the pasta in, give it a stir, then leave it until the timer rings. Never have any sticky clumps.
I watched a cook (America’s Test Kitchen?) where they explored different ways of thinking of heat management in pasta. The unbelievable one that worked: boil water, add pasta, turn off heat. The water retains the heat and will still penetrate the pasta. I have never actually tried it myself, but it makes sense.
It's not really that unbelievable. The pasta just has to be in hot water, whether it's 99.9C or 95C doesn't make much of a difference. I use this technique to boil eggs - boil water, turn off heat, add eggs. It seems to help avoid cracked eggs.
I also hadn't thought to boil pasta that way though.
FWIW, I boil my eggs in steam: 5mm-1cm of water in the pot, put the egg in, put the lid on it, heat it up until the water starts boiling, and then turn it off, and wait, the steam will continue boiling the egg, and the residual heat will continue producing steam for a while.
eggs in cold water, bring to boil, boil for 3 mins, remove from heat. never cracks, eggs never overcook no matter how long until you remove them from the water.
I think about these things every time I cook, but it never occurred to me to just try it. I always assumed that the "reaction rate doubles for 10C change" rule of thumb meant it would take much longer, plus presumably cooking is endothermic.
That's hilarious. Reminds me of another person in my life who just burns everything. I keep telling her to calm down with the heat and she keeps putting her induction top on boost then just going to do something else while things burn. She goes through teflon(or whatever they replaced it with) frying pans on a monthly basis, she has like 4 of them right now and they're all flaking off because she overheats them. Like properly destroyed. All her plastic utensils are messed up, molten and broken because she just leaves them on these 1000 degree frying pans.
I tried buying a carbon steel pan for her thinking it can take the heat but after a month it was rusty and caked with carbonized food that she never took the time to scrub off. In hindsight a stainless steel pan would probably have been better but I'm sure she would have found a way to destroy that too.
I also had a discussion with a roommate once, he criticized my way of cooking pasta. I keep it just barely boiling, but he insisted I should crank it up to max. I explained that it doesn't matter, the water won't get any hotter. I'll just waste electricity making steam. He didn't believe me so I got a thermometer and proved it.
If you want liquid water to go above 100C you need a pressure cooker.