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Al dente
From Wikibooks, the
open-content textbooks collection
In cooking, the
adjective al dente describes pasta
and (less commonly) rice
that has been cooked to be edible but still firm, or
vegetables that are cooked to the "tender crisp"
phase - still offering resistance to the bite, but cooked
through. It is often considered to be the ideal form of
cooked pasta. Keeping the pasta firm is especially
important in baked or al forno pasta dishes. The term
comes from Italian where it means "to the
tooth," or "to the bite," referring to the
need to chew the pasta due to its firmness.
Perhaps the most
common misconception about the term is the idea that
"to the teeth" means the item should stick
to the teeth. If pasta sticks to the teeth when it is
being chewed, it is undercooked.
Cooking rice or
pasta to the al dente stage without over-cooking it
requires a certain amount of practice and skill, since it
is a relatively brief midway stage between under-done (in
which case rice or dried pasta stays hard in the middle,
and fresh pasta tastes "floury"), and
over-cooking, where the dish lacks texture and is
considered too soft.
The term is very
commonly used as a name for Italian restaurants around the
world.
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© 2006 Alan's Kitchen