In
cooking
Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...
, al dente (, ; )
pasta
Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an Leavening agent, unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or Eggs as food, eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was originally on ...
or
rice
Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...
is cooked to be firm to the bite.
The term also extends to firmly-cooked vegetables.
In contemporary Italian cooking, it is considered to be the ideal consistency for pasta and involves a brief cooking time.
''Molto al dente'' is the Italian term for slightly undercooked pasta.
When cooking commercial pasta, the al dente phase occurs right before the white of the pasta center disappears.
Undercooking pasta is used in the first round of cooking when a pasta dish is going to be cooked twice.
Nutrition
The
American Diabetes Association says that al dente pasta has a lower
glycemic index
The glycemic (glycaemic) index (GI; ) is a number from 0 to 100 assigned to a food, with pure glucose arbitrarily given the value of 100, which represents the relative rise in the blood glucose level two hours after consuming that food. The GI of ...
than pasta that is cooked soft.
See also
*
Culinary arts
Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called chefs or ...
*
Food science
*
Molecular gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is the Science, scientific approach of cuisine from primarily the perspective of chemistry. The composition (Structural formula, molecular structure), properties (mass, viscosity, etc) and transformations (chemical reaction ...
*
Q texture
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Al Dente
Cooking
Pasta
Italian cuisine
Italian words and phrases