WHY PASTA WATER IS WORTH GOLD

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: What else you can do with pasta water.

Pasta ready, drain it. But be careful: don't pour the pasta water down the sink! It's worth gold. What can you do with a leftover bit of pasta water?

Super-creamy pasta sauce
The water in which you just cooked the tagliatelle or ravioli is nothing more than hot water with a bit of salt and some flour. And that's the secret: a spoonful of that pasta water elevates your pasta sauce to a higher level. The sauce thickens a bit, gets a bit of salt, and above all, a lot of creaminess. Making pasta pesto? Stir the pesto loose with a cup of pasta water so it sticks better to your pasta. A splash of pasta water in the cheese sauce for the mac & cheese? Definitely do it. A ladle in the carbonara? Winner!

Tip from Nigella: in the focaccia
Nigella Lawson uses pasta water when she bakes bread, she recently confessed on Twitter. Replace the liquid in your dough recipe with the pasta water and you'll immediately notice the difference: the bread rises better and tastes better. That will be a top-level focaccia! Taste how salty your pasta water is, you probably need to use less salt if you've already thrown a hefty scoop into the pasta water.

 
Immediately beans for the next day
Use the water right away to cook dried legumes. So drain the pasta over another pot, put the dried chickpeas in there and turn it on immediately. After about an hour or two of cooking, the legumes are soft and cooked, you can drain them and save them for the next day.