I want to make starchy pasta water without making pasta.

December 7, 2015 5:54 PM

I need starchy pasta water to make my butternut squash soup extra tasty, but I don't have starchy pasta water on hand because I'm not making pasta. How can I make fake pasta water? I'm finding this exceptionally hard to google.
posted by BuddhaInABucket to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

Make a loose roux?
posted by rtha at 5:59 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Are you shooting for taste or do you just want to thicken your soup? If the latter you can whisk some flour into warm water, then add to the soup (make sure you don't add the flour directly to your hot soup, lest you end up with dumplings.)
posted by lovableiago at 5:59 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Mostly for the taste, a little for thickening. Last time I poured a half cup of pasta water into butternut squash it really smoothed out the texture and made it taste ever-so-slightly less vegetal? I might be making that up, but it seemed to help and I want to do it again.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:01 PM on December 7, 2015

Why not just make some pasta? Costs $1.25 for a pound. Toss the pasta if you don't want to stick it in the frig.
posted by AugustWest at 6:03 PM on December 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: I'm out!
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:03 PM on December 7, 2015

Why not just make some pasta? Toss it with EVOO and chopped broccoli and it keeps pretty well for a day or two.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:04 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I just whisked a little bit of flour into some water as suggested above, and it looked exactly like the pasta water. It's so obvious in retrospect, but I was sure it couldn't be that easy!
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:05 PM on December 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Do you have corn starch? That will thicken your water up. You only need a teeny bit!!!
posted by Yellow at 6:12 PM on December 7, 2015

The main reason I suggested a roux over whisking flour into water is it eliminates the possibility of any raw-flour taste - but the seasoning of your soup (and its heat) may take care of that as well, since you're not using a lot.
posted by rtha at 6:15 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: To avoid a raw flour taste in a sauce cook it for about 10 minutes. So if you haven't already finished cooking, boil the flour and water for 10 minutes or so
posted by littlewater at 6:37 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: So I put just a pinch into a half cup of water- probably less than a teaspoon- and it did exactly what I hoped. There was no raw-flour taste, fortunately, probably because as littlewater suggested above, it did cook for about that much longer.

It was delicious, guys. Thanks for coming to my rescue!
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:50 PM on December 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: I can't believe I used my question for the week on "How can I make water with flour in it".
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:59 AM on December 8, 2015 [20 favorites]