When I was first learning to cook, I found a recipe for fried pasta that intrigued me. As I recall, the instructions were: cook the pasta in boiling water, drain, deep fry. Being a novice, I didn't fully understand the hostile incompatibility of hot oil and water. But when I dropped the still-wet pasta into the pot of hot oil and watched it violently sputter and overflow, I at least had the sense to step back and turn off the flame.
I think every cook has a hot oil story, some punctuated with scars. I have those too, but from a later incident. That first traumatic encounter taught me that hot oil is no joke. With new respect, I cleaned up the mess and attempted another batch after thoroughly draining the remaining pasta and patting it dry. It still protested— but it didn't overflow.
I served the fried pasta with a marinara dip at a gathering of friends. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, which pleased me, although I didn't think that I would ever make it again.
But, you see, I was wrong. I have made it again… many times. But only because I learned of a better way.
Learning is about making connections. We gather bits of information and experiences and link them together into something cohesive that we can hold on to. Life's epiphanies— whether large or small— come from finding the missing links.
And so it was, while attending a workshop at The French Culinary Institute with Dave Arnold and Nils Noren that I was given the missing link for fried pasta: dehydrate the cooked pasta before frying. Yes, it's an extra step that adds 4-6 hours to the process, but it makes a world of difference. Not only does the dry pasta fry neatly and efficiently, it also blisters and puffs out extravagantly.
Lots of drama, none of the trauma.
puffed pasta
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until very tender (double the time on the package). Drain well. Spread out on dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 50C/120F for 4-6 hours until completely dry. Alternately, cooked pasta can be spread on a rack or silpat-lined baking sheets and dried in a low oven, or in the sun on a warm, dry day. (Note: tubular pasta may need to be supported with straws or dowels to prevent it from collapsing and loosing it's shape.) Pasta can be dehydrated in bulk and stored in airtight containers for months.
To puff: drop small batches of dehydrated pasta into a pot of oil that has been heated to 190C/375F and fry until puffed and golden. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with desired seasoning or serve with a dip.
Playing with Fire and Water 
Linda: Have you thought about just hydrating and then drying the pasta without cooking? (Fried winging are fresh, raw pasta.) Since I learned the method a while back I almost always hydrate dried pasta before cooking. I assume that hydration will sweel the pasta, the the dehydration is mostly to remove surface water. I’ll try this when I’m back in the country next week.
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I wonder if any kind of hydrating is really necessary. There’s a Mexican snack called duros, which consist of bits of “pasta” that are deep-fried into a sort of vegetarian chicharrón. Latin stores often carry both the fried and pre-fried versions of these. And Mongolian beef is served on a bed of fried rice noodles, which puff on their own when deep fried.
Then again, pasta may be too thick for this to work. Duros are fairly thin and made with regular wheat.
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Lovely post. Thanks for the tips and techniques!
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I am pretty sure cooking as opposed to just hydrating is needed for proper puffing. In short, the heat is needed to gelatinize the starch and trap water in a glass state of sorts. I know Dave Arnold has a thorough explanation of the process on his blog.
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Thank you for this illuminating post. I just tried some puffed pasta and it is really delicious, even without any seasoning (its taste reminds me of fried polenta, but with a much nicer texture).
BTW, Since I do not owe a dehydrator I used the silpat method with a ventilated oven set at 50 °C. It took less than two hours to reach a dry, translucent aspect.
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The chinese (who seem to have a method for puffing anything) make a product known as shrimp chips. They look like little pieces of plastic that when they are fried puff up like chips (but taste like fryer). After some searching, I found a recipe online:
http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/656/Shrimp-Chips80926.shtml
I tried it once, and they came out ok. They didn’t puff up as much, but they had much better flavor. I haven’t experimented with it since, but I’ve always thought it would be cool to replace the pureed shrimp with other meats like beef or chicken or even cheese. If anyone tries this out, let me know!
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Good post Linda and yep I’m with you on the missing link..I’m finding that especially with bread..you have no idea how many missing links there are!
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You can use lots of different grains to do this subject.
In my country, we dry different types of rice, fried them,mixed with caramel,seasame,nuts…whatever
In my childhood,when I want to eat some extra snacks,I brought some dried rice cake chips(make by glutinous rice and water,the dried chips like plastic chips) to an old man who selled popcorn,and asked him to puff my rice cake chips,and then I gave them different flavers depanding on what material the kitchen have…(We also fried them.)
Another,We have some kind of things(vermicelli), like instant noodles,but made by sweet potato starch or pea starch.If you cook them,they just like transparent noodle.If you fried them,they really like Nylon thread visially… it’s delicious.
I think your work more like to recycle the pasta-making process.I mean you can make it start with flour…
Just buy some fresh grains,steam them,dried them(reshape them when half dry), then you can keep them for a long long time.
Reason? Maybe some thing like the starch’s gelatinization and ageing mechanism…
Lots of things being made without reason.Such as when my mum in her childhood,they ate roast flour mix with sugar powder and sesame as snakes, also combine with water or milk for breakfast,using it as a sauce…
Really like your blog.And very sorry that my English is not very good.It’s the third langue,I always trying to learn it better~
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yummy…
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