UKH

OK, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I have a problem when it comes to cooking pasta at high altitude and I wonder if someone has had this experience and maybe even has a solution.

At the weekend I was preparing for a well-deserved, hot meal after a hard ascent to over 4,500 m.a.s.l. Out comes the MSR Whisperlite International, water to a rolling boil and in goes the angel hair pasta. Five minutes later, the water is white and becoming thick with starch, whilst the pasta is still mostly uncooked. Sometime later, the pasta is cooked but now the whole thing is a gelatinous mess, with very little free water to drain. Stir in the sauce and you have what the Pervuians might call a savoury 'mazamorra'. Delicious.

So what's going on? On previous trips the water goes white but it doesn't get quite so thick. Is this just a function of trying to cook pasta at such high altitude? Or is there something about the water boiling too fast (I find it still find it hard to control the Whisperlite flame)? Any theories/ ideas/ solutions would be welcome, because my partner was not at all impressed with my culinary skills and neither of us were particuarly satisfied by the gloopy, congealed result.

Thanks for any contributions!

In reply to pink_hippy:

This probably won't answer your question but, anyway, when I was at sea and gas was at a premium, I used to soak the pasta for an hour or two before cooking it. This rehydrated it and all you had to do was make it warm. A couple of minutes or less.

In reply to pink_hippy:

At higher altitude the air pressure is lower, which means the water boils at a lower temperature, prettu much the opposite to using a pressure cooker. A quick google gives the boiling point at around 85 degrees at 4500m. So avoid anything that actually requires proper boiling for cooking like dry pasta or rice at altitude.

Ok thanks both...I was wondering if that was the case. I guess it would be like soaking pasta in cooler water before bringing to the boil at lower altitudes. Any ideas on alternatives for what to eat up there?

In reply to pink_hippy:

Carry a nice lightweight pressure cooker- problem solved!

In reply to pink_hippy:

Fresh pasta works ok (the boil for 3 minutes type).Though a bit heavy, i like taking tortellini which are nice plain or if you want you can take a little drizzle of pesto or olive oil. Potato mash also works, as does couscous, but you'd probably want to have something to add to it...

In reply to Siward:
Any suggestions for lightweight pressure cookers?

In reply to Mr Lopez:
Awesome, thanks!

In reply to pink_hippy:

forget pasta; powdered mash, hot water, sprinkle some dry mixed herbs, blob of cheese, practically zero cooking time(beyond first boiling the water, which does not need to be 100c, so ok at altitude) and relatively tasty.

In reply to summo:

When going on big trips me and my mates have always bought a pressure cooker locally for basecamp use as I don't think light weight ones exist. For on the hill use smash, cous cous, or other quick cooking alternatives. Also always check pasta cooking times some will be much quicker then others.

In reply to pink_hippy:

If you want to avoid the freeze dried stuff for price reasons, the next best thing is pre-spiced couscous. Just add boiling water, and wait. Much more efficient than anything that needs boiling while rehydrating such as rice or pasta.

I generally add a generous spoonful of hot arrabiata mix to a 250 g pack of couscous, et voila, ready made mountain food.

CB

In reply to cb294:
It's not that I want to avoid freeze-dried meals: I live in Cusco and just can't get them! Couscous is available in a few places so I'll give that a try!

In reply to pink_hippy:

Take potatoes, onion, celery, carrots, any other veg and a little bouillon powder. Simmer for 25 mins, much nicer than any reconstituted gak (not coke).

In reply to ebdon:
Light weight portable pressure cookers certainly used to exist but I haven't seen one for years.


[edit] Found one! http://www.gsioutdoors.com/halulite-2-7-l-pressure-cooker.html

In reply to ebdon:

Polenta also good

In reply to pink_hippy:

Where was the water from you used? I've had similar issues when using glacial melt water, to many minerals in it I think, seemed OK with melted snow!

In reply to pink_hippy:

The short answer is dont.

Noodles or something that absorbs water is so much more effiecient.

There used to be saying that you can tell how gnarly a mountaineer is by what he does with his or hers pasta water.

Another solution is cook pasta and add a packet of dry soup near the end and scoff the lot.

In reply to alasdair19:


I prefer the other way round: Cook a 5min dry soup, and add quick cooking (3min) children´s pasta halfway through. The classic "noodle rock" mountain dish!

CB

In reply to cb294:

your right now I think about! add choriz!

In reply to pink_hippy:
I'm a little late to the party, but I just thought I should add that if the starchiness of the water REALLY bothers you, then you should cook the pasta at home, drain it and rinse it, lay it out flat on a greased oven tray and dry it out in a very low oven (30-40oC), or put it in that nice dehydrator that's been sat lurking in the back of the garage ever since you bought it on a whim a few years ago.

Your pasta, when cooked for the second time, will cook quicker and leak less starch into the water. This is essentially the technique used to make the quick-cook pastas and rices found in many pre-made camping/bivvy meals. I cannot recommend trying it with rice at home, however, particularly if you have a phobia of reheated rice.

Or to avoid the wholly unnecessary faff outlined above you could, as people have mentioned, just eat/drink the pasta water with some packet soup or pesto mixed in, as the starch in the water contains valuable calories and shouldn't be wasted, seeing as you carried them all the way up there.

In reply to alasdair19:

Yes, or Tyrolean or Swiss Speck if you in the alps!

CB

In reply to Pete Houghton:
Wow! That does sound like a lot of faff!

Thanks everyone for the ideas and advice. We're trying out some fo the tips this weekend

In reply to pink_hippy:

I can advise you that trying to cook pasta using only a small cup of water, to which adding the water from a tin of tuna made an appreciable difference, is not a good idea. You not only have hard pasta, but you seem also to lose what little water you did have. A breakfast of oatcakes the following day is equally ill-advised and inedible.

In reply to nniff:

reminds me of a dehydrated bivvy when I was delighted to open a moist can of tuna but quickly gagging on fishy sunflower oil.