I pride myself in not doing unholy deeds to the pasta I am cooking.

But the Covid era brought a demon inside me and that demon led me to cook pasta in the most dreaded way 🙈🤣.

I had never heard of bucatini before 2020 but when the over shopping for pasta began, I could not contain myself to buy the “thick looking spaghetti”.

During that time, I cooked any pasta in any sauce without paying attention to the relation between pasta shape and texture, and the type of sauce. Bucatini is a heavy pasta that is hollow from inside. So the sauce has to be thin to seep into the hollow. If it is a heavy sauce, then bucatini has to be  added towards the end so that the sauce does not weigh the pasta down.

I know this because I suffered the result of a heavy sauce on this pasta.

Back in 2020, I was trying to get the perfect vegan sauce because I just did not want to use milk or cream. So I bought oat milk and decided to add it to the sautéed vegetables and then bucatini in this mixture. I was again trying to save the gas and hence energy by cooking a one-pot meal.

It has taken me tons of failed recipes to finally understand that one-pot meals neither save energy nor result in a good dish with the desired taste and texture, except in case of khichdi and risotto. 

The bucatini is heavy so it takes time in getting boiled. And oat milk is not going to boil it the same way as water does. Oat milk is heavier and my mixture of oat milk, vegetables and then cheese neither provided an optimum environment for boiling nor a conducive ambience for the pasta to retain its shape. 

And you have to stir the pasta as well. 

All these mini unholy deeds resulted in a gigantic god-forbidden mess – the tragic breaking of the bucatini. But since the pasta was not boiled properly, I had to keep the flame on. More stirring, more breaking and more overcooking because of uneven boiling. 

The end result did not look like pasta and resembled aloo bhujiya drenched in white sauce and served with vegetables. I hope the pasta queen does not see this picture and banish me from cooking pasta ever again! 🥹

It was such a harrowing experience that I am still frightened of buying bucatini again!