[Entropy]

This does not include fresh pasta which would obviously be cooked á la minute...

When you par-cook your pasta for service time, do you prefer to cook the pasta, drain it and run it under cold water to stop the process, or cook the pasta, drain it, and cool it in a walk-in/blast chiller?

[Suzanne]

Just about every place I worked that parcooked pasta simply drained it, mixed in a tiny bit of oil, spread it on sheet pans, and chilled it. Rinsing it would remove surface starch that you need to bind the sauce.

But YMMV.

[foodpump]

Yup, what she said. Mind you, this is only applicable for high-quality pasta, what they call "Tipo Napoli" made only from Durham wheat and water.

With the cheap stuff no matter what you do, it'll turn soggy within hours....

[Shelley1]

Could I par-cook dried lasagne and keep it between oiled tin foil sheets for final cooking? I need to cook a dozen sheets at once and am ending up with them all sticking together at the moment

[Denni]

That was my problem too. Nightmare!

I've switched to no-cook lasagne...

[kuan]

In the old days they'd store pasta in a tub of water.

[Shelley1]

Excellent news! Par-cooked each sheet for 8 minutes then placed each one between two sheets of lightly oiled tin foil. Three hours later, I put the stack of 12 in boiling water for 3 minutes to finish and they were perfect - no sticking and slightly al dente.