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Comment by Exmoor | Hacker News Reader

Not really "passive" cooking as you're just not actively pumping heat into already boiling water and just cooking pasta in steadily cooling water.

You can actually soften pasta and many other similar foods by just leaving them in room temperature water for a much longer period. Some backpackers do this to reduce weight and it's been the only way I've ever prepared food while backpacking. Admittedly, cold noodles, oatmeal, rice, etc. is a lot more appetizing if you're many miles from the nearest civilization and have worked up a huge hunger from hiking.

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Pasta needs to reach something like 80 degrees to "cook", if you just soak it at 35 it will not be the same result.

The method described here (which has been around for centuries) instead gets you the same result as cooking in constantly boiling water, saving a lot of gas/electricity.

I really doubt it’s a lot. I really don’t think it’s much at all, and that’s why they’ve got the asterisk on the number.

Water has really high specific heat capacity, and there’s a lot more water than noodles (by mass). You’re using a lot more energy to heat the water than the noodles. Most people switch to low heat (the water just has to stay boiling, how fast doesn’t much matter) at about the same time this would have you switch it off. So you’re saving a little bit of energy for the last maybe 25% of the process.

> I really doubt it’s a lot. I really don’t think it’s much at all, and that’s why they’ve got the asterisk on the number.

The asterisk is on the 80% claim, a more conservative estimation from a research published by the italian pasta makers association last summer was at 47%, which I think still qualifies as "a lot".

I think you are under-estimating the amount of power required to keep the water boiling, especially on gas stoves.

Couscous is pasta and “cooks” just fine for in a cold soak. Doesn’t even take that long.

True but unlike most pasta, store bought couscous is usually pre-steamed/cooked. That plus its small size (large surface area) makes it perfect for cold soak.

You don't need to cook Couscous and it is often pre-cooked in retail. In fact, that's how one prepares Taboulé. For Pasta it is absolutely not the same thing at all. Uncooked pasta isn't good for your stomach. If you don't want to cook pasta, then buy instant ramen, they are already cooked.

A cold-soaking only approach works well with instant noodles, dehydrated pasta and freeze dried pasta (all of which are pre-cooked).

However, a hybrid approach, meaning cold-soaking your meal an hour or so before dinner then heating, can help speed up the cooking process and thus save fuel (weight).

Having tried all of the above I can say that for me at least, many Korean ramens + peanut butter are a godsend that lend themselves really well to cold-soaking not just in ease of use but in taste too.

Wait, how long would you soak rice to make it edible? I’d imagine it’s longer than 24 hours.

Typically you'd use instant / minute rice when backpacking.

I'd imagine the pressure-cooked (ie: autoclaved) ready-to-eat products like Uncle Ben's Express (or whatever they renamed it) will take over a lot of this, at least for those not on a serious budget.

Backpackers typically use parcooked instant rice. Anywhere from like 30 minutes to all day will make it soft. A lot of folks put their cold soaking food in water at the start of the day so it gets jostled around and softened all day as they hike.

I've never done it by timer, but a quick search indicates about 90 minutes should be good. I'm always pressed for time and just let it soak while I set up camp, so its usually a little crunchy still when I'm done.

What are we calling 'edible'? I soak rice a minimum of 30m before cooking, I've definitely ended up leaving it longer than 90m on several occasions, I wouldn't just eat it without cooking as a result.

I don't think you'll ever get the same texture without heat due to lack of starch gelatinization.

It will get moldy before it ever gets cooked. Learn from my fail.

No mould will grow on soaking (i.e. submersed) rice.

Confidently dismissing someone else's firsthand experience, exactly the level of intelligent conversation this site is renown for.

Yes, much better to blindly believe an anecdote that contradicts known food science.

Mold can definitely grow on the surface of liquids. Have you never left a cup of coffee out on a counter for a few days?

It can grow on the surface, but won't be able to grow on submerged rice. Bacteria could still ferment the rice though.

No, while the visible majority of mold grows on the surface of things, it also sends out tendrils that penetrate through the medium. That's why you shouldn't cut mold off of bread or soft cheeses and eat the visibly "ok" part, you should treat the entire thing as contaminated. Hard cheeses that have only a little bit of mold can be scraped, but anything soft will get explored pretty thoroughly.

Why would you think that? It's water and starch. Everything a growing bacteria needs.

Their point is just that the mold will only grow on the surface, not the submerged rice. Mold needs air, too.

Mold is a fungus.

It doesn’t work very well with rice. It’s one of the worst thing to take while backpacking. It doesn’t soak well. It takes a long time to soften while cooking and it’s not very good when it’s slightly undercooked.

i did once, with lentils; but nothing beats cooked food, no matter if it is pre-soaked or not...

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