Leftover cooked pasta I cool and oil lightly before the fridge

The pot is already off the heat — and the cooked pasta is still a hot heap. Easy to snap the lid “straight into the fridge as is”: by morning the tubes stick, the fork pulls glue, and the hand swears at yesterday’s supper. I cool the pasta in a thin layer, oil it lightly and put it in the cold — so the pieces stay pieces, not one brick.

Leftover cooked pasta I cool and oil lightly before the fridge. Pasta the next day in the pan is another note; noodles after the broth its own; pasta water another story. Here it’s cooled cooked pasta before the fridge: oil thin, layer not a mountain — not a damp clump under the lid.

If it has already stuck — tease it apart with a fork in a hot pan with a spoon of sauce or water; I don’t boil it again in a full pot: then it overcooks and takes offence a second time. In the microwave without stirring it turns to rubber. I’m not choosing a new pasta with a review in this note — it’s about what already cooked yesterday.

I don’t need a bowl that sleeps behind the milk and becomes glue by morning. I need yesterday’s pasta that smells of food again. At yours do you cool cooked pasta with a light oil — or already in the morning one cold clump?