HOW TO COOK PASTA
Google “how to boil water” and you’ll get 461,000 results.
Seriously.
OK, so it turns out more complicated than we might assume. But that’s especially the case when we’re cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus the pasta, plus the ta-da.
Salt
Always add a lot of salt to the boiling water. You’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts—the Italians—enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline.
That is way too much, really, because that translates to two tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea.” That proscription has come down from TV chefs, mostly Italian-Americans.
One percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add two teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt.
Salting the water does two things: it obviously flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully.
Keep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (because, for example, it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning.
Oil
Many pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over.
Because the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience.
Preventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot, any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook.
Remember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, mix they do not, oil and water.
But here’s the really bad news: because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta.
Pasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s key. Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces.
If the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake.
The pot
Boil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in a while. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta cooking is coming along.
Cook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service.
Pasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked all the way through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you.
Finally, either pull out or somehow keep back at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. All of it, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless.
Ta-da
Finally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the lore or common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry.