Alone and Unobserved

If you grew up in America and you’ve never lived in Italy, most likely you’ve never had pasta cooked the right way. And until you have, you don’t know what you’re missing. So here are eight tips to cooking up perfect Italian pasta every time.

Tip #1: Start with high-quality dried pasta. Barilla is always a good bet, but there are other inexpensive imported pastas that are as good or better. Dried pasta keeps for a long time, so don’t be afraid to stock up when your favorite pasta is on sale.

Tip #2: Use a pot that is large enough, and use lots of water. The secret to pasta that cooks evenly and doesn’t stick together is not adding unnecessary ingredients such as olive oil to the cooking water, but simply having enough water for the pasta to move around freely. I try to aim for three times as much water by volume than pasta.

Tip #3: Salt your water liberally! The secret to a flavorful pasta dish is flavorful pasta—and the secret to flavorful pasta is salt in the cooking water. Fill the cooking pot with water, salt it liberally, and then put it on the heat. Once the water is warm (but not hot) and the salt has dissolved, taste it. If it’s not pleasantly salty (like a nice broth), add more salt. You’ll need at least a good handful of kosher salt for a five-quart pot of water, if not more. (Be careful: granulated salt is much more potent than kosher—it’s easy to over- or under-salt recipes if you switch back and forth between the two.)

Tip #4: Cook the pasta at a high enough temperature, and leave the pot uncovered. The other secret to pasta that doesn’t stick together is cooking it a high simmer or low boil. If the water is in motion, the pasta will be, too, and will not be able to stick to the bottom of the pot or to itself. However, if you cover the pot at this temperature, it is guaranteed to boil over. So leave the lid off.

Tip #5: Have your sauce ready before the pasta is done. In the perfect kitchen, every part of the meal comes out at exactly the same time, is assembled in seconds and is on plates and on the table like magic. Do have this as your goal, but realize it will rarely happen this way. It is much easier to keep a sauce warm for a few minutes than it is to keep your pasta from overcooking while the sauce finishes.

Tip #6: Don’t trust the cooking time on the package. Pay attention to your cooking pasta. When you stir it, watch its color and its pliability. Uncooked pasta is stiff, leathery and opaque, while cooked pasta is evenly translucent and flexible. As soon as it starts acting and looking more like cooked pasta than uncooked (so approximately two to three minutes before the shorter cooking time on the box) scoop some out with a fork or a slotted spoon, BLOW ON IT CAREFULLY, and taste it. Continue tasting it every minute until it’s ready to drain.

What is al dente pasta anyway? Perfectly cooked Italian pasta is firm and has a consistent, even texture. It is not crunchy or hard even at the center, but it is also not at all mushy or soft. When you take a bite from a dish of al dente pasta, each strand or piece of pasta will be distinct and will hold up in your mouth as you chew it instead of immediately mushing together into a single mass.

Tip #7: Drain your pasta BEFORE it is al dente. Pasta continues to cook in the colander and the serving dish, so if you drain the pasta when it’s the perfect consistency it will be overcooked by the time you serve it. When you taste your cooking pasta, you are looking for a consistency that is *almost* right, but is still slightly too firm. It shouldn’t be crunchy, but it should be more than al dente. (NOTE: If you are planning on using the pasta in another recipe where it will be cooked further—fried pasta, lasagna or pasta al forno—you should take it out a full two minutes early, when it’s even firmer and more undercooked.)

Tip #8: Use pasta sauce, not oil, to keep your pasta from sticking together in the serving dish. If you plan on dishing out the pasta at the table and then ladling the sauce over it on the plates, you will need to do something to keep the pasta from fusing into a giant mass before you can serve it. Some people toss the pasta with olive oil, which gives it a pretty sheen, but I strongly recommend using a small amount of the pasta sauce instead. Olive oil simply doesn’t work very well for the task, since it is absorbed so readily by the pasta. Also, drizzling cold olive oil on the warm pasta is counterproductive. Instead, ladle a small amount of the pasta sauce into the pasta serving dish and toss it thoroughly. It’s not quite as pretty a solution, perhaps, but it works much better.

Check out the companion piece, Eight Tips for Making Amazing Red Sauce, for more information on making a truly Italian pasta dish.