How to properly cook pasta – as true Italians do!

One of the things that shocked us the most in our travel to Sweden was a very nice meeting with a couple of young Germans. We were talking in the kitchen of our Hotel and the boy told us that that day was her girlfriend’s birthday. Due to this occasion, he decided to make a nice surprise for her: a dinner made all with his own hands.
So the guy, literally confused and quite nervous for the performance, started talking with us, asking for advices. The menu had as a first dish: pasta.
So he started to put water and pasta in a pan, and turning on the fire..
wait..?
What?

Yes, you’ve read it right.
He put pasta inside the water, before that the water reached the boiling point.
Of coure, we suggested him how to propery cook pasta, and the day after he was happy to share with us his success in their Italian dinner.

From that day on we started to notice that a lot of blogs, websites and video concerning pasta did the same thing. Here’s why we are writing this article, in order to show you how to properly cook pasta as True Italians do! 😀

So, take note of our advices: it won’t be difficult. Here you will find the best and easiest tips for excellent pasta every time on how to properly cook pasta! 🙂

• Put water in a large Pot, a lot of water. It should be at least three quarters full of water.
  that’s important because pasta should have plenty of space to move during the cooking time. If pasta is cooked in a small or narrow pot, it will crowd into a tight ball. And this is definitely not good! 🙂
• Salt the water. There are two ways of thinking. Salt the water in the beginning, or when the water boils. The point is not when to add salt, but add enough salt: to be properly salted, you should use 10 g (0,35 oz) of salt for one liter of water.
• Bring the water to a full, rolling boil.
• Throw the pasta: you should have almost 100 g (3,5 oz) of pasta per person.
  Don’t be stingy. Italians and Italian food lovers eat a lot of pasta! And if it’s too much, it’s not a problem: you can eat it tomorrow, just adding cheese and putting it on the oven. That would be a great “Pasta al Forno”.
• Read the pasta box: on the pasta box there should be written the cook times you need to properly cook pasta. Just follow it, and taste the pasta two minutes before it’s ready. Remember that your pasta has to be not too mushy yet not too chewy. Unlike dried pasta, fresh pasta takes only two or three minutes to cook, max.
• Save a scoop of pasta water. You may need it later, if you do some pasta like “cacio e pepe”. This water is rich in starch and it can be very usefull for sauces, for binding the sauce and pasta together.
• Drain the pasta: Place a colander in the kitchen sink and drain your pasta. Put the drained pasta back into the pot with sauce (or into the saucepan if the sauce is still cooking).
  If you need, and your sauce is too strict, add your pasta water

And just one more thing… Please, don’t add any oil to the pasta water. Some cooks assume that a glue of olive oil will keep the strands from clumping. The truth is that oil could leave your pasta too slick for saucing. And that’s not good! 🙂

So, hope you enjoyed our tips, and begging you pardon for our mistakes in English language, we wish you a very nice day! 🙂

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