How to Cook Pasta

This time I’ll talk to you about how to cook pasta.  In Italy, and in some other Nation, we prefer the flour of durum wheat (semolina) for a better pasta quality. Somewhere else is often used soft wheat, but I advice you against  using it. Semolina has better protein contents and If you cook it well it will remain “al dente”. This expression means that the pasta once it was cooked, will not be overcooked, disintegrated or collapsed, but it will remain a little bit hard in the centre ( but not row).

In this article i will use spaghetti, but most of the procedure is the same for every kind of pasta.

Let’s fill a pot with cold water. The right proportion is 1 liter of water for each 100 gr of pasta.

When the water is boiling, add the salt. The right proportion is 10 gr for each liter of water.

Now choose the pasta you like, in that case i will use spaghetti and i’ll show how to put them into the pot. Twisting the spaghetti and leave them ito the water. As you can see, spaghetti will be well distributed in the pot.

Now you have to stir them often and cook them for the time they need.

Because there are different size of spaghetti as well as different size and forms of pasta, follow the instruction on the pasta box. Most producer print the right cooking  time on the packaging as in the following picture

When the pasta is cooked take a colander and  drain it.

At this point, Pasta is ready to be dressed with the sauce you like.

My last advice is to add the dressing sauce and stew the dressed pasta into the pan for 30 seconds. In that way it will be more palatable.

Last updated by Saint at March 13, 2012.