Cooking Pasta

Good pasta preparation does not mean complicated cooking; instead, taking some care means more delicious dinners on your table. Following this advice will assure that your pasta ends up as something more than a bland base for sauce.

1. Boiling the water: Bring a large pot of cold tap water to a boil over high heat. Covering the pot will reduce the time this takes.

My rule of thumb is to cook 1 pound of pasta in about 4 quarts of salted water. Some cooks insist that the more water you use, the better the pasta is—probably on the theory that the more water the pasta has to swirl around in, the less it will clump. But my ecological learnings steer me away from waste, and I use the minimum amount of water needed to cook the pasta properly.

While the basic 4:1 water-to-pasta ratio (4 quarts to 1 pound) works in most cases, it doesn’t hold true for long-strand or ribbon noodles. For fettuccine and its relatives, you will need 3 quarts of water for half a pound. Just remember that whatever the type of noodles, you need enough water so that the strands can bend and twirl as they cook. If they’re crowded, they’ll stick together.

There are many old wives’ tales about cooking pasta. One is that adding oil to the cooking water prevents the pasta from sticking together. It doesn’t seem logical to me that a couple of tablespoons of oil, dispersed in a gallon of water, would keep an entire pound of noodles from clumping. Adding the oil to the cooking water won’t hurt, but it won’t prevent the noodles from sticking together either. The best antidote to tacky pasta is using a semolina pasta and cooking it in enough water.

2. Adding the salt: I always add salt to the pot of cold water. Some cooks advise you to add it after the water has come to a boil because adding salt to cold water makes it take longer to boil. But I am a forgetful person and I notice that if I don’t add salt right away, I often forget to add it before the pasta goes in.

I don’t measure the amount of salt I add, but I estimate it is a couple of teaspoonfuls. This step may seem unimportant, but it isn’t. If you don’t add salt to the cooking water, your finished pasta dish will taste flat and bland. Of course if you are on a sodium-free diet, you have no choice but to omit the salt. To compensate, season whatever sauce you are making with lots of citrus, hot peppers, or fresh herbs.

3. Implements at the ready: While the water is coming to a boil, assemble all the equipment you’ll need: Have at the ready a long-handled fork, tongs, or some other implement you can use both to stir the pasta when it starts to cook and to retrieve some later on to test for doneness. (I prefer a wooden fork—it doesn’t conduct heat and the prongs help separate the strands as you stir.) Set a colander or strainer in the sink.

Your sauce should be good and hot—either just cooked or reheated. Warm the dishes you will serve the pasta in so that it doesn’t cool down before you serve it.

4. Cooking the pasta: When the water is at a full rolling boil, add the pasta. Don’t cheat here: You want the water at a rolling boil so that the water will come back to a boil quickly after the pasta is added. Stir the water as you add the noodles so they don’t stick together or sink to the bottom.

Cover the pot, keeping the heat up high. Once the water is boiling again, uncover the pot and lower the heat a tad. You want the pasta to cook merrily, but not so violently that the noodles break.

Once the water is boiling nicely, you can relax and just give it a stir every now and again, reaching down to the bottom of the pot and around the sides to dislodge any stray pasta strands that are beginning to adhere to the pot.

5. Timing the pasta: Most people these days know that pasta tastes best when cooked al dente (“to the tooth”)—that is, until tender but still firm to the bite. How long this takes depends on the type of pasta: what it is made of, its shape, its quality, and even on how old it is (the older it is, the longer it takes to cook).

To guard against overcooking, test a piece about 2 minutes before the time mentioned on the package. The instructions on U.S.-made pasta usually direct the cook to boil the noodles too long. The best test is to bite into the pasta as it is cooking. It is done when it is just tender—still firm but cooked through. Incompletely cooked pasta is chalky inside.

The cooking time begins at the moment the water returns to the boil, not the moment you add the pasta to the water. Fresh pasta should be tested after 2 minutes and again each minute after that, because it cooks quickly and will move rapidly from uncooked to overcooked. The average medium-size dry pasta takes 8 to 10 minutes to cook. The timing depends, of course, on the size, shape, and thinness of the pasta. Naturally, filled pastas take longer.

6. Draining the pasta: When the pasta is cooked, drain it at once. If you are planning to serve it hot, don’t rinse it. (Rinsing the noodles just cools them down. It doesn’t do anything to wash away excess starch and prevent the noodles from sticking—another myth.)

If you will be serving the pasta chilled, then do rinse it in cold water to stop the cooking process. Drain the noodles again thoroughly.

7. Saucing the pasta: As soon as the pasta is drained, add the sauce. Hot pasta will continue to cook while it sits in the colander, and it will start to clump together if it’s not immediately tossed. (If things aren’t quite working out as you had hoped and your sauce is not ready, toss the cooked pasta in the pot with about 2 tablespoons of vegetable or olive oil (per pound of pasta)— just enough to coat the pasta and keep it from sticking. Cover the pot until the pasta is ready to be sauced.

There are a couple of ways you can sauce the pasta. The simplest and most informal way is the Italian way: Serve up a portion of pasta in each plate, and ladle the sauce over the center. This way the pasta is served quickly and doesn’t get cold, and each person can decide how much sauce is enough. This method is especially handy when you are serving a sauce full of chunky ingredients that are hard to integrate with the pasta. Serve any extra sauce on the side.

The second way is to return the drained pasta to the pot (off the heat) and then add the sauce, tossing the two together with tongs or with a fork. With this method the sauce is more evenly distributed, making it a bit easier for small children to handle.

SERVING AND EATING PASTA

I serve pasta in shallow plates that are a cross between a flat dinner plate and a deep soup bowl. Look for plates that have sloping edges, which will hold in the heat and will prevent the pasta from slipping around, and that are wide enough to accommodate dishes such as lasagne or manicotti.

It is best to warm the plates so that the food doesn’t lose its heat before you have a chance to enjoy it. You can heat them in a low oven, on a shelf above the stove, on a hot tray, or for a few seconds in a microwave. Rinsing them under hot running water will at least keep them from being stone cold.

To eat pasta, all you need is a fork. The American habit of resting the fork on a soup spoon is unnecessary. The trick is to wind just a couple of strands around your fork, which is poised at the edge of the bowl. If you start with only a few strands, you’ll end up with a forkful that won’t be too big for a proper mouthful.

Italians don’t approve of cutting pasta with a fork and knife because that separates the sauce from the noodles, and the whole point of twirling the noodles around the fork is to trap the sauce in the noodles as you go. But they make an exception for little children, and so do I.

PASTA REPAIRS

STICKY PASTA

If you choose the right pasta, cook it in enough water, and drain and sauce it properly, it should not stick together. However, things do go awry. Here are some ways to unstick that tangled-up clump of linguine.

If you are going to serve the pasta chilled, or if you want to reheat it later, run cold water over the pasta as you separate it with your fingers. Once the strands are unstuck, you can reheat the pasta by boiling some water, placing the pasta in a strainer, and setting the strainer in the boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes or until the pasta is hot again.

If you need to serve the stuck-together pasta right away, run very hot tap water through it, separating the strands with tongs or two forks. As soon as you’ve managed to unstick the pasta, make sure it’s well drained, then lightly coat the strands with oil or sauce, and serve.

OVERCOOKED PASTA

If you have overcooked the pasta but have to proceed with the meal, you might want to add a bit more sauce than you ordinarily would, or even a drop of Tabasco sauce to help distract the diner from the problem. For contrast, you also could add diced raw bell pepper or cucumber, if you think it would match the sauce you’re serving.

But you can make better use of overcooked pasta the next day. Turn it into a salad where other crisp ingredients will camouflage its soft texture, use the pasta in soup, where the soft texture is actually desirable, or turn it into a pasta frittata.

SPECIAL NOODLES, SPECIAL COOKING

Just about all the rules that apply to cooking durum-wheat pasta apply to cooking Asian and specially flavored pastas as well. Chances are good that the packaging will provide directions and cooking times. However, some of the instructions are confusing, some are poorly translated into English, and some are not even translated. Just in case, here are some cooking tips for specialty pasta.

Asian noodles made with wheat or another grain are cooked just the same way as Italian-style pasta.

Noodles made of rice or mung bean starch need to be presoaked so they do not turn rubbery. The cooking time is short, however, so the two steps don’t really add to the total. As with any pasta, begin to test for doneness a couple of minutes before you believe the noodles should be ready.

WHEAT NOODLES

My favorite among Asian wheat noodles are the fresh Chinese egg ones; they are, unfortunately, hard to find. If you have access to a Chinese market, do try them. They are delicious.

FRESH CHINESE EGG NOODLES: 1 to 2 minutes or according to package directions.

DRIED CHINESE EGG NOODLES (MEIN NOODLES): 6 to 8 minutes or according to package directions.

DRIED JAPANESE UDON (THICK): 10 minutes or according to package directions.

DRIED JAPANESE SOMEN (THIN): 4 to 5 minutes or according to package directions.

DRIED JAPANESE BUCKWHEAT SOBA: 4 to 5 minutes or according to package directions.

RICE NOODLES

These noodles need some soaking first, then a brief cooking (more to give them flavor than to cook them thoroughly). I have tried to use these without cooking, and the texture seemed not right.

The very skinny rice sticks (often called rice vermicelli) are usually reserved for deep-frying, but you can also boil them for 3 minutes after soaking and then use them in salads.

The thicker rice noodles should be soaked in cold water for 20 minutes or in very hot water for about 10 minutes. Then simmer, fry, or boil for 3 to 5 minutes or until done.

MUNG BEAN STARCH NOODLES

These are also known as cellophane, glass, or bean thread noodles. Soak them off the heat in hot water that has just reached simmering temperature for about 20 minutes or until they are transparent and pliable. If they are not done after 20 minutes, soak them in hotter water for longer. (If you add them dry to water that is at its hottest, they clump together and turn into a gelatinous blob.) Then cut them into manageable lengths and stir-fry, simmer, or boil for 2 to 3 minutes or until they have picked up some flavor.

CLEAN-UP

Starch will cling to the colander in which you’ve drained your pasta. The best way to get rid of it is to scour the colander with a plastic scrubbing pad.

If bits of pasta have stuck to your cooking pot, simply soak the pot in warm soapy water until the pasta is soft: then lift the bits from the pot and wash it out.