Basic Pasta Tips

The eighties, nineties and now the new millennium have made fresh pasta a sure winner in culinary adventures. Too bad after paying so much attention to making it the best pasta, most restaurants mess it up by cooking it improperly. Everybody knows that cooking pasta is simple (we do it so well at home). Fill a large pot of water 3/4 full, put it to a boil, drop in the pasta, cook it to perfection (al dente), then put the whole in a colander. The water will run to the drain faster than the pasta into the plate. Nobody would think of using the same water over and over to cook more pasta. Pasta, when cooking releases starch in the water (you notice how cloudy it gets in the process) and repeated cooking will make the water rancid and bitter. This inevitably will alter the taste of pasta when cooked in that water. The best way to cook pasta, therefore, is in clean water every single time. The second best way is with a pasta cooker. That, although is not providing clean water to every dish will give water that is 90% clean every time. The second common mistake is to serve pasta well piled on the plate with a crown of sauce on top! From the colander pasta should go not on the plate but in a pan where a serving of the desired sauce is waiting, sizzling. Toss it, mix it well for 10 seconds and from the pan slide it on the plate. Put a leaf or stem leafs on and serve!

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