pasta recipe:

pasta cooking notes

The following notes are pointers for the best way of cooking any pasta - fresh, dried, etc. It is quick efficient and will prevent the pasta from sticking together:

1. Saucepans for pasta cooking are best to be oversized as one should always cook pasta in plenty of water, the bigger the pot the better!
2. 2 litres of water per 100gm of raw pasta is a good guideline
3. The water must be on a fast rapid boil when placing in the pasta
4. Gently stir the pasta back to the boil, this should take no more than 1 minute if:
   

		a large pot of water has been used
		the water was on a rapid boil when placing in the pasta
		a reasonable amount of pasta (not too large) was placed in

5. Cook small amounts of pasta often, rather than large portions all at once, as this only encourages them to stick
6. Pasta is best cooked to order and not refreshed after cooking, the sticky starch that results allows the sauce to cling to the pasta and become a watery annoyance on the plate
7. Oil is not required to be added to the cooking water as commonly thought, as long as the above points are followed. Besides adding fat to your diet it is a waste of good oil!
8. Whether salt should or should not be added to the water is a matter of great argument amongst chefs, some say you must others will say it toughens the pasta . . . the choice is yours. The following points need to be considered:

		how salty is the accompanying sauce?
		what salty accompliments like sundried tomatoes, olives, anchovies, etc is being served?
		is the high salt content cheese, Parmesan being used to finish it off?

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