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Cook Perfect Pasta Every Time by Chef Marc Ardoin

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8 9 7 10 12 11 Stir your pasta in instead of just dumping it in, and keep stirring during the first minute or two of cooking. Then give it a stir every once in a while as it cooks. This helps keep it from stick- ing together or clumping up. We’ve all heard that you can avoid sticky pasta by adding oil to the pasta water. But this is bad advice. Pasta that’s cooked in oily water will get oily and slippery, and whatever sauce you add won’t stick to it very well. You may be tempted to try the old trick of throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing if it sticks, but the only way to really know if it’s done is to taste it. Most pasta is meant to be cooked to a toothsome al dente texture — meaning still firm to the bite. Follow the package directions, checking the pasta about 1 to 2 minutes before the recom- mended time to see if it is done. When the pasta is ready, instead of dumping it into a colander, use a pasta fork, tongs or a spider skimmer to remove it from the water. Reserve the pasta water so you can add it to the sauce as needed. Don’t rinse the pasta. Rinsing strips it of some of that starchiness that will help the sauce cling to it. Hot pasta absorbs more sauce. Add the still- warm pasta to your sauce, tossing to coat every piece. For extra creaminess, add a few tablespoons of the starchy pasta water. salt the water until it comes to a boil. You need about 1 tablespoon of salt per quart of water.

Start with good pasta. Traditional Italian pasta is made with semolina, a hard, coarse durum flour; it has a higher protein content, which gives pasta its distinctive taste and texture. There are two types of dried pasta: shiny (sometimes called Teflon) and bronze-cut. Shiny is quick-cooking pasta, and perfect when you’re serving “noodles and butter,” or just need to get something on the table. Bronze-cut pasta is a bit coarser and has a rougher surface that a sauce will cling to better. Most traditional Italian pasta is bronze-cut. Fresh or dried? Fresh pasta isn’t necessarily better than dried pasta, it just has a different texture and flavor. Unlike dried pasta, which is a mix of flour, water and salt, fresh pasta contains eggs (and additional water), so it’s more tender. It also cooks in about half the time. Fresh pasta is great with creamy sauces like Alfredo and Carbonara, or simply tossed with butter. Dry pasta is better with hearty, oil based sauces. Using a too-small pot is one of the most common mistakes people make. We’ve all broken up spaghetti to fit in the pot. But rather than making the spaghetti fit the pot, use a large, roomy pot that fits the spaghetti. You want the pasta to have plenty of space to move so it doesn’t get clumped up. Remem- ber, most pasta doubles in size when cooked. Make sure you’re using enough water to fully submerge the pasta. Yes, even long strands of spaghetti.

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If you read the directions on the box of pasta, it will tell you to boil it in salted water. Wait to

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