Pasta

Pasta is a starch-and-water doctrine. The dough is simple; the cooking is precise; the sauce-coating is where most home cooks lose the plate. The technique scales from one diner to a full service if the underlying rules are kept.

Fresh vs. Dried — Different Foods

Fresh egg pasta and dried semolina pasta are not interchangeable. They have different absorption rates, different gluten structures, and they pair with different sauces.

A long-simmered ragù wants fresh tagliatelle (porous, absorbs the sauce). A 20-minute tomato sauce wants dried spaghetti or rigatoni (the firm bite holds up against the acidity).

The Water

The single most-violated rule. Pasta water is a working ingredient, not a disposal job.

1 litre water per 100g pasta. Less water concentrates starch, which makes pasta stick and produces gluey, claggy sauce when you use it for mounting.

Salt like the sea. 10g sea salt per litre. The pasta is unseasoned otherwise — it must be salted from inside. People who skip this and try to compensate with more salt in the sauce end up with under-seasoned pasta and over-salted sauce.

Never oil. Oil floats on top and doesn't touch the pasta. The reason pasta sticks is that you didn't stir for the first 90 seconds when the starch is gelatinising on the surface.

Save the water. Always. A ladleful goes into the pan with the sauce as you mount. It carries dissolved starch from the cooked pasta, which acts as a thickener and emulsifier and welds the sauce to the strands. A sauce mounted with pasta water has a glossy, clinging consistency that nothing else can replicate.

Doneness

Italian al dente is roughly the box time minus 60 seconds. The pasta finishes cooking in the pan with the sauce, absorbing flavour and giving up its remaining starch. If you cook to box-time first and dress later, you've cooked the pasta twice and lost the bite.

The test: bite a strand. It should resist for a moment before yielding, and the centre cross-section should show a fine white dot of uncooked starch. That dot dissolves during the 60-second sauce mount.

Sauce-Coating

The mount is where the dish is made or lost.

1. Have the sauce hot and ready in a wide pan before the pasta is drained.
2. Drain the pasta 60 seconds early. Don't rinse.
3. Tip the pasta into the sauce. The water clinging to the pasta is part of the recipe.
4. Add a ladle of pasta water. Toss vigorously over medium heat for 60-90 seconds.
5. The sauce should tighten, gloss up, and start hugging every strand. If it's too thick, more pasta water. If it's too thin, another 20 seconds of heat.
6. Finish with cheese or oil off the heat — keeps the emulsion stable, prevents the cheese from clumping.

The wide pan matters. A small pan means the pasta sits in a pile, the sauce can't reach all the strands, and the toss is mechanical rather than aerodynamic.

Common Mistakes

• Cold sauce on hot pasta. Sauce reheats unevenly and the pasta cools while you stir. Sauce should be in a hot pan when the pasta arrives.
• Cooking pasta to package time then dressing. You've cooked it twice. Mushy plate.
• No pasta water in the mount. The sauce sits next to the pasta instead of clinging. Looks watery on the plate.
• Rinsing cooked pasta. Strips the surface starch that helps sauce adhere. Only acceptable for cold pasta salad.
• Adding cheese to the hot pan. Cheese clumps and separates. Off the heat.

In the Wiki

• italian-cuisine — the broader tradition pasta is rooted in
• sauces — sauce families that pair with pasta
• umami — parmigiano + pasta water = glutamate amplification

Examples

2026-05-11 — Repeated the ragù tonight with rigatoni — works but tagliatelle is right; the wide flat shape catches more sauce. 2026-05-06 — Took me three attempts to keep the pecorino from clumping. 2026-05-14 — Late dinner, three ingredients, ten minutes.