How to Cook the Perfect Pasta
1. How much water should I use?
To cook pasta – as a rule of thumb – use 5 quarts of water per 1 lb of pasta and 1-2 pinches of gross salt.
2. What should I cook it in?
Use a large, high pasta pot.
3. How long should I cook the pasta?
Cooking time varies. Usually the cooking time for dry pasta will be printed on the box. However, fresh pasta need only be cooked for 3-5 minutes. Dry pasta is usually cooked for 6-13 minutes depending on the thickness of the pasta. If the box of the dry pasta indicates a time, it is best to follow that time.
4. How do I know if the pasta is done?
After the indicated amount of time, taste a piece of pasta. The dry pasta should be translucent. If when you break a piece it is white inside, it is not thoroughly cooked. Pasta should be cooked to ‘al dente‘.
5. How has cooking pasta changed over time?
In Italy in the past, it was common to cook homemade pasta at home very frequently. Today, because it is time consuming, it is only done on special occasions. Pasta all ‘uovo is made with soft flour and eggs and it comes from the north and center of Italy. Pasta made with durum semolina flour and water comes from the South of Italy.
How To Eat Pasta like an Italian Chef
Children in Italy learn to eat Spaghetti from the time that they can hold a fork. All you need to eat Spaghetti is a fork. Don’t ever cut your spaghetti with a knife. Take your fork and try this movement a few times on an empty plate. You must turn the fork as if you are winding something- using your thumb, forefinger and middle finger. Now wind up a reasonable quantity of pasta onto your fork. If at first you wind too much spaghetti on your fork, try again until you get the right amount. Once wound up on the fork, quickly put forkful of pasta in your mouth and push in any spaghetti remaining outside.
History of Pasta
Spaghetti, the most famous pasta was born in the South of Italy and in cities with a large number of pasta factories, especially Naples. The spaghetto is a long rod pasta format with a round section with a diameter ranging between 1.92-2.00 mm. Spaghettini comes from Naples and has a round section and thickness of 1.63-1.70 mm. Fusilli belong to the very short, straight, cut pasta format and they are a specialty of the Campania region (in the South). They have a special shape with a .10 mm diameter, 0.41 mm average length and a thickness between 1.35 and 1.48 mm. In ancient times fusilli were hand made according to a method handed down from mother to daughter, which consisted of twisting a spaghetto (long thread of pasta) around a knotting needle with a swift movement. This kind of ability was similar to the movement of a spinning machine. The word fusilli comes from fuso- which means ‘rod’ or ‘spindle’ as in the rod the spinning machine s used. www.marialiberati.com
