What type of spaghetti should I use?
There are a lot of types of pasta out there. There’s fresh pasta and there’s dry pasta.
While some pastas are made with eggs, others are made simply with flour and water.
We’re going to concentrate on the most popular type of pasta that you can buy at the grocery store. It’s a dry pasta made from water and Semolina flour.
Since it typically comes in one-pound packages, the recipe in this article will call for one pound of dry spaghetti.
Semolina pasta is made from Semolina flour. And semolina flour is made from Durum wheat.
When comparing semolina flour to all-purpose flour, which is more widely used, you’ll see that the former is whiter.
How do you boil Spaghetti?
Here’s a quick guide that walks you through the best pasta-cooking techniques. See headings for details and explanations of each step.
The best method for cooking spaghetti pasta:
- Start with a large pot of COLD water. The additional minerals in hot water from the faucet can harm pots and change their flavor.
- Boil water in a large pot (I use this one) and cook pasta. This makes room for the long pasta (although short pasta can still benefit from this generalization).
- Make sure you have plenty of water in the pot. Why? Because while it’s cooking, your pasta needs somewhere to swim and move around.
- To flavor pasta from the inside out, it is an Italian MUST to generously salt the water used to make pasta. Before adding any sauce, you want the pasta to taste good enough to detect seasoning on its own.
- Prior to adding the pasta or spaghetti, bring the water to a rolling boil.
- Using the appropriate tool, stir occasionally to prevent the pasta from sticking. Don’t just dump and run :). Use a back-and-forth motion in the pot to stir spaghetti until it softens and begins to float freely in the water (see photos below).
- Test the pasta two minutes before it’s “al dente”.
- Save a scoop of pasta water. Another Italian secret!
- Drain, toss with sauce, and serve hot!
(Short pasta varieties can also be prepared using this method; a smaller pot may be needed.)
Why you should save your pasta water
Remember to save the starchy cooking water when cooking pasta and serving it with sauce! Here are some reasons to do so:
- The key to creating the ideal sauces, such as the authentic cacio e pepe recipe (best tips) and the authentic carbonara recipe (no cream), is pasta water.
- After simmering for hours, sauces such as the flavorful and meaty Bolognese occasionally require a little thinning out. Using pasta water helps add flavor and looseness without compromising texture.
- Creamy carbonara sauce cools quickly, so you can prevent it from clumping by adding pasta water.
- Because of the starch in the water, the sauce coats your pasta better and tastes even better.
- I usually set aside a half-cup to a cup and add it accordingly. How much do you save?
Try this method and let me know what you think!
