A different method of cooking dried pasta

When I was researching this book, I went to see Ingegner Vincenzo Agnesi, at that time the owner of the renowned pasta factory in Liguria. Agnesi described his method of cooking dried pasta. It is a method that breaks many of the established rules, and yet I have found it has several distinct advantages over the orthodox way of cooking pasta.

The startling thing about this method is that the pasta cooks for most of the time in water that has gone off the boil. The advantages are:

The pasta keeps its ‘soul’ (the innermost part) better. Even if you leave it in the hot water for a minute or two too long, the pasta does not become gluey – as it does if left too long in boiling water.