Cooking Pasta

Boiling pasta requires a vessel capacious enough to allow it to move freely in the water, whilst sauces and pastas that need to be sautéed in a pan shouldn’t be crowded. Pasta should be cooked al dente (‘to the tooth’, or with a little bite) for the modern palate, although in ancient times it would have been cooked as it is today in English schools – almost to a mush.

It is important to drain the pasta when slightly too al dente for your taste – it will continue to cook in those precious moments between colander and plate, and even more so if, as in most of these recipes, it is cooked for a further minute in its sauce. It requires precision: start tasting the pasta at 15–20 second intervals, from a minute or two before you think the pasta might be ready.