Fresh vs. Packet - Pasta out favourite indulgent Italian dish, to me it's just Soul Food. Whether it's a celebration, dining out or cooking dinner for my wife, this is one starch I'll never get tired of. Pasta is made in hundreds of shapes and sizes. Each shape is appropriate for different preparations because of the way different kinds of sauce cling to them or the way their textures complement the texture of the pasta. Remember that fresh egg pasta and factory-made pasta are very different products. It makes no sense to say that one type is better than the other. Italian cooks use fresh and dried pasta in different ways, with different recipes for each type.


Factory pasta has a chewy, robust texture, good with robust sauces, while fresh egg pasta is tender and more delicate. Fresh egg pasta absorbs sauces more deeply than factory made products. In general, factory-made pasta is ideal for olive oil–based sauces, and fresh homemade pasta is better with butter or cream-based sauces.

Cooking pasta - Dried packet pasta, which most people use; and please try and use a good quality brand (Barilla), should take about 8-mins to be done Al Dente, this is very important. Times indicated on packages are often too long. Many suggestions have been made for testing doneness, but nothing is more reliable than breaking off a very small piece and tasting it. As soon as the pasta is al dente, the cooking must be stopped at once. Half a minute extra is enough to overcook it. Cooking times differ for every shape and size of pasta. Timing also depends on the kind of flour used and the moisture content. Fresh egg pasta, if it has not been allowed to dry, takes only 1 to 11⁄2minutes to cook after the water returns to a boil.

Use at least 4L boiling salted water per 500g of pasta. Use about 1.5 tablespoons (25 g) salt per 4L water. Get the water boiling rapidly and drop in the pasta. As it softens, stir gently to keep it from sticking together and to the bottom. Continue to boil, stirring a few times. As soon as the pasta is al dente, drain it immediately in a colander and rinse with cold running water until completely cooled. Otherwise, it would continue to cook and become too soft. If the pasta is to be used cold in a salad, it is ready to be incorporated into the recipe as soon as it has cooled. If the pasta is to be held, toss gently with a small amount of oil to keep it from sticking and keep in the refrigerator. Do not do not keep it in cold water, the pasta will absorb water.

Italian practice is to toss the pasta with the sauce the minute it is drained. The sauce immediately coats all surfaces of the pasta, and cheese, if there is any, melts in the heat of the boiling hot noodles. If you are attempting to serve an authentic Italian pasta dish, follow this practice rather than simply topping the pasta with the sauce. Pasta is best if cooked and served immediately. Fresh pasta, in particular, cooks so quickly there is little reason to cook it in advance.

Amount of pasta - A 500g pack of uncooked dried pasta yields about 1.5kg cooked pasta. This is enough for four to six main-courses or eight to ten side-dishes. 500g of fresh past will yield about 1kg of cooked pasta making about four main courses. Normally people generally buy and cook 500g packs and cook the whole thing ending up with extra cooked pasta left in the refrigerator that lasts the rest of the week!

So I hope this clarifies a few questions about pasta, although I could spend a few more paragraphs talking about it, for us home cooks I think this is enough.