Pasta Cooking Time

Measuring pasta with calipers is prime HN material, thank you for posting this!

In the UK pasta instructions tend to be 9-11mins. 15mins is nuts, especially for the small cheap pasts he's using here. "More for your dollar". Yum!

You do not cook pasta by cooking time.

“La pasta vuole compagnia” Pasta needs company! Never leave it alone, keep stiring once in a while and keep testing them.

Best to drain it before you think it's "good" or al dente cause paste keeps cooking after beeing drained due to the heat and moisture/vapor.

Also, most good pasta dishes get their final cooking in a large pan in the sauce with some cooking water. So usually you drain em when they are still a bit hard in the inside and finish the cooking in the pan.

Italian nonas are rollin in the grave. Good HN article nontheless

The cooking time is proportional to the thickness.

General advice on pasta:

* a quality dry pasta (dececco e.g) will have ~14 grams of protein per 100 grams dry weight, this is really essential

* bronze die cut will help soak up more sauces

* you do not need the full volume of water the box says, but start your timer once the water has returned to a boil

* once it has gotten to a boil, keep it boiling, but it doesn't need to be a raging boil, that'll tear apart the pasta, especially a stuffed one

* heavily salt your water, but it does not need to be "salty like the ocean"

* set your timer for a minute less than the cooking time on the box, check for doneness, then give it another minute if needed

* if you're finishing in a sauce, take the pasta out a minute before it is done. Remember to reserve one cup of the starchy cooking water before draining your pasta entirely

* do not put oil in your cooking water, it will NOT help it not stick. Just stir after you put it in, and then again a minute or two in

* if you're struggling to tell if it's "done", take a bite of a single piece, and look at the cross section a bit of "white" in the middle means that hasn't hydrated fully. Maybe you like a bit of "toothsome"ness ('al dente'), maybe you don't