🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 148 (from laksa040)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa148.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/19/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe/\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/19/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe/\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/01\/19\/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe\/","crawl_time":1774322791,"first_indexed_time":1516409590,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,denverpost!www,\/2018\/01\/19\/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe\/ s443","src_root_hash":"6738286653657306948","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Get Cooking: How to cook pasta, the right way – The Denver Post","meta_descriptions":["OK, so it turns out it's more complicated than we might assume -- especially when cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and ta-da."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Google “how to boil water” and you’ll get 461,000 results.\nSeriously.\nOK, so it turns out it’s more complicated than we might assume — especially when cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and\nta-da.\nSalt\nAlways add a lot of salt to the boiling water. As with the myth about the ease of boiling water, you’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts — the Italians — enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline.\nThat is way too much, really, because that translates to 2 tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea”; only TV chefs say that. It’s opera buffa for the airwaves.\nOne percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add 2 teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt.\nSalting the water does two things: It flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully.\nKeep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (for example, if it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning.\nOil\nMany pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over.\nBecause the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience.\nPreventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot — pretty much Pasta 101 — any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook.\nRemember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, “mix they do not, oil and water.”\nBut here’s the really bad news: Because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta.\nPasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s\nkey\n. Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces.\nIf the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake.\nThe pot\nBoil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in awhile. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta is cooking.\nCook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service.\nPasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you.\nFinally, pull out at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. That cup, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless.\nTa-da\nFinally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the  common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry.\nAmy Brothers, The Denver Post\nLinguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce  on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)\nHere’s one recipe to try:\nCacio e Pepe\nFrom the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, after a recipe from chef Flavio de Maio at his restaurant, Flavio al Velavevodetto in Rome. (I am guessing that this is the pasta eaten during the sweetest on-screen kiss of all time, the one between Lady and her Tramp at Tony’s Trattoria in the Disney film, when their lips meet in a slurp of a shared strand of spaghetti.)\nIngredients\n1 1\/2 cups finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish\n1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano\n1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish\n3\/4 pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti\nGood olive oil\nDirections\nPut a pot of salted water on to boil. In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and black pepper; mash with just enough cold water to make a thick paste. Spread the paste evenly in the bowl.\nOnce the water is boiling, add the pasta. The second before it is perfectly cooked (taste it frequently once it begins to soften), use tongs to quickly transfer it to the bowl, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water. Stir vigorously to coat the pasta, adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil and a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if necessary. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery.\nPlate and dust each dish with additional pecorino and pepper. Serve immediately.\nPasta shapes and their sauces\nWe may eat pasta shapes such as fusilli or farfalle for their novelty, or strands such as spaghetti or linguine because they are nostalgic — and eat them with whatever saucing or in whatever preparation we dang well decide on — but there is real rhyme and reason for pairing certain pasta shapes with certain sauces.\nAnd the Italians, of course, show the way.\nIn Italy (and increasingly in all other countries) pasta, both fresh and dried, comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes and configurations. You’re excused for imagining that there is no way that each shape has its particular sauce.\nNo, it’s more that the general shape of a pasta pairs with a general type of sauce or preparation. And this is due mainly to the function of the pasta, what the pasta does with its sauce.\nLong, thin pastas such as spaghetti, linguine, bucatini and fettuccine are designed to pull the sauce up along their length as the pasta is wound on a fork, at the edge of the plate, and then brought to what a friend of mine delightfully terms “the devourment chamber”: the mouth.\nThat’s why well-made pastas of this sort actually have rough-ish surfaces, made so by the (sometimes ancient) bronze dies through which they are extruded.\nSauces for long, thin pastas include cream- or oil-based sauces such as\naglio e olio\n, or the typical “marinara” (if not too chunky), or sauces that might use a good splash of the pasta cooking water in the finishing, such as the recipe here,\ncacio e pepe\n.\nRibbon-shaped pastas such as pappardelle or tagliatelle, because of their wide flat surfaces, carry long-cooked meaty sauces such as the classic bolognese up along their length.\nPasta shapes with lots of twists or turns —  fusilli, gemelli, farfalle, orecchiette — “cup” or trap the small bits of meat or vegetables in the sauces meant for them. Because of both the nature of the sauce and the pasta here, these bits and pieces adhere or cling to each other felicitously.\nTubed pastas such as penne or rigatoni, ziti and elbow are also great with such sauces, but they really shine in dishes where the sauce will find itself inside, as well as outside, the tube. That’s their design.\nSuch are baked pasta dishes of many sorts such as the Tuscan dish penne straccicate or our ol’ standard mac ‘n’ cheese. Tubed pastas also work well as the basis for pasta salads.\nFinally, two pasta shapes that are commonly misused hereabouts.\nI refer to mini-pasta shapes (what the Italians call “pastine”) such as orzo or\nstelline\n(“little stars”) that we use in pasta salad instead of where they belong, in wet — very wet — dishes such as soup. And for children, by and large, because their “devourment chambers” are small, too.\nYou’ll find that orzo makes for gloppy pasta salad but is a fine counterpoint to chicken broth.\nThe other commonly misused pasta shapes are the filled pastas such as tortellini or ravioli. They are not substitutes for long, thin or twisty-turn-y pastas, there for carrying sauces to the mouth. When treated as such, the cook makes a five-act play when a two-act will do and is better.\nFilled pastas are mini pillows of pleasure, with most of their deliciousness all right there. A simple glistening of really top-notch olive oil, or unsalted brown butter with sage leaves, or merely some grated black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a bit of pasta cooking water to whip it together into a sheen — that’s all they need for their minimal adornment.\nReach Bill St John at bsjpost@gmail.com","attrs_markdown":"[Skip to content](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/01\/19\/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe\/#content)\n\nAll Sections\n\n[Subscribe Now](https:\/\/checkout.denverpost.com\/?g2i_or_o=Internet&g2i_or_p=nav&g2i_source=SB&g2i_medium=side-nav&g2i_campaign=nav&returnUrl=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.denverpost.com%252F2018%252F01%252F19%252Fhow-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe%252F)\n\n[67°F](http:\/\/www.accuweather.com\/en\/us\/denver-co\/80203\/current-weather\/35082_pc?lang=en-us&partner=mng_50 \"Current Weather Conditions\")\n\nMonday, March 23rd 2026\n\n[Digital Replica Edition](https:\/\/enewspaper.denverpost.com\/ \"Link to E-Edition opens in a new window\")\n\n[Home Page](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/ \"Link to Home Page\")\n\n- [News](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/news\/)\n  - 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Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and *ta-da.*\n\n**Salt**\n\nAlways add a lot of salt to the boiling water. As with the myth about the ease of boiling water, you’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts — the Italians — enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline.\n\nThat is way too much, really, because that translates to 2 tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea”; only TV chefs say that. It’s opera buffa for the airwaves.\n\nOne percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add 2 teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt.\n\nSalting the water does two things: It flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully.\n\nKeep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (for example, if it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning.\n\n## Related Articles\n- March 23, 2026  [Quick Fix: Lemon Tarragon Snapper with asparagus and Penne](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/23\/quick-fix-lemon-tarragon-snapper-with-asparagus-and-penne\/ \"Quick Fix: Lemon Tarragon Snapper with asparagus and Penne\")\n- March 20, 2026  [Feta-brined spatchcock chicken is cooked under a weight in this Egyptian recipe](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/20\/food-voracious-feta-brined-spatchcock-chicken\/ \"Feta-brined spatchcock chicken is cooked under a weight in this Egyptian recipe\")\n- March 19, 2026  [Want More Fiber and Protein? This Sheet-Pan Meal Makes It Easy.](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/19\/recipe-high-fiber-protein\/ \"Want More Fiber and Protein? This Sheet-Pan Meal Makes It Easy.\")\n- March 19, 2026  [Gretchen’s table: This low-fuss dumpling lasagna gets steamed on the stovetop](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/19\/dumpling-lasagna\/ \"Gretchen’s table: This low-fuss dumpling lasagna gets steamed on the stovetop\")\n- March 18, 2026  [Five Weeknight Dishes: Gorgeously green kale sauce pasta and more \\| Recipe](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/18\/five-weeknight-dishes-gorgeously-green-kale-sauce-pasta-and-mor\/ \"Five Weeknight Dishes: Gorgeously green kale sauce pasta and more\")\n\n**Oil**\n\nMany pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over.\n\nBecause the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience.\n\nPreventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot — pretty much Pasta 101 — any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook.\n\nRemember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, “mix they do not, oil and water.”\n\nBut here’s the really bad news: Because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta.\n\nPasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s *key*. Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces.\n\nIf the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake.\n\n**The pot**\n\nBoil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in awhile. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta is cooking.\n\nCook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service.\n\nPasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you.\n\nFinally, pull out at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. That cup, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless.\n\n**Ta-da**\n\nFinally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry.\n\n![Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)](https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/20180116_pasta_ab_01.jpg?w=620&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px&ssl=1)\n\nAmy Brothers, The Denver Post\n\nLinguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)\n### Here’s one recipe to try:\n### Cacio e Pepe\nFrom the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, after a recipe from chef Flavio de Maio at his restaurant, Flavio al Velavevodetto in Rome. (I am guessing that this is the pasta eaten during the sweetest on-screen kiss of all time, the one between Lady and her Tramp at Tony’s Trattoria in the Disney film, when their lips meet in a slurp of a shared strand of spaghetti.)\n\n**Ingredients**\n\n- 1 1\/2 cups finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish\n- 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano\n- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish\n- 3\/4 pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti\n- Good olive oil\n\n**Directions**\n\nPut a pot of salted water on to boil. In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and black pepper; mash with just enough cold water to make a thick paste. Spread the paste evenly in the bowl.\n\nOnce the water is boiling, add the pasta. The second before it is perfectly cooked (taste it frequently once it begins to soften), use tongs to quickly transfer it to the bowl, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water. Stir vigorously to coat the pasta, adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil and a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if necessary. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery.\n\nPlate and dust each dish with additional pecorino and pepper. Serve immediately.\n\n### Pasta shapes and their sauces\nWe may eat pasta shapes such as fusilli or farfalle for their novelty, or strands such as spaghetti or linguine because they are nostalgic — and eat them with whatever saucing or in whatever preparation we dang well decide on — but there is real rhyme and reason for pairing certain pasta shapes with certain sauces.\n\nAnd the Italians, of course, show the way.\n\nIn Italy (and increasingly in all other countries) pasta, both fresh and dried, comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes and configurations. You’re excused for imagining that there is no way that each shape has its particular sauce.\n\nNo, it’s more that the general shape of a pasta pairs with a general type of sauce or preparation. And this is due mainly to the function of the pasta, what the pasta does with its sauce.\n\nLong, thin pastas such as spaghetti, linguine, bucatini and fettuccine are designed to pull the sauce up along their length as the pasta is wound on a fork, at the edge of the plate, and then brought to what a friend of mine delightfully terms “the devourment chamber”: the mouth.\n\nThat’s why well-made pastas of this sort actually have rough-ish surfaces, made so by the (sometimes ancient) bronze dies through which they are extruded.\n\nSauces for long, thin pastas include cream- or oil-based sauces such as *aglio e olio*, or the typical “marinara” (if not too chunky), or sauces that might use a good splash of the pasta cooking water in the finishing, such as the recipe here, *cacio e pepe*.\n\nRibbon-shaped pastas such as pappardelle or tagliatelle, because of their wide flat surfaces, carry long-cooked meaty sauces such as the classic bolognese up along their length.\n\nPasta shapes with lots of twists or turns — fusilli, gemelli, farfalle, orecchiette — “cup” or trap the small bits of meat or vegetables in the sauces meant for them. Because of both the nature of the sauce and the pasta here, these bits and pieces adhere or cling to each other felicitously.\n\nTubed pastas such as penne or rigatoni, ziti and elbow are also great with such sauces, but they really shine in dishes where the sauce will find itself inside, as well as outside, the tube. That’s their design.\n\nSuch are baked pasta dishes of many sorts such as the Tuscan dish penne straccicate or our ol’ standard mac ‘n’ cheese. Tubed pastas also work well as the basis for pasta salads.\n\nFinally, two pasta shapes that are commonly misused hereabouts.\n\nI refer to mini-pasta shapes (what the Italians call “pastine”) such as orzo or *stelline* (“little stars”) that we use in pasta salad instead of where they belong, in wet — very wet — dishes such as soup. And for children, by and large, because their “devourment chambers” are small, too.\n\nYou’ll find that orzo makes for gloppy pasta salad but is a fine counterpoint to chicken broth.\n\nThe other commonly misused pasta shapes are the filled pastas such as tortellini or ravioli. They are not substitutes for long, thin or twisty-turn-y pastas, there for carrying sauces to the mouth. When treated as such, the cook makes a five-act play when a two-act will do and is better.\n\nFilled pastas are mini pillows of pleasure, with most of their deliciousness all right there. A simple glistening of really top-notch olive oil, or unsalted brown butter with sage leaves, or merely some grated black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a bit of pasta cooking water to whip it together into a sheen — that’s all they need for their minimal adornment.\n\nReach Bill St John at bsjpost@gmail.com\n\n### Share this:\n- [Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/01\/19\/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe\/?share=facebook&nb=1)\n- [Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/01\/19\/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe\/?share=reddit&nb=1)\n- [Share on X (Opens in new window) X](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/01\/19\/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe\/?share=twitter&nb=1)\n- Click to share a free article with a friend\n## RevContent Feed\n\n## Most Popular\nMost Popular\n\n- ### 5-year-old Centennial boy allegedly killed by older brother identified\n  [5-year-old Centennial boy allegedly killed by older brother identified](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/23\/elias-reliford-homicide-centennial\/)\n- ### Wildfire near Fort Carson consumes 4,600 acres\n  [Wildfire near Fort Carson consumes 4,600 acres](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/22\/colorado-wildfires-fort-carson-evacuations\/)\n- ### Mandatory evacuations still in place for southern Colorado wildfires\n  [Mandatory evacuations still in place for southern Colorado wildfires](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/21\/24-fire-chama-canyon-mandatory-evacuation\/)\n- ### Asking Eric: Parents concerned about adult son’s depression\n  [Asking Eric: Parents concerned about adult son’s depression](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/21\/adult-depression-asking-eric\/)\n- ### Colorado lawmakers can pass ‘Alyssa’s Act’ to help coaches and parents monitor mental health (Opinion)\n  [Colorado lawmakers can pass 'Alyssa's Act' to help coaches and parents monitor mental health (Opinion)](https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/03\/22\/alyssas-act-mental-health-training-coaches\/)\n- ### The 2026 Red Rocks season blasts off this week. 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All rights reserved. The use of any content on this website for the purpose of training artificial intelligence systems, algorithms, machine learning models, text and data mining, or similar use is strictly prohibited without explicit written consent.\n\nClose\n\n![](https:\/\/d5nxst8fruw4z.cloudfront.net\/atrk.gif?account=NJsqn1QolK10uW)\n\n![](https:\/\/insight.adsrvr.org\/track\/evnt\/?adv=wvvvz6x&ct=0:75j4cjk&fmt=3)","attrs_readable_markdown":"Google “how to boil water” and you’ll get 461,000 results.\n\nSeriously.\n\nOK, so it turns out it’s more complicated than we might assume — especially when cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and *ta-da.*\n\n**Salt**\n\nAlways add a lot of salt to the boiling water. As with the myth about the ease of boiling water, you’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts — the Italians — enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline.\n\nThat is way too much, really, because that translates to 2 tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea”; only TV chefs say that. It’s opera buffa for the airwaves.\n\nOne percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add 2 teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt.\n\nSalting the water does two things: It flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully.\n\nKeep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (for example, if it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning.\n\n**Oil**\n\nMany pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over.\n\nBecause the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience.\n\nPreventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot — pretty much Pasta 101 — any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook.\n\nRemember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, “mix they do not, oil and water.”\n\nBut here’s the really bad news: Because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta.\n\nPasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s *key*. Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces.\n\nIf the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake.\n\n**The pot**\n\nBoil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in awhile. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta is cooking.\n\nCook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service.\n\nPasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you.\n\nFinally, pull out at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. That cup, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless.\n\n**Ta-da**\n\nFinally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry.\n\n![Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)](https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/20180116_pasta_ab_01.jpg?w=620&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px&ssl=1)\n\nAmy Brothers, The Denver Post\n\nLinguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)\n### Here’s one recipe to try:\n### Cacio e Pepe\nFrom the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, after a recipe from chef Flavio de Maio at his restaurant, Flavio al Velavevodetto in Rome. (I am guessing that this is the pasta eaten during the sweetest on-screen kiss of all time, the one between Lady and her Tramp at Tony’s Trattoria in the Disney film, when their lips meet in a slurp of a shared strand of spaghetti.)\n\n**Ingredients**\n\n- 1 1\/2 cups finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish\n- 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano\n- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish\n- 3\/4 pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti\n- Good olive oil\n\n**Directions**\n\nPut a pot of salted water on to boil. In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and black pepper; mash with just enough cold water to make a thick paste. Spread the paste evenly in the bowl.\n\nOnce the water is boiling, add the pasta. The second before it is perfectly cooked (taste it frequently once it begins to soften), use tongs to quickly transfer it to the bowl, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water. Stir vigorously to coat the pasta, adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil and a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if necessary. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery.\n\nPlate and dust each dish with additional pecorino and pepper. Serve immediately.\n\n### Pasta shapes and their sauces\nWe may eat pasta shapes such as fusilli or farfalle for their novelty, or strands such as spaghetti or linguine because they are nostalgic — and eat them with whatever saucing or in whatever preparation we dang well decide on — but there is real rhyme and reason for pairing certain pasta shapes with certain sauces.\n\nAnd the Italians, of course, show the way.\n\nIn Italy (and increasingly in all other countries) pasta, both fresh and dried, comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes and configurations. You’re excused for imagining that there is no way that each shape has its particular sauce.\n\nNo, it’s more that the general shape of a pasta pairs with a general type of sauce or preparation. And this is due mainly to the function of the pasta, what the pasta does with its sauce.\n\nLong, thin pastas such as spaghetti, linguine, bucatini and fettuccine are designed to pull the sauce up along their length as the pasta is wound on a fork, at the edge of the plate, and then brought to what a friend of mine delightfully terms “the devourment chamber”: the mouth.\n\nThat’s why well-made pastas of this sort actually have rough-ish surfaces, made so by the (sometimes ancient) bronze dies through which they are extruded.\n\nSauces for long, thin pastas include cream- or oil-based sauces such as *aglio e olio*, or the typical “marinara” (if not too chunky), or sauces that might use a good splash of the pasta cooking water in the finishing, such as the recipe here, *cacio e pepe*.\n\nRibbon-shaped pastas such as pappardelle or tagliatelle, because of their wide flat surfaces, carry long-cooked meaty sauces such as the classic bolognese up along their length.\n\nPasta shapes with lots of twists or turns — fusilli, gemelli, farfalle, orecchiette — “cup” or trap the small bits of meat or vegetables in the sauces meant for them. Because of both the nature of the sauce and the pasta here, these bits and pieces adhere or cling to each other felicitously.\n\nTubed pastas such as penne or rigatoni, ziti and elbow are also great with such sauces, but they really shine in dishes where the sauce will find itself inside, as well as outside, the tube. That’s their design.\n\nSuch are baked pasta dishes of many sorts such as the Tuscan dish penne straccicate or our ol’ standard mac ‘n’ cheese. Tubed pastas also work well as the basis for pasta salads.\n\nFinally, two pasta shapes that are commonly misused hereabouts.\n\nI refer to mini-pasta shapes (what the Italians call “pastine”) such as orzo or *stelline* (“little stars”) that we use in pasta salad instead of where they belong, in wet — very wet — dishes such as soup. And for children, by and large, because their “devourment chambers” are small, too.\n\nYou’ll find that orzo makes for gloppy pasta salad but is a fine counterpoint to chicken broth.\n\nThe other commonly misused pasta shapes are the filled pastas such as tortellini or ravioli. They are not substitutes for long, thin or twisty-turn-y pastas, there for carrying sauces to the mouth. When treated as such, the cook makes a five-act play when a two-act will do and is better.\n\nFilled pastas are mini pillows of pleasure, with most of their deliciousness all right there. A simple glistening of really top-notch olive oil, or unsalted brown butter with sage leaves, or merely some grated black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a bit of pasta cooking water to whip it together into a sheen — that’s all they need for their minimal adornment.\n\nReach Bill St John at bsjpost@gmail.com","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	Google “how to boil water” and you’ll get 461,000 results. Seriously. OK, so it turns out it’s more complicated than we might assume — especially when cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and ta-da. Salt Always add a lot of salt to the boiling water. As with the myth about the ease of boiling water, you’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts — the Italians — enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline. That is way too much, really, because that translates to 2 tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea”; only TV chefs say that. It’s opera buffa for the airwaves. One percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add 2 teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt. Salting the water does two things: It flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully. Keep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (for example, if it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning. Oil Many pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over. Because the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience. Preventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot — pretty much Pasta 101 — any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook. Remember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, “mix they do not, oil and water.” But here’s the really bad news: Because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta. Pasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s key . Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces. If the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake. The pot Boil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in awhile. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta is cooking. Cook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service. Pasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you. Finally, pull out at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. That cup, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless. Ta-da Finally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry. Amy Brothers, The Denver Post Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post) Here’s one recipe to try: Cacio e Pepe From the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, after a recipe from chef Flavio de Maio at his restaurant, Flavio al Velavevodetto in Rome. (I am guessing that this is the pasta eaten during the sweetest on-screen kiss of all time, the one between Lady and her Tramp at Tony’s Trattoria in the Disney film, when their lips meet in a slurp of a shared strand of spaghetti.) Ingredients 1 1/2 cups finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish 3/4 pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti Good olive oil Directions Put a pot of salted water on to boil. In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and black pepper; mash with just enough cold water to make a thick paste. Spread the paste evenly in the bowl. Once the water is boiling, add the pasta. The second before it is perfectly cooked (taste it frequently once it begins to soften), use tongs to quickly transfer it to the bowl, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water. Stir vigorously to coat the pasta, adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil and a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if necessary. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery. Plate and dust each dish with additional pecorino and pepper. Serve immediately. Pasta shapes and their sauces We may eat pasta shapes such as fusilli or farfalle for their novelty, or strands such as spaghetti or linguine because they are nostalgic — and eat them with whatever saucing or in whatever preparation we dang well decide on — but there is real rhyme and reason for pairing certain pasta shapes with certain sauces. And the Italians, of course, show the way. In Italy (and increasingly in all other countries) pasta, both fresh and dried, comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes and configurations. You’re excused for imagining that there is no way that each shape has its particular sauce. No, it’s more that the general shape of a pasta pairs with a general type of sauce or preparation. And this is due mainly to the function of the pasta, what the pasta does with its sauce. Long, thin pastas such as spaghetti, linguine, bucatini and fettuccine are designed to pull the sauce up along their length as the pasta is wound on a fork, at the edge of the plate, and then brought to what a friend of mine delightfully terms “the devourment chamber”: the mouth. That’s why well-made pastas of this sort actually have rough-ish surfaces, made so by the (sometimes ancient) bronze dies through which they are extruded. Sauces for long, thin pastas include cream- or oil-based sauces such as aglio e olio , or the typical “marinara” (if not too chunky), or sauces that might use a good splash of the pasta cooking water in the finishing, such as the recipe here, cacio e pepe . Ribbon-shaped pastas such as pappardelle or tagliatelle, because of their wide flat surfaces, carry long-cooked meaty sauces such as the classic bolognese up along their length. Pasta shapes with lots of twists or turns — fusilli, gemelli, farfalle, orecchiette — “cup” or trap the small bits of meat or vegetables in the sauces meant for them. Because of both the nature of the sauce and the pasta here, these bits and pieces adhere or cling to each other felicitously. Tubed pastas such as penne or rigatoni, ziti and elbow are also great with such sauces, but they really shine in dishes where the sauce will find itself inside, as well as outside, the tube. That’s their design. Such are baked pasta dishes of many sorts such as the Tuscan dish penne straccicate or our ol’ standard mac ‘n’ cheese. Tubed pastas also work well as the basis for pasta salads. Finally, two pasta shapes that are commonly misused hereabouts. I refer to mini-pasta shapes (what the Italians call “pastine”) such as orzo or stelline (“little stars”) that we use in pasta salad instead of where they belong, in wet — very wet — dishes such as soup. And for children, by and large, because their “devourment chambers” are small, too. You’ll find that orzo makes for gloppy pasta salad but is a fine counterpoint to chicken broth. The other commonly misused pasta shapes are the filled pastas such as tortellini or ravioli. They are not substitutes for long, thin or twisty-turn-y pastas, there for carrying sauces to the mouth. When treated as such, the cook makes a five-act play when a two-act will do and is better. Filled pastas are mini pillows of pleasure, with most of their deliciousness all right there. A simple glistening of really top-notch olive oil, or unsalted brown butter with sage leaves, or merely some grated black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a bit of pasta cooking water to whip it together into a sheen — that’s all they need for their minimal adornment. Reach Bill St John at bsjpost@gmail.com
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[Expand](https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/19/how-to-boil-pasta-cacio-e-pepe-recipe/) ![DENVER, CO - Nov. 11: Food ...](https://www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/thanksgiving-turkey-stjohn-11112016-ac_ac39141xx-0943.jpg?w=73)![Amy Brothers of The Denver Post.](https://www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/amy-brothers-denver-post-2016.jpg?w=85) By [Bill St. John](https://www.denverpost.com/author/bill-st-john/ "Posts by Bill St. John") \\| Special to The Denver Post and [Amy Brothers](https://www.denverpost.com/author/amy-brothers/ "Posts by Amy Brothers") \\| [abrothers@denverpost.com](mailto:abrothers@denverpost.com) \\| The Denver Post PUBLISHED: January 19, 2018 at 5:36 PM MST \\| UPDATED: March 15, 2018 at 9:49 AM MDT Getting your [Trinity Audio](https://trinityaudio.ai/) player ready... Google “how to boil water” and you’ll get 461,000 results. Seriously. OK, so it turns out it’s more complicated than we might assume — especially when cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and ta-da. Salt Always add a lot of salt to the boiling water. As with the myth about the ease of boiling water, you’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts — the Italians — enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline. That is way too much, really, because that translates to 2 tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea”; only TV chefs say that. It’s opera buffa for the airwaves. One percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add 2 teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt. Salting the water does two things: It flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully. Keep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (for example, if it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning. ## Related Articles - March 23, 2026 [Quick Fix: Lemon Tarragon Snapper with asparagus and Penne](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/03/23/quick-fix-lemon-tarragon-snapper-with-asparagus-and-penne/ "Quick Fix: Lemon Tarragon Snapper with asparagus and Penne") - March 20, 2026 [Feta-brined spatchcock chicken is cooked under a weight in this Egyptian recipe](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/03/20/food-voracious-feta-brined-spatchcock-chicken/ "Feta-brined spatchcock chicken is cooked under a weight in this Egyptian recipe") - March 19, 2026 [Want More Fiber and Protein? This Sheet-Pan Meal Makes It Easy.](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/03/19/recipe-high-fiber-protein/ "Want More Fiber and Protein? This Sheet-Pan Meal Makes It Easy.") - March 19, 2026 [Gretchen’s table: This low-fuss dumpling lasagna gets steamed on the stovetop](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/03/19/dumpling-lasagna/ "Gretchen’s table: This low-fuss dumpling lasagna gets steamed on the stovetop") - March 18, 2026 [Five Weeknight Dishes: Gorgeously green kale sauce pasta and more \\| Recipe](https://www.denverpost.com/2026/03/18/five-weeknight-dishes-gorgeously-green-kale-sauce-pasta-and-mor/ "Five Weeknight Dishes: Gorgeously green kale sauce pasta and more") Oil Many pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over. Because the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience. Preventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot — pretty much Pasta 101 — any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook. Remember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, “mix they do not, oil and water.” But here’s the really bad news: Because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta. Pasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s key. Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces. If the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake. The pot Boil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in awhile. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta is cooking. Cook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service. Pasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you. Finally, pull out at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. That cup, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless. Ta-da Finally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry. ![Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)](https://i1.wp.com/www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/20180116_pasta_ab_01.jpg?w=620&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px&ssl=1) Amy Brothers, The Denver Post Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post) ### Here’s one recipe to try: ### Cacio e Pepe From the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, after a recipe from chef Flavio de Maio at his restaurant, Flavio al Velavevodetto in Rome. (I am guessing that this is the pasta eaten during the sweetest on-screen kiss of all time, the one between Lady and her Tramp at Tony’s Trattoria in the Disney film, when their lips meet in a slurp of a shared strand of spaghetti.) Ingredients - 1 1/2 cups finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish - 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano - 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish - 3/4 pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti - Good olive oil Directions Put a pot of salted water on to boil. In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and black pepper; mash with just enough cold water to make a thick paste. Spread the paste evenly in the bowl. Once the water is boiling, add the pasta. The second before it is perfectly cooked (taste it frequently once it begins to soften), use tongs to quickly transfer it to the bowl, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water. Stir vigorously to coat the pasta, adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil and a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if necessary. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery. Plate and dust each dish with additional pecorino and pepper. Serve immediately. ### Pasta shapes and their sauces We may eat pasta shapes such as fusilli or farfalle for their novelty, or strands such as spaghetti or linguine because they are nostalgic — and eat them with whatever saucing or in whatever preparation we dang well decide on — but there is real rhyme and reason for pairing certain pasta shapes with certain sauces. And the Italians, of course, show the way. In Italy (and increasingly in all other countries) pasta, both fresh and dried, comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes and configurations. You’re excused for imagining that there is no way that each shape has its particular sauce. No, it’s more that the general shape of a pasta pairs with a general type of sauce or preparation. And this is due mainly to the function of the pasta, what the pasta does with its sauce. Long, thin pastas such as spaghetti, linguine, bucatini and fettuccine are designed to pull the sauce up along their length as the pasta is wound on a fork, at the edge of the plate, and then brought to what a friend of mine delightfully terms “the devourment chamber”: the mouth. That’s why well-made pastas of this sort actually have rough-ish surfaces, made so by the (sometimes ancient) bronze dies through which they are extruded. Sauces for long, thin pastas include cream- or oil-based sauces such as aglio e olio, or the typical “marinara” (if not too chunky), or sauces that might use a good splash of the pasta cooking water in the finishing, such as the recipe here, cacio e pepe. Ribbon-shaped pastas such as pappardelle or tagliatelle, because of their wide flat surfaces, carry long-cooked meaty sauces such as the classic bolognese up along their length. Pasta shapes with lots of twists or turns — fusilli, gemelli, farfalle, orecchiette — “cup” or trap the small bits of meat or vegetables in the sauces meant for them. Because of both the nature of the sauce and the pasta here, these bits and pieces adhere or cling to each other felicitously. Tubed pastas such as penne or rigatoni, ziti and elbow are also great with such sauces, but they really shine in dishes where the sauce will find itself inside, as well as outside, the tube. That’s their design. Such are baked pasta dishes of many sorts such as the Tuscan dish penne straccicate or our ol’ standard mac ‘n’ cheese. Tubed pastas also work well as the basis for pasta salads. Finally, two pasta shapes that are commonly misused hereabouts. I refer to mini-pasta shapes (what the Italians call “pastine”) such as orzo or stelline (“little stars”) that we use in pasta salad instead of where they belong, in wet — very wet — dishes such as soup. And for children, by and large, because their “devourment chambers” are small, too. You’ll find that orzo makes for gloppy pasta salad but is a fine counterpoint to chicken broth. The other commonly misused pasta shapes are the filled pastas such as tortellini or ravioli. They are not substitutes for long, thin or twisty-turn-y pastas, there for carrying sauces to the mouth. When treated as such, the cook makes a five-act play when a two-act will do and is better. Filled pastas are mini pillows of pleasure, with most of their deliciousness all right there. A simple glistening of really top-notch olive oil, or unsalted brown butter with sage leaves, or merely some grated black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a bit of pasta cooking water to whip it together into a sheen — that’s all they need for their minimal adornment. 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Readable Markdown	Google “how to boil water” and you’ll get 461,000 results. Seriously. OK, so it turns out it’s more complicated than we might assume — especially when cooking pasta. Good pasta is more than boiling water, plus pasta, and ta-da. Salt Always add a lot of salt to the boiling water. As with the myth about the ease of boiling water, you’ll hear that the globe’s pasta experts — the Italians — enjoin that the water “should be as salty as sea water,” which is roughly 3.5 percent saline. That is way too much, really, because that translates to 2 tablespoons fine-grained salt per quart (or liter) of water. Plus, Italians in fact don’t say, “the pasta water should be as salty as the sea”; only TV chefs say that. It’s opera buffa for the airwaves. One percent saline is about right. To achieve that level, add 2 teaspoons table or kosher salt to each quart of water, more if you have a taste for salt. Salting the water does two things: It flavors the pasta, plus (especially at our altitude) it slightly raises the boiling temperature so that you can monitor the cooking progress of the pasta a little more carefully. Keep in mind that, if your sauce or final pasta treatment is itself salty (for example, if it contains a lot of grated hard cheese or uses capers or anchovies), then it may pay to back off a bit on the salt added to the water in the beginning. Oil Many pasta cooks add a couple tablespoons of oil to the cooking water, thinking that, on the one hand, it will keep the pasta from sticking together and, on the other, that it keeps any foam from boiling over. Because the oil floats on the water, even during the tumult of boiling, it indeed does keep the foam down. But the cost of adding the oil to the boiling water far outweighs this minor convenience. Preventing the pot from boiling over is your job. Keep an eye on the water as it returns to the boil; that’s the danger time. Plus, if you use a large boiling pot — pretty much Pasta 101 — any foam recedes quickly and then you’re off the hook. Remember that added oil doesn’t prevent the pasta from sticking together during the boiling. It simply cannot get down into the water to do that. As Signore Yoda admonishes, “mix they do not, oil and water.” But here’s the really bad news: Because the oil does float, as you drain the pasta into the colander in the sink, the pasta pours through the oil and the oil coats the pasta. Slickly oiled pasta prevents the sauce that you’ve prepared from adequately adhering to the pasta. Pasta isn’t there on the dinner plate merely for backup; it’s key. Any pasta carries the sauce with it. Smooth, lighter sauces cling to long pasta as the strands are drawn up to the mouth. Or certain other types of pastas’ nooks and crannies “cup” or snag into themselves the bits and pieces of meat or vegetables in their sauces. If the pasta is greased with oil, it can’t do its job. Big mistake. The pot Boil pasta in a pot that looks too large for the task. The pasta and water need lots of room to move around each other in order for the pasta to cook properly. Stir the boiling pasta and water once in awhile. I prefer to use tongs rather than large forks, even so-called “pasta forks.” Tongs also make it easy to snag a piece or strand out of the cauldron to get a feel for how the pasta is cooking. Cook pasta to the point that the Italians call “al dente,” which means (literally) “to the tooth,’ signifying a slight resistance at its center when bitten into. We might call it “underdone,” but that’s OK. The pasta will continue to cook a bit after draining (especially if you’re going to finish it in another pan, a very common technique in Italy), or even if it sits a bit before service. Pasta should never be soggy; that’s just not right. Plus, when it’s cooked through, its glycemic index rises (because it’s digested more quickly than when it is al dente) and it’s therefore less healthy for you. Finally, pull out at least one cup of the pasta cooking water. That cup, or even a few tablespoons, may come in handy as a remedial moisturizer as you finish the pasta with its sauce. You don’t want to use plain water from the tap, however hot it may be. It’s flavorless. Ta-da Finally, don’t just plop a pile of pasta on a plate, then ladle some sauce over it. That may be the common image, but it isn’t the best way to enjoy both foods. Do also as the Italians do and combine both the pasta and sauce in either the now-empty boiling pot or another pan (on low or medium heat) so that the flavors of both marry. ![Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post)](https://i1.wp.com/www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/20180116_pasta_ab_01.jpg?w=620&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px&ssl=1) Amy Brothers, The Denver Post Linguine pasta in a fresh pesto sauce on January 3 , 2018 in Denver. (Amy Brothers, The Denver Post) ### Here’s one recipe to try: ### Cacio e Pepe From the New York Times’ Mark Bittman, after a recipe from chef Flavio de Maio at his restaurant, Flavio al Velavevodetto in Rome. (I am guessing that this is the pasta eaten during the sweetest on-screen kiss of all time, the one between Lady and her Tramp at Tony’s Trattoria in the Disney film, when their lips meet in a slurp of a shared strand of spaghetti.) Ingredients - 1 1/2 cups finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish - 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano - 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish - 3/4 pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti - Good olive oil Directions Put a pot of salted water on to boil. In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and black pepper; mash with just enough cold water to make a thick paste. Spread the paste evenly in the bowl. Once the water is boiling, add the pasta. The second before it is perfectly cooked (taste it frequently once it begins to soften), use tongs to quickly transfer it to the bowl, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water. Stir vigorously to coat the pasta, adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil and a bit of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce if necessary. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery. Plate and dust each dish with additional pecorino and pepper. Serve immediately. ### Pasta shapes and their sauces We may eat pasta shapes such as fusilli or farfalle for their novelty, or strands such as spaghetti or linguine because they are nostalgic — and eat them with whatever saucing or in whatever preparation we dang well decide on — but there is real rhyme and reason for pairing certain pasta shapes with certain sauces. And the Italians, of course, show the way. In Italy (and increasingly in all other countries) pasta, both fresh and dried, comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes and configurations. You’re excused for imagining that there is no way that each shape has its particular sauce. No, it’s more that the general shape of a pasta pairs with a general type of sauce or preparation. And this is due mainly to the function of the pasta, what the pasta does with its sauce. Long, thin pastas such as spaghetti, linguine, bucatini and fettuccine are designed to pull the sauce up along their length as the pasta is wound on a fork, at the edge of the plate, and then brought to what a friend of mine delightfully terms “the devourment chamber”: the mouth. That’s why well-made pastas of this sort actually have rough-ish surfaces, made so by the (sometimes ancient) bronze dies through which they are extruded. Sauces for long, thin pastas include cream- or oil-based sauces such as aglio e olio, or the typical “marinara” (if not too chunky), or sauces that might use a good splash of the pasta cooking water in the finishing, such as the recipe here, cacio e pepe. Ribbon-shaped pastas such as pappardelle or tagliatelle, because of their wide flat surfaces, carry long-cooked meaty sauces such as the classic bolognese up along their length. Pasta shapes with lots of twists or turns — fusilli, gemelli, farfalle, orecchiette — “cup” or trap the small bits of meat or vegetables in the sauces meant for them. Because of both the nature of the sauce and the pasta here, these bits and pieces adhere or cling to each other felicitously. Tubed pastas such as penne or rigatoni, ziti and elbow are also great with such sauces, but they really shine in dishes where the sauce will find itself inside, as well as outside, the tube. That’s their design. Such are baked pasta dishes of many sorts such as the Tuscan dish penne straccicate or our ol’ standard mac ‘n’ cheese. Tubed pastas also work well as the basis for pasta salads. Finally, two pasta shapes that are commonly misused hereabouts. I refer to mini-pasta shapes (what the Italians call “pastine”) such as orzo or stelline (“little stars”) that we use in pasta salad instead of where they belong, in wet — very wet — dishes such as soup. And for children, by and large, because their “devourment chambers” are small, too. You’ll find that orzo makes for gloppy pasta salad but is a fine counterpoint to chicken broth. The other commonly misused pasta shapes are the filled pastas such as tortellini or ravioli. They are not substitutes for long, thin or twisty-turn-y pastas, there for carrying sauces to the mouth. When treated as such, the cook makes a five-act play when a two-act will do and is better. Filled pastas are mini pillows of pleasure, with most of their deliciousness all right there. A simple glistening of really top-notch olive oil, or unsalted brown butter with sage leaves, or merely some grated black pepper and Parmigiano-Reggiano with a bit of pasta cooking water to whip it together into a sheen — that’s all they need for their minimal adornment. Reach Bill St John at bsjpost@gmail.com
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