this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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You absolutely need to stir pasta while it’s cooking. And once you get it out, if you’re not going to add sauce right away or at all, you absolutely need to add some olive oil. If you don’t stir it while it’s cooking, it will get cooked unevenly. If you don’t add olive oil, it will clump up and become basically impossible to eat properly.
Ok, I may stir a bit when I put it in, specially with long pasta varieties, but if you have enough space and hard boiling water that's all. You don't need to be on it like it was a witch's cauldron. Once it's done, it's better to add the pasta on a pan with the hot sauce and not the other way around, and then yes, stir it gently to integrate it. You can add some of the cooking water to the pan to thin the sauce if needed. If you aren't mixing with the sauce right away it won't be great anyways, just edible.
Basic knowledge if you’re Italian, but impressive if you’re not. Kudos.
“Spadellare” the pasta when it’s almost cooked with the hot sauce in a separate pan is the easiest way to make your pasta go from “home grade” to “restaurant grade”.
I'm spanish, but I try to respect traditional cooking techniques and the way each region treats their products. Because I'm aware I don't know better.
I can appreciate that approach (which I also follow): start from tradition to understand the dish, and once you’ve got the gist of it, put some personal twists in it. Makes sense for a lot of stuff.
You DO NOT have to stir it, even for things like spaghetti, as long as you're using the right amount of water. The motion of the water boiling is already stirring the pasta.
You just stir for good measure. Yeah you might not need to if you have the perfect amount of water boiling in the perfect way, but honestly it’s not worth the risk. Just stir it from time to time.