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Q: How to cook good pasta?Any Italian here for help?
How to cook good proper pasta?Any Italian here for help?
I am an amazing cook, but there is no way that I'm telling you how to do something that you could find the answer to if you simply opened a cook book.
I can cook too, simply just pick a pasta you love.
Bring the water to a boiling point and throw in some pasta. Adding a tea spoon of salt (in the water) helps prevent it from sticking while boiling. Pretty much the same way as you would cook Chinese noodles.
Of course, the main difference is the sauce. I don't time it, I just check it from time to check and taste it to make sure it is chewy enough.
Nothing to it really, unless you are making lasagna or something more complex (like home making the sauce).
Victoria1987:
I did all the and use imported olive oil and tomato sauce.I know how to cook simple one.ButI want to learn the good Italian cooking way.
You don't need an Italian to cook Italian food. Unless you are now looking for an Italian boyfriend? What next? I wait in anticipation....
Pasta should be cooked 'al dente', what means
http://busycooks.about.com/od/glossary/g/aldente.-8El.htm
pasta shouldn't be cooked entirely, or not as soft as mashed potato, but with resistance in the middle of each slab of spaghetti. When pasta is cooked 'al dente', it must be (lightly) chewed.
Most of Italian (Western) pasta packages have suggested time of cooking printed on the package. 'Al dente' would be a minute or two less than suggested time.
After you 'master' that, you should start studying sauces preparation, what as they said above is the most important part of the meal.
During cooking of the pasta and sauce prep, you should serve 'bruschetta' as an apertizer with (any colour) wine (in the glass).
1. Toast less that 1cm thick slices of French bread till brown and crunchy. Best size of the toast slices is not bigger than 5cm in diameter;
2. Two tomatoes, some pitted olives, parsley, garlic, all finely chopped, and mix it in the bowl;
3. Add (high grade) olive oil, pinch of salt, black and red pepper, basil;
4. Mix all with spoon, and let it stand for 1/2 an hour or so, so it will get saucy;
5. Add tomato mix to the top of each slice of toasted bread with spoon. Toast will became less crunchy.
'MANGA" means 
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/bruschetta_with_tomato_and_basil/
Discloser:
You should be careful with my post while cooking, 'cause everybody knows, I come from my mum and not from Italy!
Please, don't ask me where does my mum come from!
icnif77:
Grated parmesan cheese should be served over pasta with sauce.
Victoria1987:
Thank you so much.Now I can cook pasta,English potatoes and India potatoes.Would like to learn more dishes.
Cook same as Chinese pasta only different.
Don't forget the meatballs....
u did good Victoria. the key (or at least one of the keys to Italian cooking) is having a nice bottle of good-quality Olive oil on hand. Add a teaspoon/tablespoon or so when boiling pasta. Olive oil is a fundamental ingredient used in the Italian kitchen.
*from a WASP who digs Italy and most things Latin....
u did good Victoria. the key (or at least one of the keys to Italian cooking) is having a nice bottle of good-quality Red wine on hand. Drink most of it when boiling pasta. Red wine is a fundamental ingredient used in the Italian kitchen.
Scandinavian:
by the way, tomato sauce is pretty easy to make from scratch. If you have the olive oils, garlic, maybe onion, lots of tomatoes and some herbs (I usually get by with fresh basil, but some rosemary sure is nice too.
A very important step to tomato sauce is to cook it slowly. E.g. when I make pizza, the tomato sauce will usually be started after breakfast, slow-cook all day, whereas the all important dough is made during the afternoon.
diverdude1:
ok. u won that round.. funniest thing is that it is sooooo true ~ brings back memories from so long ago. my roomy, Louis L. Prudenti, and I used to live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. well, every few weekends or so we would take his ol' beat up car out to the Island to spend Sundays with his Mom & Dad,,, and extended family as is the Italian way, They would fawn all over me, this little early 20's WASP from the South...Some of the most delicious home-made food,,, mmmm and I'll never forget how much wine was put away on those afternoons. my own mother and father would have been totally Scandalised ! (scando lised?). 
Victoria1987:
When I cook the sauce,should I use my imported olive oil or any kind of oil will be fine?
Is that the details for me to make sauce:
Put oil in my pan and put all those tomatoes,onions,galics,rosemany... in and cook it slowly with my oil?
Should I cook them a lot to be like smashed potatoes?
"al dante" is good .. if it sticks to the wall (doesn't slide) good ....a bought tomato sauce is a good way to start..... more fresh tomatoes.... garlic, green peppers, onions, some sausage or ham... slow simmering for hours and hours and hours ..mmmmmmmmm.. oh well 7 minutes and the spaghetti is ready........ not spaghettini and not vermicelli, not linguini and not capellini and not one of them coiled up BS pasta/macaroni/ other imposters ..
garlic bread is a necessity back home but a real privilege here . (cause mostly the bread is not very good)
really good noodles in Guilin... they are famous for them and I did try them last week.. excellent when you get them from the right guy/outfit....... 10 noodles and 10 yuan on the tourist strip just doesn't do it for me
it is the little splash of fine olive oil that is important in keeping the splashing noodles enjoying themselves individually in the over heated bath... a little more on cooling on exit from the bath water is good......... sure wish it wasn't past time to go get a bottle of red wine right now.....I'd be starting a late night dinner.
TedDBayer:
boiled or fried noodles are 5 y, you paid foreign price, for 10y I also BBQ meat sticks.
BHGAL:
I know I got ripped off.... was my first meal there, and the wife only ate half and then scoffed at it..then she told the guy he was "no good" .. from then on, we had some pretty good meals
"Al dente," is, and always will be, a foreign concept to Chinese people. I say this after having spent the last five years eating noodles that have been boiled to death. Vicky, add sea salt to the boiling water and a bit of cold pressed olive oil, throw the spaghetti into the pot, strain the noodles before they are fully cooked (about 6 - 7 minutes, depending on how much you put in), and they will continue cooking w/o the water (don't wash them or the sauce won't stick). Add the sauce of your choice, but try to keep it simple. Grind some more salt and a generous sprinkle of ground black (not white!) pepper and fresh grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese on top of the pasta, and you (and the man you're trying to impress) will be good to go.
Here's a simple recipe, though it will not be considered authentic due to the loosely based ingredients. when i cook italian, i'm not interested in rigidly copying some step-by-step recipe.
lots of tomatoes, chop them up small, so they easily boil into a sauce when cooking.
A good amount of garlic. DON'T add ginger or chili, unless you want your food to taste chinese...
If you dont have basil or oregano on hand, black pepper makes anything taste good. and "foreign".
oil. i'll be scolded for not worshiping the olive, here, but any vegetable oil will do. I use rapeseed oil made by relatives.
meat and/or complementary vegetable. Half an onion adds to the flavour and texture, but too much will spoil it. I use pre-cooked ground pork that's intended for making chinese noodle dishes.
cook it all in a pan, and you'll have a lovely fresh tomato-based sauce. Add salt and vinegar to suit your taste. Rice vinegar will do fine.
If you didnt know how to make pasta, read comments above. Spaghetti is basically very thick noodles, so that's easiest i think.
Serve it up on a plate, tomato sauce on top of the spaghetti.
For a bit of presentation, soft-boil an egg, and cut it open on top of the plate, so the liquid yolk drips on your tomato sauce.
louischuahm:
That's a new one, I will try it sometime. I usually bake cherry tomatoes till they are soft and a little burnt. This gives a woody taste. Oregano is a must if you want real pasta. Olive oil as well but don't waste money using extra virgin ones. Celery chopped into small bits adds to the crunch. Bacon bits as well. And how can you not top it all up with Parmesan cheese? Yum!
icnif77:
'Egg' is good one. I like my pizza with SSide egg on the top.
coineineagh:
bell pepper/paprika is another authentic ingredient that goes well in pasta sauces. its a milder surrogate for hot peppers. thelast thing i'd advise is don't chop the vegetables *too* small. large chunks of vegetables add to the texture of the dish, and will chew better as you eat. i think chinese hate large chunks, because it makes the cook look lazy.
Note to self: Stop making delicious pasta as it appears that only Italians can cook pasta 
China has rice noodles in the south, aren't noodles in the north made from wheat and the same as spagetti? That's the recipe Marco Polo taught to the Chinese.
Victoria1987:
China has so many noodles.In the north,noodle made from wheat,noodle in the south made from rice,wheat and sweet potatoes.I am a good varieties of noodles cook^^
Thank you for all of ur nice advices.Victoria is practicing^^
I think you need to befriend that newcomer "Khan"..
have you tried Pashto Pasta????
Clemeza and Michael at the stove:
Clemenza: 'Come over kid, you might cook for 20 guys someday. You see, you start with a little bit of olive oil, you fry some garlic, you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you make sure it doesn't stick. You shovel in all your sausages and meatballs, a lit bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar, and that's my trick.
Sonny: 'Why don't you cut the crap! I got more important things for you to do. How's Pollie?'
Clemenza: 'ahh Pollie, you won't see him no more'..........
Sonny: 'Where're you going?'
Micheal: 'To the city......
All Italians! American Italians.
