Have you ever been served pasta that stuck to your fork or your plate – or was so sticky that you ended up with a solid piece of pasta that required slicing?  We all have and there was a time when many of us would have eaten it – if only to be polite but nowadays people are less tolerant of bad cooking. With the food renaissance of the past few decades, the world has learnt to enjoy cooking again and it is not only a pleasure reserved for chefs. Today, cooking has become even more popular and as the economies weaken and restaurants are reserved for special occasions, more time is spent in the kitchen because we

entertain at home. To cook pasta al dente, please keep this in mind try and you’ll never look back. Nor will your guests. Whenever you make pasta at home make sure you do the following:

• Use decent flour
• Increase the proportion of egg in the recipe, if necessary
• Use the kneading knives on the food processor, if you have one
• Knead the pasta dough for a long while before putting it in the fridge to rest for at least one hour.
• When the pasta rises to the surface of the water it’s cooked.

When cooking commercial pasta remember the following:

• There is no point in adding oil or butter to the water but after straining, a splash of olive oil or a knob of butter will prevent the pasta from sticking.
• Cook the pasta into already boiling, salted water to reduce the cooking time and in so doing to minimize the loss of starch content.
• Do not cook pasta in mineral water because it becomes sticky – cook it in slightly acidic water (add a teaspoon of lemon juice) to prevent an awful gluey consistency.