I'm not a chef. I'm not even a cook. I'm an ordinary guy always on the lookout for good easy recipes. I'm talking about pasta this time. Pasta in most forms is one of the easiest dishes you can make.
Always be careful to prepare pasta correctly, it's not difficult. I know the taste is supposed to come from the sauce, but badly prepared pasta is still going to taste bad, even if you have a good sauce.
Pasta is made of unleavened flour and water. The best pasta is made from durum wheat flour or durum wheat semolina.
Pasta can have many shapes. Macaroni is a thick tube. Spaghetti is a long thin tube. Lasagna is a very wide flat square of pasta. Vermicelli is a long very thin piece of pasta, almost like, but thinner than spaghetti. It is usually better to have a thin sauce with the thinner types of pasta. The thicker the pasta the thicker or more chunky the sauce.
Cook pasta in enough water. Never add cooking oil to pasta. This will keep the sauce from clinging to the prepared pasta and a lot of the taste will be lost. First heat the water until it is boiling very well, then add the salt and wait till it is boiling again before adding the pasta. Stir regularly during the first minute or two to ensure the pasta doesn't cling to each other. Pasta is cooked until it is al dente. This means it isn't too soft nor is it still hard. It should be firm to the bite.
After the pasta is cooked it must be drained, but not too dry.
Pasta can be used with lots of different sauces. For that there are many good easy recipes. Some of the easiest is spaghetti with a tomato sauce. Not ketchup, tomatoes boiled with a pinch of salt and maybe a little sautéed onion. It helps to put the tomatoes in some boiling water first and then to peel away the skin. I hate cooked tomato skins. The sauce can then be spiced with any spice you like. Just remember that the sauce is there to compliment the pasta but mustn't be so overpowering that you don't taste the pasta.
By using flour and eggs you can make your own pasta, but this can be hard work and does not fit into my idea of good easy recipes.
I have learned that a good, easy (in my case) recipe is all you need to keep your stomach and your taste buds happy.
