Always add a couple of teaspoons of salt to the water after it starts to boil. But never add oil to the boiling water (uncooked fresh pasta is porous and will get oily in the water).
People always talk about al dente pasta, but almost everyone overcooks pasta. So don’t overcook it! “You want pasta to be toothy,” said Pete Severino. “You have to taste it as you cook.”
While a rule of thumb is that fresh pasta cooks much faster than dried pasta, there’s no general rule for cooking times. “Every pasta has a different cooking time,” Severino said. A style such as tagliatelle or pappardelle or stuffed rigatoni may only take 2 to 3 minutes, while fusilli or agnolotti may take 6 to 8 minutes, and larger, square ravioli may take 12-15 minutes. The only way to know if it’s ready is to taste it.
