Following that logic, our goal should be to get the water
as starchy as possible, the more efficiently to bind the sauce
with. I took a look at the water drained off the batch of pasta
cooked in 1½ quarts against the one cooked in 3 quarts.
Notice how much cloudier the one on the left is? “All the
better to bind you with, my dear,” I said out loud, just as my
wife happened to walk into the kitchen. She declined to join
me in my tasting, but side by side, after saucing, the pasta
cooked in less water resulted in a much better sauce
consistency, and the sauce actually clung to the pasta better
as well.
Reason 3 debunked.
Reason 4
There are few times in life that I’m glad I don’t have an
Italian grandmother, but trying to explain low-water-pasta-
cooking to her would be one of those times.
Now that I was completely satisfied that I could cook pasta
in less water with no problems at all, I decided to try and
take the method to the extreme. I knew that when you cook
pasta, proteins denature and starches efficiently absorb
water at temperatures as low as 180°F. So is it actually even
necessary to boil the noodles the whole time? I covered a
pot of penne with water by a couple inches (to account for
the pasta expanding as it absorbed water), seasoned it with a
bit of salt, and set it on a burner. After allowing it to come
up to a simmer, I stirred it once to ensure that the pasta
wasn’t sticking to itself or the pot, immediately threw a lid
on the thing, and shut off the burner.