The secret to making perfect pasta in 11 easy steps

New York Times food writer Mark Bittman claims to have discovered the secret to perfect pasta: water.

In the New York Times Magazine last week, Bittman wrote about this discovery during a recent trip to Rome while hanging out with a chef named Flavio de Maio:

...the secret, as it turns out, is to stir the mostly cooked pasta quite vigorously so that its starch emulsifies with the seasonings and added water.

After reading this, I wondered if it really could be so simple. Over the weekend, I gave it a try with Bittman's recipe for cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper pasta). Three ingredients: pasta, cheese, and pepper. Plus the starchy pasta water of course.

It turns out that to make an amazing dish - a simple but hearty upgrade from mac and cheese - it takes about 20 minutes all in. I eat gluten free (I know), so I made this recipe twice, with regular pasta and gluten free pasta, to see if they both came out creamy.

As expected, the pasta with gluten came out smoother and creamier, but for quinoa pasta, the gluten free stuff was pretty good. The leftovers were also softer than the usual basically-raw-again crunchy stuff that you usually get when you try to eat gluten free pasta after its been in the fridge.

(Big thanks to my wonderful co-chef, Steve Rousseau)