Penne or fusilli work well in pasta salads. The key to cooking pasta well is:
- Use as big a pan as possible, with plenty of water, to dilute the starch that comes out of the pasta.
- Add plenty of salt - a good couple of tablespoons of sea salt, more for a big pan.
- Get the water to a proper rolling boil, add the pasta, stir, put the lid on the pan to get it up to the boil again quickly. There is no need to add oil if you do this.
Cook the pasta as per packet instructions, but check it a couple of minutes before it should be ready. You want it to have a bit of bite, not be totally soft.
Get your dressing onto the pasta ASAP to prevent it from drying out, and drizzle with good olive oil to help it last longer.
Al dente cooking is a transitional state that lasts for a very short amount of time (one minute longer in boiling water makes pasta too soft, one minute shorter and it's still crunchy). For this reason, authentic Italian pasta packages state a precise cooking time, which is very reliable to make a good al dente pasta.
A cooking time interval (e.g. "7 to 10 minutes") is usually given to accommodate to other countries taste, who may prefer a softer pasta, and therefore its presence could be a good indicator of an Italian look-alike pasta brand. In this case the lower figure indicates the al dente cooking.
Lacking this information, a good cooking time can be figured by cross section size, length and shape of pasta: obviously, thicker and squat formats require more time. Complex shapes, such as farfalle, can be trickier because a thick core could reach the al dente cooking while the thinner edges are already too soft.
As a rule of thumb, cooking times for common pasta formats are:
- Long and very thin (spaghettini, bavette): 6 min
- Long and thin (spaghetti, linguine, bucatini): 8 min
- Short and thick (maccheroni, rigatoni, fusilli): 12 min
- Small and thick (farfalle) : 8 min
- Small and thin (pasta usually boiled straight into broth): 6 min
These cooking times apply only for dry durum-wheat pasta; other types (such as fresh egg pasta) usually have a shorter cooking time.
After straining the boiling water, pasta continues to cook by its own heat; for this reason it has to be eaten as soon as possible. Only for some Italian regional recipes (typically pasta boiled straight into a thick vegetable juice, e.g. pasta with beans, pasta with potatoes) you may want to let it rest for up to 5 minutes after straining to let the juices coagulate.
Also, for recipes where pasta has to undergo a second cooking after boiling (e.g. stir frying in a pan with vegetables, shrimps, mushrooms, etc.) a better result is obtained by boiling pasta just one minute less than the cooking time given on the package.
Best Answer
I am absolutely of the opinion that the roller type makes better pasta unless you're considering hugely expensive commercial extruders.
This is my pasta maker:
I think I spent about $30 on it. I make my pasta dough in my food processor, and the pasta is as good as I have ever had. Yes, it requires that you knead; that's half the fun and it produces much, much better pasta.
I had one like this once:
I did not like the pasta. I found it to always have a grainy texture, even if I used 00 flour or followed the recipes that came with the machine. The machine just doesn't knead enough or right or something. That one cost $250 I think. The only reasons to prefer this one to the other is if you want shapes (I prefer noodles and ravioli anyway to macaroni), or if you really, really hate kneading.
See: Can anybody help make homemade pasta foolproof? for two different, both excellent, methods.
Since you had me looking on amazon anyway, I'll show you the one I would buy if I was in the market and didn't mind the idea of spending a little extra money: Marcato Pasta Machine with Attatchments. This one is the bestseller for good reason: Marcato Pasta Machine. This very inexpensive option has been fine for me, but I sometimes wish I had one of the higher quality Marcato rollers. It's a bit rough around the edges, especially cutting, but it's functional. Norpro Pasta Maker.