You know, I'm right there with you on the sacrilege part, but nowadays I microwave pasta all the time. You need to use a non-starchy pasta for this to work. I use plain store-bought Barilla Plus because I love it anyway. For fresh pasta, you could try a small experiment; I've never tried with freshly-made pasta.
It takes less time than boiling on the stove for me because I do this:
- Fill up the electric kettle with water and turn it on.
- I use a 1/2 gallon Pyrex measuring cup as my "pot", and I put an inch or so of water in that and pop it in the microwave for four minutes to warm it up.
- When the water's boiling in the kettle and the oven timer expires, I take out the Pyrex container, add the pasta and a little oil and some salt (optionally a little vinegar), and then pour in the boiling water to cover by an inch or so.
- Dumpling-like pasta (rotini or penne) take about 8:30 to cook on high (I've got I think an 1100 watt oven; experiment); spaghetti 5:30, thin spaghetti 4:30.
I know it sounds like a horrible sin, but I started doing it when I needed to cook small portions of pasta for my kids. I tried it myself, and realized that I could tell absolutely no difference from the results I got in my big pasta pot. When I need to boil a lot of pasta (like 2 14oz boxes) I still use the big pot of course, but a pound or less actually cooks up perfectly fine. My pasta cooker is enormous and takes a long time to come up to the boil.
Now once I tried this (not thinking clearly, obviously) with some very starchy, fancy pasta, and it did not work at all. But maybe because it's got so much extra protein, Barilla Plus comes out absolutely fine. (It's good for you too.)
edit — Here's an update: I still do this, but recently one of the seemingly endless succession of microwave ovens I've had recently died, and I'm pretty sure it's because it somewhat frequently overheated while doing this very thing (cooking pasta). Now I don't blame the technique, really, since an oven should probably be designed with the possibility of hot stuff being inside of them for some periods of time, but be warned. (It overheated probably 10 times or so over the course of a couple years before dying, so it was right about at what I find to be typical end-of-life anyway.)
You might have given the answer in your question. If the device is to be used as a steamer as well, then there has to be enough room at the bottom of the pot for steaming. How much is enough? There are two things to consider:
The bottom section should hold enough liquid that there won't be concerns about boiling the pot dry for anything you might want to steam. Longer steam items might include mussels, lobster, or tamales.
There should be some 'air margin' for foods like tamales or broccoli, so that the boil splatter doesn't render the food soggy.
Based on FuzzyChef's comment, it sounds like there are tools that suit your needs better. Perhaps it's time to put your steamer on Craigslist? :)
Best Answer
"Pasta Pots" for the most part are just pots that come as a kit with a fitted colander and a lid which make cooking pasta easier. In 99% of cases they are not exclusive to cooking water based cooking methods, and for the rare exception it would be plainly marked on the packaging when you bought it (if you didn't look, check online for resources either from the retailer or manufacturer).