Pasta Love by Jaclyn Crupi shows you how to make pasta like a nonna

I never feel conflicted about eating pasta. I don't worry about carbs or calories. Pasta is about love and pleasure and enjoying the best parts of this one life we get. Pasta is also generous and can be a low-cost meal to prepare for a crowd. How we serve and eat pasta says something about us. How much parmigiano is too much? Do you always spill sauce on your white top? What about a side of burrata? Should you add a textured crumb with an anchovy pangrattato? What is that spoon doing next to your plate of spaghetti? But before we can eat it, we need to cook it, so let's start there.

Of course you know how to cook pasta. You've made it many, many times. But there are a few things worth stating that can elevate your pasta to the next level. Firstly, you possibly need more water in the pot than you think you do. For every kilo of pasta, you need 10 litres of water. Don't crowd your pasta in the pot. Also, salty salty salty cooking water is essential. Remember it's 10g of salt for every litre of water.

I would encourage you to never drain pasta out into a colander. All that beautiful salty cooking water going down the drain, no! A pasta colander can be used to scoop out pasta from the cooking water. Tongs or a pasta scoop are good for ribbon pasta. If you really want to drain the pasta, be sure to collect at least a cup of the cooking water first. Fresh pasta often tells you when it's ready by rising to the surface and forming a white foam on the cooking water surface. For packet pasta, set a timer for two minutes before the recommended cooking time and taste it then to see if it's ready and how much longer it needs. Everyone's al dente tastes are different.

No pasta sauce is an island. I mean that literally. Never, and I really mean never, place pasta in a bowl and add a scoop of sauce on top. The sauceless pasta edges will dry out and stick and the pasta will never have had the chance to absorb the sauce. Sauce and pasta belong together.

I almost always combine my pasta and its sauce in the pan I used to make the sauce for the final few minutes of cooking. Slosh the pasta all around in there. Leave the heat on for a minute or two and add some pasta cooking water to really make things interesting and delicious. It's at this moment that magic can happen and the pasta and its sauce become so much more than just the sum of their individual parts.

Like many a nonna, I love to see people enjoying the pasta I have cooked for them. A groan of pleasure at my dinner table is one of my favourite sounds. If things get messy - and let's be honest, pasta can be a bit messy - I am just fine with that. If someone lifts their bowl to drink the last of their brodo and quadrucci, I am a happy pasta maker. Bucatini, with its hollow middle, is the perfect shape for real pasta slurping to occur.

Unless I have made a pasta soup dish there will not be a spoon at your place setting. Twirling strands of spaghetti onto a fork and then delivering it to your mouth is the way to eat any long pasta. What you do in your own home is of course completely up to you.

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The cheese served with pasta can elevate and transform the dish. The most common cheeses served atop pasta are parmigiano reggiano followed by pecorino. Fresh ricotta and mozzarella are most commonly used in stuffed pasta dishes. Salted ricotta works nicely on some pasta dishes. Aged asiago adds a lovely nutty taste for something different. Serving pasta with burrata or stracciatella gives a lovely creaminess and richness. Most regions in Italy have speciality local cheeses. I always make a point of trying these when I travel as they speak to the terroir of the places where I am enjoying a meal. It's not always possible to find these cheeses in Australia, though it is much easier than it used to be.

As an alternative to cheese, you can top pasta with pangrattato (breadcrumbs). It adds a lovely crumb to the soft delicate pasta. Simply fry up some breadcrumbs in olive oil. You can add herbs like rosemary or thyme, or flavour bombs like garlic or chilli if you want more intensity. Dissolving a couple of anchovies in oil and then adding breadcrumbs produces a pangrattato that packs a real flavour punch. Adding the finely grated zest of a lemon and some chopped parsley makes a perfect pangrattato for seafood pasta dishes. Making your own breadcrumbs is a great way to use up stale bread. If your bread is particularly old, wrap it in a moist tea towel overnight to make it easier to chop and process into breadcrumbs.

This is an edited extract from Pasta Love, by Jaclyn Crupi. Affirm Press. $35.

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