It seems so simple, doesn’t it? Boil some water, salt it, pop the pasta in, and drain it when it’s cooked. Except that for true spaghetti aficionados, so much more goes into the midweek staple. For instance, some argue that pasta needs less water than the packaging advises; that way, you’ll get a starchier liquid that makes for a silkier sauce. And while Gordon Ramsay recommends adding olive oil to pasta, calling the step “absolutely crucial” to prevent it from sticking to itself, most chefs agree it’s a no-no. It turns out that those aren’t the only tips to bring your pasta to a professional standard, either. How do chefs cook pasta? Both Mauro Amoruso, from Tormaresca Vino e Cucina in Italy, and the Institute of Culinary Education say that you shouldn’t cook your pasta fully (even to your ideal al dente level) in the pot. Instead, you “want to get that pasta out of the water a minute or two early and let it finish in the sauce,” the Institute of Culinary Education shared via YouTube. “That’s what the pros do from chefs to Italian grandmas,” they added. Speaking to GQ, Amoruso agreed: “One of my favourite tricks is to boil the pasta for ¾ of the cooking time in water, then cook it in the sauce for the remaining time,” he shared. Both swore off adding oil to pasta, and the Institute of Culinary Education advises against straining your pasta in a colander. Instead, they recommend taking a spider or pasta ladle to transfer the spaghetti to the sauce: that way, the “liquid gold” that is pasta water combines with its coating for a smooth, velvety finish. Any other tips? Yes – salting the water is a more delicate balancing act than you might think. Serious Eats puts it at about one and a half teaspoons of salt per liquid of water (don’t worry – the pasta won’t take on all of it). That gives you about 1% salt concentration. But it’s less than the old adage of making the water “salty like the sea”, the publication adds – that’d be about 3.5%. Remember, pasta water is key to binding the spaghetti to that beautiful, emulsified sauce, so over-salting it might ruin the flavour of the overall dish (especially if your sauce is already on the salty side).