How to use the online timer
Ten minutes covers most dried shapes: penne, fusilli, rigatoni and the everyday spaghetti that turns up in half the flats in the country on a weeknight. Fresh pasta needs a fraction of that, filled shapes want a little more, and the figure printed on the packet is a manufacturer's estimate rather than a measurement made in your kitchen with your pan.
Start the count when the water returns to the boil after the pasta goes in, not when the pasta hits the pan, because a large handful in a small pan can knock the temperature down for a minute or more. Salt the water properly, stir in the first thirty seconds so nothing sticks, and keep a cup of the cooking water back. The countdown belongs to this tab, so leave the page open while you work.
Start tasting a minute before the timer finishes. Pasta that is still slightly firm in the centre will finish cooking in the sauce, and finishing it there — with a splash of that starchy water — binds the two together instead of leaving a pile of noodles under a puddle. Draining and rinsing washes off exactly the starch that does the binding.
Common questions
Should I trust the time on the packet?
As an estimate. Start tasting a minute before it is up, since pasta finished in the sauce should leave the water still slightly firm in the centre. Pan size and how much water you used both shift it.
Why keep some of the cooking water?
The starch in it binds sauce to pasta rather than leaving the two sitting separately. A splash added while finishing the pasta in the pan does more than any amount of extra oil or butter.
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