Hi guys and girls. I've been asked to give some advices on how to cook spaghetti, so here I am.
Since I'm Italian, I'm going to have you eat a truly Italian spaghetti dish (not those awful abominations you can find at your local Italian restaurant).

First of all, you need to know how to cook 'em.
Of course, you need spaghetti. Spaghetti is plural just like teeth or children, so there's no need to say "spaghettis", ok?


:::WHICH SPAGHETTI?:::

Italian brands are obviously ok, if you can't get them you can search wikipedia for the recipe.
Should this be the case, shaping the dough into spaghetti shape could be impossible.
I suggest you making tagliatelle instead. They are long and narrow rectangles of pasta, made by rolling out pasta till it's about 1mm thick and cutting it in about 1cm stripes.

I'm sorry but ramen is not spaghetti.


:::COOKING SPAGHETTI:::

You need to have a pot with 1 lt of water for each one hundred grams of spaghetti.
Since you need about 800 grams of spaghetti for each fellow diner, you now know how big the pot should be.

You need to have the water boil, then you add cooking salt (you should be able to feel the water is slightly salted if you drink it. However, the salt you want on your spaghetti is something you need to adjust by trial and error) and when water starts boiling again you can add spaghetti. (Having them form a bunch and breaking them with your bare hands may be useful if you have a small pot. Keep in mind that they should be completely underwater.)

Usually it's said to cook spaghetti for 8 minutes, but this time is going to vary depending on the power of the heat source.
Use your wooden spoon to move water so that spaghetti won't come out as a single starchy mass or stick to the pot.
Keep the flame high and check when these conditions are met:
1) spaghetti are no more rigid sticks. You should be able to roll them around the wooden spoon (it takes some skill to do).
2) spaghetti are no longer yellow. They start being white-y.
3) If you taste spaghetty, they don't crunch and they don't leave a sticky starch taste on your mouth.

The best way to cook spaghetti is "al dente"
It means when the spaghetti is cooked so that it is neither soggy (overcooked, disintegrating, collapsing - like tinned spaghetti, ugh!!) nor is it hard, uncooked in the centre. It should be cooked all the way through, but no more.
To be cooked "al dente" there should still be some resistance to the bite of the teeth, but no feeling that there is an uncooked part.
(thanks to Baldplate @ Wordreference)

Just one last note... you need to strain spaghetti after cooking!!!


:::YOUR FIRST RECIPES:::

Now you can cook your spaghetti properly.
So, you want to eat them. But spaghetti alone aren't that good, don't you think?
Suppose you're going to eat spaghetti right after cooking them (you could quench pasta in cold water and eat it later with anything you could put on cold rice, but when we talk of spaghetti and long shaped pastas, you'd better eat them hot).

So you can have "white" spaghetti, adding butter or oil.
"Red" spaghetti is when you add tomato soup (no ketchup, please!).

Today, I'm going to teach you how to cook "spaghetti alla carbonara".
Carbonara spaghetti takes their name from carbonari, the people who made coal by slowly cooking piled woodpieces, for they used to eat them this way.

This is my mom's recipe but you can have so many versions of it! Some use the pork carve that lies on its cheeck (it's guanciale in Italian but I could not find any translation) or even cooked ham instead of bacon. I still think that bacon is the best.

For each 3 people you should get:
-80 grams of uncooked smoked bacon in one thick slice
-1 chicken egg
-olive oil
-grated parmesan (so many grated cheese are sold with this name. Have some Italian Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano at least once and then use the cheese that tastes closer)

Mix the egg with so much grated parmesan as you need to have a dense cream.
Dice up the bacon, put it into a pan and cover it with oil, then cook it until it's crispy.
Strain the bacon dice and add them to the egg cream, then mix it all up with spaghetti.


:::CHEERS:::

Easy, ain't it?
-Marco


:::NOTES:::

Maybe I'll bring some new recipes, stay tuned if you want to know!
If anyone wants to give its own variation of this one recipe, feel free to reply!
No other spaghetti recipes are allowed! (but you can send me private messages and hope I'm going to publish 'em).