So much of cooking is second nature: listening for your cake to "sing,” checking to see whether your pan is hot enough with a splash of water, and putting a dash of salt into a pot to help water boil ...

You've been cooking pasta for years, maybe decades. Water, salt, noodles.Simple enough, right? Here's the thing: that pot of bubbling water holds far more potential than most of us realize.

Should you add salt to pasta water? The short answer is yes, you absolutely should! But what exactly does salt do to pasta? And how salty should pasta water be? We answer these questions and more — ...