My first week of chef's school we spent an entire week learning how to boil. When I first read the schedule I figured it must be a joke - I mean we're training to be chefs, right? But guess what? Turns out there's a lot to be learnt about boiling! From this first week of lessons I garnered these best tips for cooking pasta. There's not really much more to it than boiling water, but follow these few, crucial steps and you're sure to end up with perfectly cooked pasta every time. Not the globbed together, sticky, starchy mass that ruins meals. 1. Boil the water. D'uh. But I mean really boil the water. To the point where there are actual rolling boils and it kinda looks  dangerous. 2. Salt the water. To get maximum flavour from your pasta, salt the water enough so that if you were to taste it you'd be reminded of the sea. And bring back to a full, rolling boil. 3. Add the pasta and STIR. Stirring, especially during the first minute or two of cooking, ensures that the pasta doesn't clump together. 4. Taste for timing. Use the cook times on packages as guidelines only. The best way to tell if pasta is cooked is to throw it onto the ceiling. If it sticks, it's done. Just kidding! Taste it for doneness - starting a minute or two before the recommended cooking time. 5. Save some water. Always, no matter what the recipe says, save at least one cup of the pasta cooking liquid. This seasoned, starch-laden sauce is the perfect natural sauce thickener. Toss it, little by little, with the cooked pasta immediately after cooking and draining and with whatever sauce you've chosen - you'll never go back. For more great pasta tips, click  here to learn how to pair what pasta with what sauce. For 100+ Tested 'Til Perfect pasta recipe, click here.   image: (top) Yvonne Duivenvoorden