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One of the reasons I don't like to cook penne pasta is its tendency to stick together while being boiled, and then the stuck-together parts taking longer to soften than the rest. The same often happens with shell pasta; multiple shells stacking on top of each other.
I thought a solution might be to put some drops of oil in the boiling water before adding the pasta, but I don't really want my pasta to come out of the pot oily. (Because greasy and harder to clean.) The first few articles I found on the topic discouraged using oil anyway, as it makes the sauce "slide right off". That's not a concern for me, as I put either margarine (I know, I know; it doesn't have to make sense) or salad dressing on my pasta, not tomato sauce.
The articles advised stirring the pasta right away for a few minutes when putting it in the water. And using plenty of salted water.
So I did that today. I also added the pasta to the boiling water a few pieces at a time while stirring, rather than dumping them all in at once. It took a few extra minutes, but it really worked. They didn't stick together this time.
This page suggests putting the pasta in the water before bringing it to a boil; I'm interested in trying that out too:
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32040/how-to-prevent-orecchiette-from-sticking-to-each-other-while-cooking-how-to-sep
I thought a solution might be to put some drops of oil in the boiling water before adding the pasta, but I don't really want my pasta to come out of the pot oily. (Because greasy and harder to clean.) The first few articles I found on the topic discouraged using oil anyway, as it makes the sauce "slide right off". That's not a concern for me, as I put either margarine (I know, I know; it doesn't have to make sense) or salad dressing on my pasta, not tomato sauce.
The articles advised stirring the pasta right away for a few minutes when putting it in the water. And using plenty of salted water.
So I did that today. I also added the pasta to the boiling water a few pieces at a time while stirring, rather than dumping them all in at once. It took a few extra minutes, but it really worked. They didn't stick together this time.
This page suggests putting the pasta in the water before bringing it to a boil; I'm interested in trying that out too:
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32040/how-to-prevent-orecchiette-from-sticking-to-each-other-while-cooking-how-to-sep