How to make pasta flavorful?

ubuntu_ulysses

I'm an amateur cook, and tried making spaghetti boiled in water, extra virgin olive oil, and cream, cooking it in alfredo sauce + cornstarch/water slurry afterwards and sprinkling on cheese + parsley. While it tasted okay, I noticed that the pasta really wasn't as flavorful as I expected. Can anyone solve this? (Edit: No, that question does not answer mine. I tried that.)

Originally asked by SurgicalStaff on Stack Exchange (cooking) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

Cooking pasta the Italian way means cooking the noodle in salted boiling water in one pot, and developing the condiment in another pan. Once the pasta is cooked, it is added to the condiment and tossed so that the condiment and pasta come together as one dish. So, you really have a couple of things going on to create flavor: 1. Pasta cooked in salted water. 2. A condiment that tastes good. 3 The mixing of the two and the emulsification of the liquids in the condiment (plus, often, the addition of cheese) to create a sauce. "Not as flavorful as I expected" is quite subjective, but a condiment doesn't have to be traditional and can be flavored any way you like.

Full answer by moscafj: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/135509 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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