Imed's pasta tip

I've been lucky to know some people who just have cooking magic in their fingertips; the kind of people who can make something yummy out of scraps and for whose cooking you might even go easy at lunch jus because you know that you want to feast on their food in the evening. One such person is definitely Imed, Tunisian pasta master and I thought of him the other day as I followed his basic pasta technique of removing the penne from its boiling water well before it was cooked, and then finishing the pasta in the tomato puree, onion and spice-based sauce which I was making in another pan, with a bit of the water added to the mix. Now I know that posh Italian chefs fry their pasta with the sauce, but the magic of Imed's method is that it works just as well with dried pasta and it is truly amazing how the flavours actually become imbued in the pasta, rather than simply sitting atop a pile of starchy carbs.