The advantage to cooking pasta in a frying pan as opposed to the traditional way is in the speed it takes to deliver a meal, and the amount of water and energy you save while doing it.
Harold McGee, author of Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes demonstrates his innovative way for turning a classic time waster into a modern time saver. Harold McGee recommends that the next time you decide to make pasta, you should forgo the traditional, and highly wasteful, large pot of boiling water. Instead, what you should do is start with roughly a quart and a half of cold water and a frying pan.
The instructions are simple, place the pasta in the frying pan and pour the cold water over it before turning on the burner. Harold McGee claims that because you start with cold water poured over the pasta it won’t end up sticking to itself at the beginning of the cooking process, which is a normal occurrence with boiling pasta. By using a frying pan, what you end up with is perfectly cooked pasta.
This is all achieved in a fraction of the time classic recipes call for because the boiling process is eliminated. When you are finished cooking your pasta, what you’ll have left is just enough thickened starchy liquid in the pan. The remaining liquid can then be used to create a multitude of tasty sauces to go with your meal.