if you are serious about a pasta cooker, check with a restaurant supply company. such a beast does exist. basically its built like a fryer, instead of grease it hold water and brings it to a boil. there is a large basket that will hold 10 pounds of pasta at a time. this is what you cook your bulk dry pasta in. usually the pasta cooker will have a timer and will automatically raise the basket. then you chill the pasta and portion it. the cooker has another rack that will hold baskets on individual portions-- push a button and the rack goes down into the boiling water to heat up the cooked pasta and then rises back up to let the portions drain. when the water get nasty-- after about 60-80 lbs of pasta are cooked-- you drain it, clean it and refill it. and start again. 9this takes about 30-45 minutes

supply houses also sell a pot that has 4 small baskets that fit into it for reheating pasta portions that you use on the stove top.

unless you regularly need to cook 10 or more pounds of pasta at a time, i just don't see the need for a pasta cooker at home.

i would prefer a 5 gal steam jacketed kettle mounted on a low counter. this would give you a pot to cook vast quantities of soup, stock, chili, stews and sauces. filled with water you could blanch veggies, cook potatoes, noodles and rice.

clean up time is about 10 minutes. the draw back is that it requires a steam generating unit and takes some time to warm up (but no longer than a pasta cook).

it would also need to be plumbed in for waste drainage, and filling and attached to a power source.

just my 2 cents worth.

i'd stick to a professional range with the ability to bring a 5 gal stock pot to a boil in under 20 minutes, a filler
hose near the stove and an extra deep sink nearby.

all three wil need major ventilation hoods.

diggerb

"I swear I read a posting somewhere about a pasta cooker type of accessory/appliance as an alternative to cooking pasta on the stove."

Perhaps you're thinking of an in-counter/built-in system. Google Kohler Cooksink or Kohler Cookcenter to see what I'm talking about.

Oh, and they've been roundly dissed on this board, so I definitely would look at other options...

I'm thinking of a portable induction unit for that purpose.

I liked the look of that Kohler thing until I learned the price. And that was without the additional plumbing costs.

Thanks for the responses! The Kohler was what I had read about. It does sound really neat with the easy fill and drain instead of lugging pots of water around

After some more searches, it turns out Kohler has taken this off market because of a defect. No one knows what the defect is but it won't be back on the market for another year. Too bad Kohler didn't have this info on their web site; it would've saved me time in hunting it down elsewhere

One item to cross off my research list... 99 more to go

Gaggenau has two steam cooker modules with a drain, and at least one model will cook pasta as well as steaming food. You have to add liquid, either with a pitcher or potfiller. I was initially interested in this as well as other cooktop modules, but ended up getting the combi-steam oven.