Cooking pasta with salt and water

(Steve Pope) wrote:

I don't add any oil... adding oil to pasta cooking water coats the
pasta and prevents sauce from clinging, plus unnecessarily mucks up
the pot. I add salt according to how the pasta will be served; if a
buttery primavera (just veggies and fat-no cheese) I will salt the
water, but if with a tomato sauce and especially with meat and/or
cheese there is more than enough salt in the adornments. Btw, salt
does essentially nothing to change the boiling temperature of water,
not enough to matter.... you'd need to add so much salt to raise the
boiling temperature one degree F. it would render the pasta inedible.
 
In article ,
[email protected] says...

They used to be commonplace pharmacy items--athletes, the military, and
others who worked hard in hot weather used to take them regularly. Now
everybody drinks one or another variety of "electrolyte balanced sports
drink" and salt pills have become uncommon. You can get them off of
Amazon, however be careful what you order--some are sodium chloride and
little else, others balance sodium, potassium, and possibly other
ingredients--potassium chloride, while it's salty, tastes different from
sodium chloride--this may or may not be a good thing depending on
whether you like the taste.
 
On Feb 1, 6:54?pm, "Christopher M."
wrote:

It would behoove you to try both methods...and report on YOUR
experience. I can't tell you how you perceieve salt.
 
"Christopher M." wrote in message
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You can do that. I've even added it after it has cooked when I forgot to
put it in at the beginning. I just stirred it through really well and
drained it. Tasted fine.

Lidia Bastianich had some salt tablets on her show. No clue where she got
them. She said one was the perfect amount for a pot of pasta.
 
"Steve Pope" wrote in message
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I believe there is. Lidia Bastianich said the water needs to be briny with
salt. Pasta hasn't got a lot of flavor. IMO, it doesn't taste like much if
you don't add the salt.
 
Goomba wrote on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:24:09 -0500:


DId I say *I* rinsed pasta? All I meant was that, if you are worried
about salt water staying on the stuff, you could rinse it.
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
 
"Steve Pope" wrote in message
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I use sea salt in my cooking unless the recipe calls for something else.
The only foods I like the surface salt on, as you say, would be popcorn,
French fries and similar types of potatoes, baked potatoes and green salad.
Otherwise I don't like it at all.

My mom cooks without salt. She always tells us if we want salt to add it
later. For me it doesn't work that way. Brown rice with salt on it just
tastes like salty brown rice. But add the same amount of salt in cooking
and it tastes fine.
 
HumBug! wrote:
-snip-

That's just silly. Salt has no flavor? I'll bet blindfolded I can
tell the difference between Kosher, Himalayan and Black salts [I
might try a few sips in water so I know it isn't the mouth feel that
stimulates different tastebuds] - and I'm far from a conniseur.

But even if I can't--- are you saying that a glass of distilled water
will taste the same after I put salt in it?

I agree that it enhances other flavors-- but it certainly has a flavor
of its own.

Jim
 
J. wrote on Wed, 2 Feb 2011 08:58:31 -0500:



For water, it is a pretty simple expression:

delta T= 0.51m, where m is the molality of the solution (moles per
liter).

For salt, this means that adding 58.44g (one mole) to a liter of water
would raise the boiling point by half a Celsius degree. Pretty roughly,
since a tablespoon of salt weighs about 25g, you'd need to add two
tablespoons of salt to 2 pints of water to raise the boiling point by
about one degree Fahrenheit...quite salty water I'd say!
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
 
In article ,
"James Silverton" wrote:



I think that's bogus. The only reason I might add oil to the water is
to reduce the foaming a bit ? to keep the pot from boiling over. And if
you use a large enough kettle that isn't even a problem.
--
Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ
Holy Order of the Sacred Sisters of St. Pectina of Jella
"Always in a jam, never in a stew; sometimes in a pickle."
Pepparkakor particulars posted 11-29-2010;
http://web.me.com/barbschaller
 
On Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:40:07 -0800, "Paul M. Cook"
wrote:


So you eat your pasta just boiled, dry, no sauce/no nothing?

Makes as much sense to salt pasta cooking water as to salt rice
cooking water when the rice is going to end up in some other dish like
say fried rice or drowned under Cantonese lobster sauce. Btw, Chinese
restaurants don't salt their white rice. There is no need to salt
potato boiling water when making potato salad either... no need to
salt pasta cooking water when making pasta salad or mac n' cheese, or
putanesca or lasagna. Whether to add salt to cooking water for
anything is entirely dependant upon what the anything will become. And
for a typical dago pasta dish rather than cook in salted water I'd
much rather add more cheese please. It's really brainless kooking to
add salt indiscriminately, like the imbeciles who salt before tasting.
I know, there are salt shakers on table in pizza parlors... but what
do yoose expect from TIAD guidos who salt their pepperoni anchovy pie.
I've actually been to restaurants with people who salt before
tasting... then they go about ragging on the joint about how their
food is too salty. duh There are salt shakers on table in Chinese
restaurants too, doesn't mean you need to use them and then go home
and bitch about msg.
 
Julie Bove wrote:




I guess my view is once you try it a few times without salt,
you will never miss it. Salt preference is very much a matter
of what you're used to.

I haven't added salt (nor oil) to pasta boiling water for many
years, maybe a couple decades, and I don't miss it at all.

Tangentially: I did try the Bionature pasta that Christine and
others recommended here. And, it seems maybe slightly slightly better
than other whole wheat pastas. It's apparent from the labeling that
it is slightly less dried out (less carbs, calories, and protein per
ounce of dry pasta), and their blurb says something about
a special "slow drying process".


Steve
 
On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:40:23 -0800, HumBug!
wrote:


WRONG!

Salt is one of the flavors humans can taste... sweet, sour, bitter,
salt... never ate pussy, eh? Umami is as far as I'm concerned just
the flavor of a salt (sodium) chemically altered to make foods taste
savory.
 
"Kent" wrote in message
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Why would anyone want to reduce the bubbling in boiling water? Turn down
the heat! In my experience, oil added to the water makes it difficult for a
sauce to cling to the pasta.

Jill
 
On Feb 1, 5:54?pm, "Christopher M."
wrote:

Nahhh, the salt will still dissolve in the water and then soak into
the pasta as the pasta cooks. Of course the sooner you put the salt in
the water, the more of it will end up IN the pasta.

John Kuthe...
 
On Tue, 1 Feb 2011 22:56:52 -0500, "Christopher M."
wrote:



You never read any such thing. There is no such thing as a salt free
diet, you'd be dead. All food contains some salt. A certain amount
of salt must be ingested to live... it's better to err on the high
side than to die. The body eliminates excess salt quite
efficiently... so long as you sweat and piss.
 
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