Using salt in boiling water

[tim....]

If you grew up not eating salted food then it is easy to continue. But if you've got used to salted it takes ages to find the unsalted version palatable, so you give up trying and go back to the salt.

Try it with butter. If you are used to GB salted butter, foreign unsalted stuff tastes awful.

Having had to make that transition it took me about five years of using unsalted before I even became used to it and it was still not as nice.

Even when later moving to Sweden, where they do sell salted butter, it has a much smaller amount in and is still "not nice"

tim

[tim....]

Perhaps it does work like that, but the amount of water you are going to "wring out" would be a tiny reward for the energy put in.

tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

well, because it allows you to make the food slightly salty, which is what the taste buds like.

This is very true of pasta anyway and rice, both of which *absorb* water.

Its probably wasted on vegetables as generally they do not. I add that later when drained.

[tim....]

Well that's a personal opinion.

From my pov I've had to stop buying supermarket ready prepared pasta [1] because the current trend is to put less salt in prepared meals and I find it impossible to salt the meal to my likening by adding "solid" salt during the "heat up" process.

[1] Though apart from the loss of convenience, that's probably a good thing overall.

tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Experience tells me that it does.

Al dented is merely less water in it than boiled to a frazzle.

[Alan]

In message , BartC wrote

Just because someone has been doing something for all of their lives doesn't necessarily make it right.

Doesn't commercially made pasta have salt in it anyway?

[BartC]

Pasta is usually made from durum wheat semolina; that's the only ingredient.

Perhaps you're thinking of ready-made pasta meals, which, in the UK, usually have more cheese than pasta. And cheese is salty.

[BartC]

Pasta can (I think) also 'cook' in cold water, but takes longer and likely to come out horrible.

But thinking about being stranded in a lifeboat, with no fresh water but with (oddly) a pan and a supply of pasta, this could be a serious proposal. Of course you would just eat the pasta after draining it, rather than wring the water out. And pasta absorbs twice it's weight of water.

That's assuming the osmosis thing is right (I've no idea, but it doesn't sound right)

[Skipweasel]

For the same reason I have real coffee instead of instant. Instant doesn't please me.

[Steve Firth]

Indeed they are, Italians eat far too much salt.

You can if you like, but they probably won't listen. Most Italians have an amusing level of arrogance about cooking. Expatriate Italians tend to be city folk anyway and hence know squat about cooking. If someone is using Buitoni or Barilla pasta, or even worse the own-brand pap sold in the UK that is made in Germany, Holland and Turkey then it can be assumed that their knowledge is at a low ebb. OTOH if they use de Cecco, Verigni, Giuseppe Cocco or Ma'Kaira then they possibly do know something about pasta.

Amusing level of arrogance you're showing there BTW, your parents were born in Italy therefore you must know everything about how to cook pasta. By the same logic I must know everything there is to know about the Victor bomber.

Oh, BTW, I live in Italy.

About 25% but the cooking times on the packet - nice to meet someone whose knowledge of cooking is confined to what it says on the side of pre-packed pap BTW - are calculated for cooking in salty water.

Correct, so why would you want to add more salt to the salt present in the sauce?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Some. Better ones not a lot.

The point is the pasta absorbs the salt.

In the case of anything that does NOT absorb water, there is little point in cooking it in salty water that gets thrown away later.

You need to distinguish between things that rehydrate - starches from grains mainly - and things that soften due to application of heat - vegetables mainly.

Meat is the odd one. It DOES absorb salt and water, or bacon wouldn't work, but very slowly.

Brine steeping is also a good way to draw out some of the nastier taste elements - works well with rather gamey foods like hare. And its about the only thing that makes carp almost worth eating. Reduces the taste from disgusting to merely tasteless.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Eggs, salt, and butter and oil occasionally.

Perhaps you don't know what you are talking about.

[The Natural Philosopher]

We drink both: whilst some instants approach fresh ground taste, none reach it.

[dennis]

Its a matter of taste, there is no point in cooking something "right" if you like it better cooked in a different way. I want it how I like it, not what some "chef" thinks it should be like. I never add salt and I always cook it longer than it says, it tastes better that way.

[chris French]

Depends on the pasta.

Of the dried pasta in our cupboard right now, two types of Waitrose own brand, 1 of Sainsburys, two different branded pastas.

All except the one of the branded ones only contain Durum Wheat Semolina, one of the branded ones contains egg, none contain salt.

I think the fresh pastas often contain eggs though.

[Frank Erskine]

Just as an experiment I tried steaming (dried) pasta. It didn't work; it was still uncooked after about an hour.

[djc]

Also:

Nylon Tea Filter Chatsford nylon infuser for the 2 cup Chatsford teapot, also ideal for a tea mug.

[Skipweasel]

And dioxins?

[ARWadsworth]

Is there a law in Italy that say no matter how small the amount of pasta you are cooking you must use a massive pan and loads of salt?

[BartC]

I'm talking about dry packet pasta. Half-a-dozen packs I've just looked at contain only durum wheat semolina.

Some 'egg' pastas contain dried egg, other novelty ones might contain dried tomato, spinach, etc to give them unusual colours.

I've never heard of butter, oil or salt being in dry pasta. Once it's turned into a meal, of course, then it can contain anything.

This is my experience with packs from Sainsburys designed for sticking in a microwave oven and which have a few bits of pasta swimming in cheese, and which have salt, fat and calorie levels through the roof despite being quite small portions.