When should you salt pasta water? How much?
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- Опубліковано 15 сер 2021
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Here's a great article by a Stanford professor explaining bubble nucleation, written for a general audience: web.stanford.edu/group/Zarela... - Навчання та стиль
Ugh, I had this discussion literally dozens of times. And I'm a chemist - properly trained with a PhD and all - but people these days really think they know better than actual experts. I liked your video, though. I especially liked that you simply did the experiment instead of just relying on written sources. Well done.
@Burhan Abdulali Do you know how to make LSD?
@Burhan Abdulali if you want to just be a bench chemist doing routine stuff for a chem/agri/biochem company, a bachelors is fine, but it doesn't always leave a lot of room to move up the ladder.
If you want to make good money, do research, and/or being in upper management positions, Ph.D. is needed.
@Burhan Abdulali yes
Tf especially with chemistry it should take a long time to get mastered in that field
4 years of general education 4 years of basic science and probably 2 years of speciality aka ur major
I god masters in salty arts.
@Burhan Abdulali with chemistry you'd be spending much more time than that. Have a friend who got a bachelor in chemistry and he said you'd have to dedicate a lot of time and risk to land a job in the field. For him it was easier to get a second degree in computer science and get a job going that than it was too get a chemistry-related job he'd enjoy.
The way it goes in my family is that my mother under salts the water, and when she leaves, I sneak in and add salt before she comes back to put in the pasta. We've had whole arguments about the fact that she puts too little salt, but the only reason she wins is because, "The pasta always comes out perfect when I put that much salt." I have officially played myself.
One time just go in add wayyyy too much salt. Like a disgusting amount of salt, it'll confuse the shit out of her and leaving her questioning everything about this plane if existence
replace the salt with sugar so theres no salt
You gotta make two pastas right next to her
Why don't you just tell her that you always add more salt when she isn't looking? She already said it comes out perfect.
Sounds to me like she's the one who played herself.
Now begin adding water and shell take your advice
My argument for "salt early" is "Bryan would forget his head if it weren't securely bolted on".
And if you're using a shaker, if it's boiling, you'll get your salt wet.
Yep, me too. The salt sits next to the stove. Pot, water, salt.
@@JB33809 yeah the steam hitting the shaker is a pain in the ass
SAME. I've completely forgotten to salt my pasta several times, and let me tell you, I blame Bryan for my shitty-tasting pasta.
@@vitriolicAmaranth Seriously. Why does Brian keep ruining my food?
I was cooking with an Italian grandmother years ago and she told me that it no longer mattered when you add the salt...much of the lore around adding it after the water reached a boil was related to the materials the old pots were made out of that would become pitted if the 'sale grosso' (large salt used by Italians for pasta water) sat on the bottom too long.
Not just old pots. Care instructions for the All-Clad purchased in the past 2 years says to add salt after boiling to prevent pitting
i love italian grandmothers , somehow their lore gets innovated and they are also always right
god i wish to grow into an italian grandmother
Bro you made all this experts coming in this comments section useless. If the Italian grandmother says so, no chemistry expert will convince me otherwise.
My brand new expensive Tefal pots specifically say: Add salt only after the water starts boiling.
After a few comments, I realized the following. As salt increases the boiling point of water, if a grain of large salt sits on the bottom, it will create a point of contact that is superheated. So basically consistent with the comments below on even the modern pots as more delicate finishes will likely be damaged. At the end, what counts is how good the pasta is.
"It's TOO heterogeneous."
Never thought I'd hear Ragusea say those words...
Truly the apocalypse is upon us.
long live the empire
It's just right for me, I think there's something to the upbringing angle
Ok think sometings wrong with adam
What’s next? Seasoning steak directly?
I never knew there was some big debate over this topic. I’ve always thought everyone seasoned their pasta water with sand and never really thought to question it.
Fresh beach sand ofc
@@SHrepairsYou got it! Leave the beach, ring the water and all that goes along with it out of your trunks into the pot...perfect pasta every time!
I have to do something with all of this sand in my pockets.
My apprentice doesn’t like sand
6:56 Kitchen Safety tip! Be *EXTREMELY* cautious when heating *distilled* water in a glass container in the microwave. Distilled water is almost completely free from the micro-impurities that allow bubbles to form and disperse, combined with the glass containers lack of spaces to do the same. Boiling distilled water does not bubble, so disturbing it can cause it to immediately shed all the kinetic tension built up in a splash that can cause severe burns, especially to the hands or face of anyone taking the glass out of the microwave.
life pro tip: when you boil water in a glass container in the microwave, put a wooden chopstick in. gives bubbles something to form on
I just let it keep going until it starts to boil. Enough energy will eventually make it boil, even without nucleation sites
@@danku-chan Just use a metal fork.
Way more fun.
@@clivedoe9674 good thinking! I'll try that out
Would this also be true for enamled cookware? I notice he normally uses enamled cast iron pots, but here he's using stainless steel.
That video is a master class in how to make a UA-cam video:
1) Right to the subject, no intro, no telling us who you are, no pointless talking about what you are going to show us in the video -- gets to the point immediately. Totally respects the viewer's time.
2) Excellent balance between shots of Adam and shots of the subject matter (stuff being cooked). The rate of cuts is just right. And few (any?) jump-cuts to pull-up dialogue. The few that are in there are made less jarring by moving in on Adam, and only when reasonable B-roll wasn't available or appropriate.
3) Great video and audio quality. Not overly staged backdrops, no colored lights, but good use of short depth of field. Nice soft focus on the background of a kitchen, making the scene feel comfortable and have our attention focused on the host.
4) Perfectly executed transition in and out of the sponsored content... seamless. Sponsored content is interesting, even for someone who isn't into coffee (like me).
5) Quick wrap-up at the end with no lingering on links to other videos. No begging for subscribers or clicking of "like" or clicking o the bell. Part of the reason I gave it a thumbs-up was *because* you didn't bother me asking for that. I suspect the percentage of view time for this video is very high, given that there is no place where most viewers would feel like dropping out.
6) Quality content. Covered a basic cooking question with science, all completely understandable. Kenji López-Alt would approve. AND entertaining. Enough self-deprecation (confessed being wrong about a previous video on how much salt to use), enough of not-too-confident (does this taste right because that's what you were brought up with?... maybe, but seems good to you), and this all lends itself to being legit. I can believe you.
I also enjoy that he doesn't have music, like really really enjoy it.
because this isn’t your average Minecraft youtuber, this is actually a very helpful and informative video. Not made for the sole purpose of money.
@@eavyeavy2864 why are you watching mincraft videos for information
@@icedcat4021 you don't play minecraft?
Pat Furrie: ditto.
I didn’t even know this was a debate, I just threw the salt in whenever was convenient like my family usually does.
I don't even throw a salt ever in my pasta
i just dump my leftover cocaine in there 😈
@@hrsurya31_ WHAT???????!?!?
@@sosak4mi did i stutter?
@@sosak4mi did he stutter?
adam, being at the bottom of your boiling pot was incredibly terrifying
I thought that shot was really cool
That’s what happens if you don’t smash those like and subscribe buttons.
we were fine!
@@aragusea SMASSH THAT LIKE BUTTON, also im glad u dont remind us of that even though it would likely improve your numbers
@@aragusea its like the leeks in the mustard tri tip video all over again 😔😔
Great video. As a chemical engineer and avid home cook, I checked out most of of these myths years ago in reference handbooks. You got everything correct. Demos adding salt to boiling water until saturated and adding sand are brilliant.
This video is amazing. No annoying music, no spoilers first 30 sec, straight to the point, no repeating, no spamming, no screaming. True gem.
Yessss i love this channel for it
No spoilers? What?
@@ano_nym many many channels do "in this video" thing for the first 5-60 seconds.
I had one of the 'salt later' guys argue that the salt grains were going to corrode the bottom of my stainless steel pan, until they dissolve.
3:51 is the solution you've perfected that I still need to work on.
I'm surprised to see you here I like your content
Omg my two favorite UA-camrs!!! 😍 I love your foraging content!!
This is how I was taught. Not to put the salt in at the beginning because it will pit the bottom of the pot.
Random AS on raguseas channel. Great to see you here
I did have coarse sea salt pit the finish of a brand new pot by putting it in at the beginning. Granted, it may have been a badly produced commercial pot. I always wait ‘til boil now, just in case that was the actual cause.
Chemistry teacher chiming in. Roughly 50g of salt would raise the boiling point of 1L of water by 1 degree C. The formula is:
Tb = Kb * m * i
Tb is change in boiling point
Kb is a constant for water, which is .512 C/molal
m is the molality of your water (which is the mol solute/kg solvent)
i is the number of ions that the solute will break into in the water, NaCl becomes Na+ and Cl-, so 2.
To get the roundest numbers we can use 1 mol (58g) of NaCl and 1L (1kg) of water you'd get Tb = 0.512 * 1 * 2, which gives you a Tb of 1.024 degrees celcius. Fudge it to 50 for simplicity and you've still got way too much salt in your water.
Or confuse more people like we do our students and tell everyone to round to sig. fig. 😆
So adding salt actually makes the water boil slower?
Nice!
@@omarh.6869 Confusingly, no. Adding salt also lowers the specific heat capacity of water, which means it takes less energy to raise the temperature of a specific mass of salt water than it does for the same mass of pure water. The result is that the water boils hotter, but in the same amount of time.
@@TheHookUp Had a question about this in Chemistry and just wanted to add that the water boiling hotter results in a shorter cooking time, but again to a pretty insignificant degree.
The tip for salting pasta water I got from an Italian Nonna / grandma was "the water should taste like a slightly oversalted soup".
Not as salty as sea water, but definitely saltier than what you'd normaly want to eat.
So how salty is that? Well that depends on your own personal preference. Like in anything in cooking it is personal. Period.
That's a very practical tip.
Takes into account both your own preference / taste, as well as the ratio of soup saltiness vs pasta saltiness. ("If you like your soup like [this], you probably like your pasta like [this]").
That said: if your water tastes like soup, maybe use clean water 🙃
(or... You may be having a mild stroke 😄)
-
-- incidentally:
Would be cool if that "over salted soup" taste test turns out to be somehow scientifically accurate too.
That somehow, using this method, the right amount of neurons get fired after your taste buds get triggered in the exact right way...
Resulting in a measurably pleasurable experience (like.. With an MRI or something... "The enjoyment center of the brain is fully utilized")
I heard that “salty as the sea” made sense for fresh pasta, as it takes less time to cook than dried pasta and so it needs more salt to be properly seasoned by the time the pasta is al dente
You beat me to it but, yes, Yash, that is absolutely correct!
Oh wow never thought about that, but now that you say it, it all makes sense. Thanks!
Makes sense
Also fresh pasta is already wet inside, so it doesn't absorb water and the salt dissolved in it like dried pasta does.
The sea is very salty. It's a deciliter of salt for a bit over 3 liters of water.
"I don't care what a scientist tells me..." is where that conversation would have ended for me. Props to you for staying with it :)
Something I don't understand is, the person in question could have just used a thermometer and they would have instantly learned they were wrong. And given they were apparently a chef, I would have to assume they have at least one.
@@SilvyReacts lol, they like being right. If they were neutral, they wouldn't have been so confrontational.
@@SilvyReacts Who would win? Actually measuring the temperature you are arguing about, or looking at bubbly bubbles? :)
Scientists can literally never be wrong, science is not a method for making observations, nor is it a career, it's the new age "religion".
@@italianboyz12345 Your agenda is showing.
"As long as you don't put way too much salt."
Preach. I made Spaghetti Al Burro many many times at home and chefs I watched always tell me to salt the water like the ocean. In the end, they came out tasting like straight up salt since the cheese was already salty.
Just my advice: Don't take "As salty as the sea" as a good cooking technique if you're already gonna put a salty ingredient in your pasta.
Agreed. 8 years ago when I cooked spaghetti and meatballs for my partner for the first time I naively believed Jamie Oliver when he said to make the water "as salty as the sea". Not even kidding the spaghetti itself tasted like the sea and no amount of sauce or meat or cheese or drinking water could fix that abomination. I've never made her spaghetti and meatballs ever since.
That's because Jamie Oliver is full of excrement. The salinity of sea water is approximately a 0.5 Molar solution of salt, whereas pasta-cooking water should be about a 0.1 Molar solution of salt. Sea water is FIVE TIMES SALTIER than what pasta water should be. If you give me the dimensions of your pasta pot in centimeters, I will calculate your salt and water measurements in grams for pasta-cooking water.
@@chillitomatocakes If she stuck with you after that shes a keeper!
@@adamchurvis1 No need. I no longer acknowledge anything JO would ever say now.
@@lurk7967 she is! Just don't make her spag and meatballs even if its edible lol
I absolutely love the science of food. You have no idea how much I appreciate your videos. I honestly believe that you could make anything interesting with your video techniques and excellent research. Please keep doing what you do. Thanks for feeding my brain!
I just want to say I love you.
I found you through your cast iron video as I was looking for sources on proper seasoning and you've been knocking down all the questions I had while cooking my entire life since.
I'm genuinely impressed by how much scientific research, evidence and preparation Adam puts in his videos
He used to be in journalism (the real kind, not the pop magazine click bait reaction-fishing profit-centric garbage) education so..
the man is simply built different
I'm literally making pasta right now, the timing could not be better
I just finished mine
Also made Pasta today - coincidentally one of Adams recipes.
#PastaGang
He knows
well how did you season it?
It’s been 20m, how was your pasta?
I really do enjoy watching your videos. So full of pertinent observations, fun anecdotes, down-to-earth honest opinion, and acquired knowledge. Such a wide variety of subjects too. If I could choose just anyone to invite for dinner, you would definitely be amongst the guests! In the meantime, I'll just keep watching your videos. Bon appétit!
Absolutely definitive treatment of the subject. Very well done.
He really used a third of this video to get the internet troll cook off his back
Respect
I wanna find the original videos he's talking about now lol.
Who df is he talking about
@@SuperMysteryboi maybe Internet Shaquille? I know he used to be super rude to Adam
@@mctit that would be a shame, because I've been a fan of his for almost as long as I've been a fan of Adam.
I think it was ethan chowblowski
In my family we go for “salty as tears”. I guess my nonna is kind of dramatic.
That's probably closer to what Adam prefers.
That‘s actually pretty accurate of what it shpuld taste like (for me atleast).
That's a very cute way of putting it, especially if you're eaching it to kids
She’s actually 100% spot-on
The old adage of “salty as the sea” is too much. And tears’ flavor is easily referenced lol
I've come to really enjoy the content you put out. Both this video and your one of your latest are prime examples of why I love your videos. Rich in information, interesting topics. The way your outline your information reminds me of how we teach our guys how to write important emails: BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front. Straight to the point then fill out with details, extra context and whatnot.
This channel with its blitz kitchen experiments and quality information is really al dente *chef's kiss*
I'm sure others have pointed this out, but as i hear it the "salty like the sea" is really just for fresh pasta, since it cooks so must faster the higher concentration is needed to season it properly
True. Still, salty like the sea is waaay too salty even for fresh pasta (especially if you’re also salting the dough)
Very possible, but I don’t think it is just the amount of time, but rather that fresh pasta already has water in it, so less of the salty water is absorbed. Dry angel hair also cooks much faster, but it probably needs the same amount of salt in the water as spaghetti.
I feel like Adam's going to come back with a follow up experiment and show this as incorrect.
I would suspect, given that Adam was ok with 0.5%, that 3.5% would just be too salty. The amount of salt on the surface and liquid that comes with the pasta would be too much, even with a ~1/5 cooking time.
@@jedrobertson3206 Well, the brand of pasta that I use has instructions for 7g of salt per 1L of water (so a 0.7% solution), which to me, results in perfectly seasoned pasta every time, and the pasta water is just the right amount of salty that when using it to emulsify a sauce, I almost never want to add any extra salt.
From my Italian heritage, what I was told is that only fresh pasta should be put into water "as salty as the sea" because it cooks so quickly. Dry pasta takes much more time and therefore absorbs all too much of the saltwater
That's right! For regular pasta my rule is a handful of salt per person. It also depends how much water you use
ohhh that's a good argument!! hope adam sees it
I think dry pasta absorbs more salt because it needs more water to rehydrate.
@@sunsetbandit a handful per person? that is wayyyyyyyy to much. maybe a pinch per person.
@@macrumpton Nope. Most of it is being dumped back out with the water
I didn't even know there was a debate around when you add the salt! I saw the title and thought, "Is Adam about to tell me I should salt after adding the pasta?"... Interesting to see actually how little effect salt has on the properties of water vis-à-vis boiling. I really enjoy your scientific-yet-sensible approach to these topics.
thanks for answering the question in the beginning. saves time.
The whole "boiling harder" thing with salt, kinda sounds like the same reaction that makes the whole coke and mentos thing happens. Really loving your more informatic videos. Same as with the dirt video, you're able to make something that sounds soo mundane, become so incredibly interesting
It is the same reaction. Mint mentos in particular have a bunch of tiny pock marks and crags that make the CO2 in the coke nucleate out of control.
@@DigitalBlazar yeah, exactly what i was thinking of!
@@DigitalBlazar This makes me wonder if ground mentos would be even more explosive since even more crags would be exposed.
@@macrumpton That's an interesting idea. I kinda want to run an experiment on that now.
@@macrumpton I doubt it would make much difference. There’s kind of a “max gas” from water vapour that would be much less than the dissolved CO2 would provide. Still, it would be interesting to know for sure!
"It has been scientifically proven that salting your water after you boil the pasta reduces your sodium intake, thus lowering the risk of heart disease and failure. Long live The Empire!"
- Adam off camera, probably
@YTr cretor stop spamming religious content on a cooking video
science is not different in the mirror universe only culture and history is Long live The Empire!
Long LIVE THE EMPIRE. IF you sweat a lot and drink enough water, the salt is not a problem.
@YTr cretor First tiem I saw this Iw as okay wit hit but you guys spam this all the time now
But DOES lowering sodium intake actually lower the risk of heart disease? From what I can tell, the long-assumed connection between salt and chronic hypertension is tenuous at best. Long live the Empire.
I love how you give us the science behind cooking. Much appreciated.
My ratio is 1 tablespoon to 4 litres of water.
"eating pasta that was boiled in salty water, and that's just what I'm used to?" I would agree that it is what you are used to. As a Korean American, I grew up eating unsalted pasta and rice.(although Korean short grain rice actually has flavor unlike the long grain rice commonly used in western cultures, which is pretty tasteless. Korean rice has more flavor than plain pasta also) I never had salted pasta until I ate at an Italian restaurant, and did not understand the difference until later in life. Now that I know the difference, I do salt my pasta water, but probably less salt than usual.
This is my most controversial culinary take by far, I have had plenty of pasta cooked "correctly" at restaurants yet I still prefer my pasta unseasoned when I make it at home. I know I'm an absolute heretic for this, but to me it's exactly what he said in the video, it's like white rice in Asian cuisine. Pasta is just a neutral vessel to carry a very flavourful topping which already has plenty of salt.
@@Pahhu I use very little salt in my cooking, as my mother did. She used soy sauce, which of course contains salt, but as it also contains a lot of other flavor, you can achieve good flavor with much less equivalent salt. I find a lot of restaurant food is too salty for me, and I end up drinking multiple glasses of water in an attempt to compensate. The problem seems to have lessened with the rise of food TV, possibly because more cooks have learned that 'salt to taste' does not mean 'add salt until it tastes salty'
@@Pahhu Something I've found works for me: no salt, slice and toss a kielbasa (I use turkey or beef, turkey's a bit "drier" while the beef is very fatty and buttery) into the water. I do that before bringing it to a boil, then add the pasta. Everything comes out the other side tasting delicious and it's very low effort if you already have the sausage. Makes for an easy lunch.
The advice I absorbed years ago was: everything you cook with should be seasoned according to your own taste or the taste of those you are feeding. Cant go wrong that way. I salt my pasta water as much as it takes to make a water that is pleasingly salty. No more, no less. And, I do it once the water has boiled so that it is easy to taste and adjust.
Exactly what I discovered. To me the pasta water should taste similar to a broth in terms of salt, then the pasta is perfect.
Cook for who you're feeding, not the approval of people who will never eat your food.
Agreed. In most cases, I prefer not to salt my pasta water at all.
I find it easier to taste when the water is still cool, I just stir the salt in to dissolve it.
Pleasingly salty, what a genius.
What I read somewhere, and seems to be true in practice for me, is that the “salty as the sea” heuristic works well to salt pasta water because people generally do not remember real seawater as being as salty as it really is. Then, when they salt their pasta water based on that underestimation, they get no where near as salty as the sea, but actually hit right about where they need to for making pasta.
TLDR: salt pasta water as salty as you remember sea water being, not how salty it actually is.
The very last remark in the video is a very useful take!
I oft’ microwave water for tea and have learned early on that the temperature can be above boil without producing bubbles. Adding agitation such as a tea bag creates a relatively unwelcome affect if you are currently holding onto the mug. You can also lower water to below freezing without it becoming ice and then trigger it to do so with agitation.
this guy mastered his segments to sponsors, its on point.
+
Just a shame that he led up to it by confessing that he used a pyrex jug and a microwave to boil water. Made me queazy.
Can he fight the segue of Linus Tech Tips?
Bruh Adams the only person to hear "as salty as the sea' and literally measure the salinity of the ocean to test it
Quite a thorough evaluation!
I never even thought about salting pasta water. Thanks for letting me know about this.
FUN LITTLE FACT: That "FOOMP!" or "THUMP!" you hear when you're microwaving stuff is the sound of a phenomenon called "bumping", where a liquid flash-boils all at once in a single, violent event. Bumping is an extremely hazardous phenomenon when you are heating up any kind of a liquid solution, as the pressure spikes so tremendously fast that it can damage or destroy the container. Or.... splatter your lunch all over the guts of your microwave.
In chemistry labwork in particular this is commonly why chemists will often add boiling chips to a solution that they have to bring to a boil in order to drive off volatile fractions from the solution. Those boiling chips are loaded with nucleation sites to prevent bumping! (This is especially a problem if you're working with any sulfuric acid based solutions; H2SO4 loves to bump and it is NOT a solvent you want bumping on you in a sealed system of glassware!)
I'm glad that someone finally says that "salty like the sea" is way too much. Maybe afterwards the pasta will still taste ok. But it can make the sauce completely too salty
The saying goes like that because people didn't expect anyone to actually go measure (or look up) the saltiness of sea water, then putting however much salt in the water. As Adam observed, "too salty" water tastes the same whether it's perfect for boiling pasta or when it's way too much. The saying is there just so you aren't afraid to put a large amount of salt in, not to literally put in heaps of salt.
I don’t even put any salt in my water and it still comes out good
@@Willabicks No, it doesn't
@@Willabicks Try salting sometime, you’ll enjoy it
I have used too much salt and made the pasta inedible, so yeah, you can go overboard. I have also forgotten about it and had to eat mush afterwards. There's a balance, it's just not too tight.
I am LOVING your channel sir!
god more than anything i love your channel because every roommate i ever had has been so damn adamant on schooling me on doing things wrong, i have been purposefully teaching myself to cook since day one of moving out to move over some food-related trauma so their confusing criticisms always felt hurtful somehow.
and not only do all your videos validate me for not caring, i also learn that they didn't even agrue their points for reasons most people carry
the whole salt boil thing was argued that "it boils LESS HARDER" which is both the opposite of the stuff you deal with but also "WHY WOULD YOU WANT THAT??"
{ofc this also applies to like 50/50 salt/water mixures only not a pinch}
Adam is Italian, therefore the expert. And he's now a Tennessean, my favorite thing
What's special about Tennesseans?
@@Ammar.D Nothing much. Geography is destiny
He’s Italian American. He’s acknowledged that’s different.
@@finchhawthorne1302 exactly
It seems like Knoxville, Georgia.
Hey Adam, how are you finding cooking on the gas stove and are you going to make a video about it?
Explosively good!
Gas will always be nicer than electric and induction is a sweetspot in the middle
That'd be a good explainer vid; I've always preferred cooking on gas compared to anything else but I can never explain why when someone asks 🤔
@@aisosaihama I will tell you why. I prefer gas or induction as you can very easily turn the heat up or down, which will have immediate reflection on how the dish is cooked. Great for stuff like styr fry, scrambled eggs, frying as a whole. While if you are on electric it takes time for the heat to be reduced or put on high. I hope I did not get you lost as I am not a native speaker :D
@@TheSlavChef no that's perfect and is usually what I say when people ask me. I was taught to cook by my mum so it was mostly west African cuisine which is a lot of stews, porridges and sauces so being able to change temperature whenever you need to is necessary. I feel like I can taste a difference in quality between electric and gas cooked dishes 🤔
I found this very interesting. I had always assumed that the reason for adding salt to boiling water was to increase the temperature. You have knocked that misconception on the head! I am aware that some people boil vegetables without salt to reduce their salt intake. It seems to apply to pasta and rice as well. Well presented and well argued. Nice one.
It's only just occurred to me reading your comment that some people boil vegetables in salty water! I knew people did this for pasta, but in my house growing up it was only ever sauces, baked good, or finished dishes that were salted!
And yeah, I agree that "salty as the sea" is a bad rule of thumb. I keep hearing it repeated by UA-cam chefs -- the Bon Appetit chefs notoriously repeat it all the time -- but any time I tried boiling pasta in what is essentially seawater, the end result has always been _too salty._ I finally settled on just dropping a pinch of salt, or sometimes not even if I'm making carbonara. I trust the bacon and pecorino to bring all the saltiness to the dish.
I've gotten in this argument as well, in part because I knowingly underseason. When I try to season "to taste" it doesn't work well, I just don't have the right instincts to know how things will blend after they get properly mixed and cooked. So I rely on suggested amounts and that's fine for baking but in cooking people fudge. As Adam does in this video I dutifully looked up the salinity of seawater and replicated it in my pot and wasted a lot of pasta. It was nasty. Then people online were saying "that's how you're supposed to do it, clearly you're bad at tasting."
Anyway, it's nice to have this video as vindication.
Making the past as salty as the sea is a perfectly valid advice as long as you don't know exactly what the sea tastes like. Remember the first time I heard about it. I put more and more and more salt until the water just tasted too salty. Then I stopped and the pasta was perfect. I was never able to replicate quite the same taste as I normally underseason (can't really afford to throw out an entire pot of pasta because it's too salty). But the advice is completely fine if you don't literally go and measure the saltiness of a real sea.
@@LordKeram unless you've never gone to the beach, you pretty much know how "salty as the sea" tastes like. And it's a weird advice to give coming from Italians who are mostly surrounded by beaches.
@@romxxii I mean literally this video explain that no. You do not know how the sea tastes. And that won't change unless you literally drink sea water. The advice is completely fine for 99% of people.
Have people really gotten so dumbed down by the internet and language policing that you all lost the understanding of metaphors and similes?
Do you literally think a person jumps from place to place and eats insects when someone says the look like a toad?
I appreciate that Adam is here to end food debates that I was not even aware existed. 😁
right? this one, the chocolate video, the fat video. he's pretty good at this
you know after binging a whole lot of Adam's videos I'm actually pretty sold on his views on heterogeneity and seasoning placement
So you salt the stove NOT the water?
@@Wertsir of course! how else would you do it?
Thanks Space Cat
your videos are really good - as a scientist who cooks myself, I really appreciate these!!!
Finally a good sponsor that is actually interesting, thanks Adam!
The real pro tip at the end.
I've been putting a pinch of salt in my coffee for years. I feel vindicated
I've been travelling the globe discovering why we salt water and when to do it. Little did I know all I had to do was wait for an Adam Ragusea video.
Just boil the pasta in sea water!
@Mohammedk659 one should use all of the resources available :D
I 988888888888888888880088988
I've completely understand it after the sand experiment. Thank you.
I grew up with pasta water not being salted, and the moment i tried pasta cooked with salted water i instantly liked it alot more, so i think it is not just what you are used to.
Every time I learn about a new cooking myth, it just makes me realize how much cooks have no education in basic science and just come up with the most random shit trying to explain things in a way that obviously don't make sense.
I think it's probably one of those things where a lot of these cooking myths and "tricks" did people well for a long time through trail and error, some being legit, improving dishes, some improving them for different reasons than they thought, and others being useless/placebo. Only more recently are we separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to what is true and what isn't
Well for most of its history, cooking was art not science... And then some dunce came along with a bottle of liquid Nitrogen...
The brain doing its thang
This is why I love watching Adam and reading Kenji's Food Lab cookbook textbook. So much explanation as to why we do things and now just the how or what.
@@heysemberthkingdom-brunel5041 -- i disagree. cooking was always about science. we just didn't understand food science, so we treated it like a craft where you learn only from experience and instinct.
Adam, you've opened up my perspective on cooking so much during these years. What you provide are clearly not only recipes, but a set of sophisticated tools and a general way of thinking. Art & science in a practically perfect combination. Last time I experienced something like this was during an advanced mathematical analysis course at university-a similarly life-changing event. I've started to feel a form of humble pride to have this knowledge and mindset you've been teaching me and us, your audience, in general. Thanks for putting so much effort in sharing your passion with the world, as I'm certain it makes the place a little better.
This is effectively the basis of what happens when Mentos meets coke too. As always well researched and well explained in a dullard friendly format. Way to go Adam. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Love your tutorial, am not a ''Chef'', but cooking is my hobby. Watch almost all your videos. Appreciate your science course.
Funny, I was just thinking about this question today :) When I grew up, people always told me the "only put it in after boiling" - Version.
While we are on the subject of saving time when boiling pasta water: Heating the water in a electric cettle before transferring it to the pot is the fastest and easiest way for me.
Sometimes I´m even heating a little amount of water in the pot (to get it to temperature in time, the water is only there to avoid getting the pot TO hot) while I´m heating water in the kettle. Gives me a rolling boil even on larger amounts of water in usually about 5 minutes.
I do it exactly the same way.
@@donatboy Me, too.
One reason to add salt after boiling, is, that stainless steel is degraded by salt and you eventually get holes in your stainless pots. So less time in contact with salt improves your pots lifetime. We used aluminum pots if salt is going to be boiled for a long time.
I really don't understand this seeming obsession with pasta cooking time. What difference does it make if the water needs 5 min or 15 min to reach boiling? It's not like you are watching the water boil, you are usually busy preparing the sauce and chopping things or cleaning things.
@@scottmichaelharris That sounds a lot like the 0,5 C difference in temperature. It may be technically true but in practice the difference is so miniscule it doesn't matter.
Bubble nucleation is really interesting, in the micro...oh he's on it! It is a Ragusea video so I don't know why I didn't expect him to hit fun little tangents to fully explain a mechanic!
I never really enjoyed cooking until I came across your chanel. It's thanks to you I cook a little better now and best of all I actually kinda enjoy it since you made it a fun science.
As soon as I saw the handful of sand I was like "probably just introducing more nucleation points or something" then you said it and for the first time in the last several years I felt mildly proud of myself.
Your cooking makes me really happy.
Just looking at it makes me feel better.
I'll learn a lot.
One thing I appreciate about you Adam is you always do a good job of asking the right questions after you've stated an opinion or made an assertion.
I love this channel! I Just found it yesterday and of course I subscribed.
You have the smoothest transitions into talking about your sponsors. Like, they're so smooth that they don't even annoy me haha
I still think that "salty like the sea" is a good metaphor. People have a tendency to under season, and if *literally* "salty like the sea" is the upper end of reasonable, it's still a good recommendation. Plus, saltiness levels that people prefer vary but my experience cooking for others is that if you push the salt a bit, the normal reaction is, "woah! How is this *so* flavorful??" People like their salt, they just don't want to admit it lol
Salty as the sea literally is a deciliter of salt for a bit over 3 liters of water. It's insanely much.
And most people don't under season, at least not with salt. We eat far too much of it generally.
3.5% salinity is nuts for pasta. If you boil pasta in a large pot that has like 6-7 liters of water in it that'd be over 200 grams of salt, and in terms of taste it's borderline inedible. My usual rule of thumb is 0.5% for a very salty sauce (carbonara, or maybe puttanesca with a ton of olives and anchovies and capers), 1% for a normal sauce, 1.5% for a sauce that doesn't have much seasoning or salty elements in it. And I like salty food!
Maybe I'd go higher for something like pasta with butter and nothing else, but a) I haven't made that since I was a kid and b) even then I'd probably only do maybe 2-2.5%.
@@ano_nymmost people don't know the salinity of the sea, it's hyperbole to help people understand that for pasta, salting the water means salting the water thoroughly. The water should at the very least taste salty if you taste a bit of it.
About the health issues, yeah I agree our modern diets contain way too much salt. However, the pasta will only absorb a small percentage of the salt, so you're not going to be eating all that salt. Italians salt the pasta in place of adding additional salt to their sauces and pasta dishes most of the time, so it honestly probably helps you eat less by making the pasta flavorful enough on its own (plus you usually add a touch of the salty pasta water to the sauce to thicken).
Hey Adam, just wanted to say that I love your content and my family always love your recopies.
Can't wait to use this new ammo at dinner trivia discussions.
Thank you !
awesome video, super informative and dispelled several misconceptions i had. great stuff!
As someone who recently bought a ton of cookware, the general advice they gave is to salt after boiling to avoid pitting in the stainless steel. I wonder just how much that salting before vs after affects the actual cookware, which is a slightly different point to yours about the food tasting relatively the same.
Always wait until the boil is going well in Stainless Steel pots/pans. Salt is sodium chloride. Mix chloride ions, dissolved oxygen in the water, and heat and put it in contact with the chromium on the surface of the stainless steel, and you're going to have a bad time. Getting the water up to a full boil will drive out the dissolved oxygen, not allowing those chloride ions to oxidize your pan. Now, in truth the pitting is mostly cosmetic and shouldn't effect the capability of your pan, it just looks ugly.
I pitted the bottom of a good quality stainless steel pot by adding salt before the water was boiling.
I keep forgetting about how in America with the lower wattage plug outlets it isnt just a case of putting the kettle on and having boiling water pretty much ready
Typical US outlets can do 1.8 kW; Americans just don't have electric kettles, it's bizarre.
@@ExcludedLayman my family has always had an electric kettle. When I realized it wasn’t normal, I was shocked.
I'm an American. I don't know a single American who doesn't have an electric kettle. Seriously, every single person I'm friends with has one. I don't know why I always see statements saying we don't have kettles. In fact, when Adam put the measuring cup in the microwave to boil his coffee water I thought that was some seriously bizarre shit and seems unsafe.
Bless you bro for spreading real knowledge
I never added salt to pasta water, because I just didn't want to have a lot of salt in my diet, so I was used to not salt boiled pasta. Then I read that the salt was necessary to make the sauce stick to the pasta - the salt kind of roughened up the surface of the pasta, so I started adding salt. But I found it too salty to my taste so I added less and less, until I stopped altogether. Salt made no significant difference to the sauces sticking to the pasta if any. Really enjoyng these vids, which I've just discovered.
Right? If you want things to taste more salty, put salt on them. "No, you don't understand, by adding salt to the water, you will salt the pasta on the inside!" WTF makes the difference? The real test that should have been done here is to compare pasta prepared in salted water to pasta prepared in water with no salt. By the time you put a sauce on it, it will taste plenty salty and no one will be able to tell the difference. Pre-packaged pasta sauces are loaded with salt. Everything you eat in a restaurant is loaded with salt. One of the benefits of cooking at home is NOT having to eat something that just tastes like salt. Still love this guy's videos though.
Have you tried the "seawater"-salinity with fresh pasta? I've been told that makes a difference because fresh pasta cooks that much quicker, it needs saltier water.
ooh, that sounds plausable.
It's not that it cooks quicker, it's that is absorbs less cooking water due to already having some of its own.
This is what I was thinking; I have been told that the longer you cook a dish, the more of the salt from its cooking liquid gets imparted to the food. Thus, braising meat for hours in an environment as salty as regular pasta water is to be avoided, but if you're blanching vegetables for 30 seconds, go ahead and dump a tablespoon in.
Perhaps the seawater advice originated with fresh pasta and was valid then? Or maybe Adam already nailed it and we should disregard going forward.
salty comment!
I usually season the fresh pasta dough itself, so seasoning the water is unnecessary
"Salty chef" haha nice one
Who was it? I am curious now lol
Internet SHAQ.
@@TheSlavChef I wonder if it's the braised toast guy from the cutting board vid? Cause that guy calls himself a professional and gets heated about salt specifically. Netshaq can be a wiener at times, but afaik he doesn't consider himself a professional and similarly preaches not worrying about negligible details in his vids. Seems unlikely that he'd get his panties in a knot over salting pasta water.
@@blueferret98 maybe you are right, comrade! As I read your comment it makes more sence.
Tbh this covers everything you would ever want to know about boiling water and salty water for cooking. Good stuff!
You are marvelously practical cook, Adam. I especially like it when your advice does not agree with that of other practical youtuber cooks (the names of whom I cannot recall right now, but I think you did cross-over videos with them - one is a Russian-sounding lady somewhere in New England, and another a French guy doing videos in English - he has a more scientific approach) - then one learns the most.
Edit: the latter is Alex, and the former... ha! Helen Rennie! I spent half an hour, but I found them both.
"Salty as the sea" is probably true for Baltic Sea. It's brackish enough that it's okay to drink in a pinch.
I assume the saying comes from Italy so the sea they meant was the Mediterranean that is a tad saltier than the open ocean. :P
You mean that weird lake between Finland and Sweden?
@@heysemberthkingdom-brunel5041 Also between Sweden and Germany!
And Sweden and Poland. Wow those Swedish people have way too much Baltic sea.
LOL "I don't care what a scientist tells me."
"ok bro, conversation over."
Anecdotal observation > basic chemistry, stop denying his experience!!!!!
I wonder if amateur "professional" chief is also an anti-vaxxer
Organized religion uses that same statement. And government washes their hands of the matter by wanting to stay out of it. Thus letting religion legally get away with killing common sense. But don't think for one minute that government is not complicit in all this.
I don’t like this notion at all, scientists/“experts” lie all the time (lobotomies, dietary pills, lead gas, etc.) science is about questioning things and drawing your own conclusions from sound observations, obviously for something like this it also requires a lot of arrogance and not understanding the study but it’s in everyone’s rights to question the “scientists”. Conversations over for you cause your a dumb parrot, the conversations not over if you can describe the observations made in the study.
@@kennypowers2341 unfortunately that's not the way the majority treat science. just as in the past, most people are sheep, before religion was the dominant institution with it's religious zealots blindly following the orders of the "holy priests." now we have "logical people" with "science" as their institution of choice, blindly following the orders of "scientists."
we'll be doing the same shit for the rest of time, the only periods of time where it doesn't happen are when we luck upon a governing body that actually tries to help the masses rather than extort them for the most profit.
don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-science, but most people don't give a fuck about the science, they aren't reading past the headline of tabloid articles let ALONE looking at the actual results of any studies, let alone coming to the understanding that on any given issue there is going to be disagreements on the causes/interpretations of any given data or in many cases disagreements about what is even valid data in the first place... but don't dare suggest this applies to any of their sacred topics or else you're branded as "anti-science."
The super-heating is the most important thing I reckon we can take from this video (the salt part is all good, too). My mum warned me never to boil water in the microwave for exactly this reason, due to the risk of water or steam burns. Appreciate the warning.
8:12 fantastic film work coming up with interesting shots Adam.
When it comes to salting pasta water, i always just added it whenever i remembered to add it or when the pasta goes in. Haven't noticed a difference in the finished product
I like to add it early, because hot water is not fun to taste-test lmao
I like that he questions his own biases possibly skewing the conclusions he's drawing. That's just the dressing this sciencey pasta needed
Thank you for practicing Food Science publicly so that everyone in the public space can learn!!
As a researcher & scientist, I love your approach to teaching about foods. Much respect. Also, your transitions between content and sponsors are incredible and often make me laugh and hit the like button if i didn't already.
I genuinely didn’t know how complicated people make putting salt in pasta water. Amazing.
I guess some people just have nothing better to do.
Just put around half a tablespoon. Or just eyeball it. It's not that hard.
@@zjean3417 The sweet spot is 7g of salt per litre of water (about a teaspoon or so of table salt), that gets you a 0.7% solution, which is the ideal amount. If you can eyeball that quantity, props to you, I'm terrible at it, so I measure it out.
Adam's such a cool guy. Genuinely great content!
One variable that this experiment doesn't control for but that is worth considering is altitude. I used to not care when I introduced the salt when I lived at a normal altitude but when I moved to Denver, if I added it at the beginning, the salt making the water come to a boil faster altered the cooking time. The pasta wasn't done when it should have been. In the Denver Metro area, water will boil at 94C, below the temperature you held at to get a different texture, so anything that might exacerbate the issue and give the illusion of being ready to cook in advance was a detriment. I ended up letting the water come to a rolling boil, adding the salt, and then letting it return to a boil after the water calmed down to get consistently good results. Now I live back in a state with a sane elevation and I can salt whenever I want again, thank goodness!
Can't stop watching this guy's videos.
The "salt after it comes to a boil" camp sometimes argues that even something as indestructible as stainless steel gets damaged by prolonged exposure to saltwater.
So I suppose that if you're going to use the same pot for boiling pasta daily for 120 years, it might make a difference.
Ha, ha! You think stainless steel is indestructible.
I know this by experience, coarse rock salt in cold water = pitted pot.
I'm not sure that particular pot was stainless though, 20 years ago, IKEA 365+ pot IIRC, might have had some plating, looked like chrome. There are different grades of stainless steel too, so YMMV.
Yeah the bottom of my pasta pot is heavily pitted from just one salt-before-boiling attempt…
"that salty chef in the comments..."
I see what you did there
Good thing he wasn't talking to a seaman . . .
5:50 cool footage! Clearly shows a horizontal line of nucleation sites on horizontal surface feature. Convincing evidence that physical surface features can promote nucleation. The first hypothesis makes a lot of sense, because when water sticks to a surface, there is an attractive force creating a low pressure at the interface. Concave surfaces can create even lower pressures (think capillary action) Rough surfaces have more surface area, and some of its surface is very concave. In your footage, I think the line of nucleation sites are on an exceptionally long and deep vally in the surface.
This was like a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode but for cooking.
Loved it. 👍👍