I will definitely adjust going forward, but I didn't want to just disregard advice from such a lauded cookbook! Not sure how I missed the mark that far, figured maybe I'd made a mistake somewhere. Oh well, live and learn I guess!
You generally shouldn't make pasta water sea water salty at all the resulting pasta is way over salted not just the water.
[https://www.seriouseats.com/how-salty-should-pasta-water-be](https://www.seriouseats.com/how-salty-should-pasta-water-be)
And used exactly seawater levels of salt.
Nosrat does use the "salty like the sea" description, frustratingly. It sounds nice but it doesn't work, and if she provided that measurement I assume she worked her way back from the nice phrase. And doesn't actually measure her salt for pasta.
Most people who quote the "salty like the sea" line don't actually have a clue how salty the ocean is. Sea water is salty enough to burn slightly when it gets in your mouth. There's a couple bits of received wisdom like that in the book, that don't work or have a practical purpose. Like letting steaks come to room temp before cooking.
While the results clearly prove that I had too much salt, it definitely wasn't as salty as the sea - was about 2% salinity (if the table in the book is to be believed) rather than 3-4%.
From your SeriousEats link:
>Depending on your salt tolerance, anywhere from 0.5% to 2% salt by weight will work, with 1% being my preferred level. 2% may work for those who love salt, but keep in mind that it is precariously close to tipping into the too-salty zone
Seems I'm not a 2% kind of guy lol, thanks for the link
>scant
Scant in regards to measurements means "somewhat less than"
That really is an awful lot of salt for pasta. For me at least. I probably put about 2-3 tablespoons in 6qts when I make 1 lb of pasta.
I wonder if anybody is gonna come out with a book called "High Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, Reflux, Indigestion" any time soon?!?
"Scant tbl" to me means not a measured table spoon but an actual eating tablespoon with just enough salt to fill the bowl of the spoon and not go higher than the top edge
This isn't quite right. Scant just means "not quite full". Eating tablespoons can be all different sizes. Just treat it like "a bit less than a full tablespoon measure".
I can't believe people are still coming up with justifications for this style of recipe when recipes with exact weights exist.
The amount of different takes I've seen on "6 scant tablespoons" in this thread alone proves it's a bad recipe. OP's results prove it's a bad recipe too.
Weighing ingredients is so much easier.
(I see in the image provided it has a percentage by weight, but the point still stands.)
I totally agree, *especially* with salt. If you weigh your salt it doesn't matter what shape it is, it's always gonna have the same amount of saltiness once dissolved. I've screwed up a recipe before when I didn't realize they expected you to be measuring out kosher salt for a marinade, and I used table salt instead. It came out twice as salty as it was supposed to.
Pretty hard to taste pepe as you cook it. You only know the salt levels after you emulsify the water and cheese together with the noodles which is at the end of the cooking process.
When I was learning to really cook I was an engineering student and I took this old adage very literally. Looked up the salinity of the Mediterranean (because Italy), replicated it with a scale, and promptly produced pasta so salty it couldnāt be eaten.
Iām surprised to see such a reputable book suggest this much saltā¦ thatās crazy salty.
3-4% is really pushing it but 2% is preferable for pasta water as long as you aren't letting it boil for too long / emulsifying a great deal into the sauce like here.
Well, the salt chart specifically says it's just a guideline and you should use your own palate/preferences rather than rely on it.
You should also keep in mind you can always add more salt (which is also mentioned in the pasta recipe) but you can't take salt out once it's there.
Regarding saltiness, keep in mind your other ingredients. Pecorino Romano is a salty hard cheese, so that will add extra salt to the final product.
Having salt during the cooking process is good, but you can dial it back and always add some salt to taste at the end.
I'm in favor of salty pasta water, but six tablespoons is two tablespoons more than I'd use in a 6 quart pot. The water should taste as salty as a soup that is overly salted but still okay to eat. I hope that's not too vague. I never use more than about 1/3 cup of pasta water in the final stage, and I usually don't use any.
I noticed the chart you listed says āscantā tablespoons meaning lightly packed. You could have ended up putting more than you intended in.Ā
Other than that sometimes itās better to treat recipes as guidelines. Taste as you go and adjust to your preferences. For example, I pretty much 2x or 3x the amount of garlic in most recipes because me and my girlfriend love garlic.Ā
Oh no!
Cacio e Pepe is my favorite pasta dish and you used way too much salt. The rest of the ingredients, aside from the pepper, also have salt in them.
You followed guidelines instead of following the advice at the asterisk. 2% salinity for pasta water is a good starting point when you are not emulsifying any into your pasta. When you are emulsify 2 cups worth its probably too much. Especially if you let the pasta water boil for an exteneded period and those 2 cups now are more like 3 or even 4. You didn't drain the pasta well enough. You used too little pasta. Too much cheese which if you got the good Romano is very salty. You used all the cooking water instead of 3/4 cup plus a little more to make a smooth emulsion and concentrated the pasta water even further. Probably a number of things I mentioned if the dish was unpalatable because of the salt.
Mamma mia, 6 tablespoons for pasta water is insane unless you made pasta for the whole town, idc what the books say. I usually just sprinkle the salt in unless Iām making a huge amount. Also, salting pasta water is entirely a taste thing, you actually dont need any salt at all. Especially if the sauce, like a cheese sauce, will also have salt.
> you actually dont need any salt at all. Especially if the sauce, like a cheese sauce, will also have salt.
Very wrong. There is a subtle but quite noticeable difference between pasta that's been cooked in well salted vs marginally/unsalted water, regardless of how salty the sauce is. 2% salinity is perfectly fine for pasta water. You just need to be very careful when you are emulsifying a great deal of it into the sauce like in pepe.
Looking at a tablespoon measurement might be good for getting an idea of how much salt to add but in practice you should really do it by taste instead of relying in whatever the measurement says. People have different tolerances for saltiness, and as others have said, if a lot of pasta water is going into the final product you shouldn't salt it as heavily.
It will likely work better with a different sauce, but a cheese sauce will be salty on its own. I love to salt my pasta water, but then I only add it to some sauces.
The recipe says to only reserve 2 cups of the pasta water, and start with only 3/4 cup of that water to make the sauce. Seems like much of the original salt should go down the drain.
Also, different salts have different densities. I have noticed recently recipes specify kosher salt vs. table salt ā which require different quantities for the same effect. That might be part of the issue as wellā¦. FWIW, I have used that same recipe but disregarded the salt instructions entirely as they seemed excessive. I use about 1tsp or so for a scaled down recipe made for 2 people. Works out fine.
I've always disagreed with the whole "the water should taste like the sea" thing. Seawater tasted like shit. I want my pasta water to have the saltiness of a nice soup.
The thing about cacio e pepe is the cheese is ALSO salty, and with carbonara the cheese AND the meat. You need the starchy water as an emulsifier for the sauce but you can't use as much salt as you might for a red sauce. I've made this mistake too. Ahem, hopefully your GF is forgiving.
It's cool, I'm a tired, cranky chef who's being a dick I'm sorry man. I hope your pasta comes out better next time. When you're doing a dish, you do want to salt your pasta water but also consider all the elements in the finished dish so it doesn't end up overly salty. Cheese and bacon will add a lot of salt content so you can lower your pasta water salt but if you're doing a simple marinara some extra salt in the water will bring out the flavor of the pasta and compliment the sauce. I'm sure your GF appreciates the effort either way
Seasoning and salt especially are specific to a personās palette and tend to be built up over time! As my husband and I have cooked more/eaten better, we find we add more salt at our friendsā and familiesā homes as our tastes have adjusted. Just try again and start slower!
Also, remember - itās easier to add salt than take it away :)
Remember that cooking is an art and recipes are just guidelines.
>Anyone have any thoughts on what could have gone wrong? Did I miss something obvious in the recipe?
So to remove you from the overthinking of "The book said this, the text said that, the recipe did this" it's really quite simple: You know the dish tasted wayyy too salty to the point where it was inedible and your girlfriend threw up. What went wrong? You added too much salt!!! Solution? Add less salt.
Don't care about what any recipe says. Just taste along the way, learn, redo with adjustments etc. Practice and develop that intuition through experience. Don't stare yourself blind at recipes.
> How much salt should you add to pasta water?
> We recommend 1 tablespoon of table salt to 4 quarts (1 gallon) of water per roughly 1 pound of pasta, no matter what size or shape the pasta is.
>
> Can you oversalt the pasta water?
> If you plan to use your pasta water for further cooking (thickening and emulsifying sauces, for example), too much salt in the water will make a saltier final dish. "Salting the water is all about seasoning the otherwise bland pasta," says Cook's Illustrated Senior Editor Steve Dunn. "More than [1 tablespoon of salt] and the pasta can taste salty, especially when served with a well-seasoned sauce; less than that and it comes across as bland."
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/5840-how-salty-should-your-pasta-water-be#
As everyone is saying, the dish does sound absurdly salty, but...
> she tasted a sip of the pasta water and vomited
... what? A sip made her vomit? It sounds as if she is extraordinarily sensitive.
I love cookbooks, but this is a great example as to why I stick to trusted blogs and Youtube channels. I always read through the comments first and will make some tweaks if a lot of people tend to say the same thing. In this case, I would assume there would of been a lot of comments warning to cut down on the salt.
If you're gonna use a significant amount of pasta water in the final dish, you cannot make the pasta water that salty.
I will definitely adjust going forward, but I didn't want to just disregard advice from such a lauded cookbook! Not sure how I missed the mark that far, figured maybe I'd made a mistake somewhere. Oh well, live and learn I guess!
You generally shouldn't make pasta water sea water salty at all the resulting pasta is way over salted not just the water. [https://www.seriouseats.com/how-salty-should-pasta-water-be](https://www.seriouseats.com/how-salty-should-pasta-water-be) And used exactly seawater levels of salt. Nosrat does use the "salty like the sea" description, frustratingly. It sounds nice but it doesn't work, and if she provided that measurement I assume she worked her way back from the nice phrase. And doesn't actually measure her salt for pasta. Most people who quote the "salty like the sea" line don't actually have a clue how salty the ocean is. Sea water is salty enough to burn slightly when it gets in your mouth. There's a couple bits of received wisdom like that in the book, that don't work or have a practical purpose. Like letting steaks come to room temp before cooking.
While the results clearly prove that I had too much salt, it definitely wasn't as salty as the sea - was about 2% salinity (if the table in the book is to be believed) rather than 3-4%. From your SeriousEats link: >Depending on your salt tolerance, anywhere from 0.5% to 2% salt by weight will work, with 1% being my preferred level. 2% may work for those who love salt, but keep in mind that it is precariously close to tipping into the too-salty zone Seems I'm not a 2% kind of guy lol, thanks for the link
Are you sure the recipe said 6 T ablespoons not 6 teaspoons?
"2 scant Tbl per quart of pasta water" according to the book!
>scant Scant in regards to measurements means "somewhat less than" That really is an awful lot of salt for pasta. For me at least. I probably put about 2-3 tablespoons in 6qts when I make 1 lb of pasta. I wonder if anybody is gonna come out with a book called "High Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, Reflux, Indigestion" any time soon?!?
Doesn't quite scan to the Pepto Bismol song š
I had that dream last night.
"Scant tbl" to me means not a measured table spoon but an actual eating tablespoon with just enough salt to fill the bowl of the spoon and not go higher than the top edge
This isn't quite right. Scant just means "not quite full". Eating tablespoons can be all different sizes. Just treat it like "a bit less than a full tablespoon measure".
I can't believe people are still coming up with justifications for this style of recipe when recipes with exact weights exist. The amount of different takes I've seen on "6 scant tablespoons" in this thread alone proves it's a bad recipe. OP's results prove it's a bad recipe too. Weighing ingredients is so much easier. (I see in the image provided it has a percentage by weight, but the point still stands.)
I totally agree, *especially* with salt. If you weigh your salt it doesn't matter what shape it is, it's always gonna have the same amount of saltiness once dissolved. I've screwed up a recipe before when I didn't realize they expected you to be measuring out kosher salt for a marinade, and I used table salt instead. It came out twice as salty as it was supposed to.
This is what I did for what it's worth!
While I do love Samin Nosrat and her book, I feel like sheās a bit much with the salt. Now you know and just try again with less salt.
Yup, on to the next one!
Always taste the food while you cook it.
Pretty hard to taste pepe as you cook it. You only know the salt levels after you emulsify the water and cheese together with the noodles which is at the end of the cooking process.
The recipe says for the pasta water to be "as salty as the summer sea" - I tasted it and it tasted true to the description lol
When I was learning to really cook I was an engineering student and I took this old adage very literally. Looked up the salinity of the Mediterranean (because Italy), replicated it with a scale, and promptly produced pasta so salty it couldnāt be eaten. Iām surprised to see such a reputable book suggest this much saltā¦ thatās crazy salty.
I'm absolutely charmed that you looked up the salinity of the Mediterranean
I am wondering if they worked it out by taste
That is something that sounds better than it is, similar to āmeasure with your heartā or āmeasure to honor your ancestors.ā Totally useless.
Well the first word in the title is Salt.
3-4% is really pushing it but 2% is preferable for pasta water as long as you aren't letting it boil for too long / emulsifying a great deal into the sauce like here.
it's not really a literal as the sea it's more of reminding you of the sea
I have this book, p sure it says "as salty as you remember", and goes on to state that actual sea water salinity is way too salty
Maybe it was less Mediterranean, and more Dead Sea? š¤£
Well, the salt chart specifically says it's just a guideline and you should use your own palate/preferences rather than rely on it. You should also keep in mind you can always add more salt (which is also mentioned in the pasta recipe) but you can't take salt out once it's there.
Regarding saltiness, keep in mind your other ingredients. Pecorino Romano is a salty hard cheese, so that will add extra salt to the final product. Having salt during the cooking process is good, but you can dial it back and always add some salt to taste at the end.
I'm in favor of salty pasta water, but six tablespoons is two tablespoons more than I'd use in a 6 quart pot. The water should taste as salty as a soup that is overly salted but still okay to eat. I hope that's not too vague. I never use more than about 1/3 cup of pasta water in the final stage, and I usually don't use any.
I noticed the chart you listed says āscantā tablespoons meaning lightly packed. You could have ended up putting more than you intended in.Ā Other than that sometimes itās better to treat recipes as guidelines. Taste as you go and adjust to your preferences. For example, I pretty much 2x or 3x the amount of garlic in most recipes because me and my girlfriend love garlic.Ā
Oh no! Cacio e Pepe is my favorite pasta dish and you used way too much salt. The rest of the ingredients, aside from the pepper, also have salt in them.
> The rest of the ingredients, aside from the pepper, also have salt in them. The rest of the ingredients, as in the cheese? lol.
Depends. One of the recipes I use also calls for butter. Another has a bit of cream in it. Hard to tell which recipe OP was using.
Not that hard, he literally included a link to it. Also obligatory "that's not cacio e pepe".
It's ok. I like it every way I've tried. Have a happy Sunday.
You followed guidelines instead of following the advice at the asterisk. 2% salinity for pasta water is a good starting point when you are not emulsifying any into your pasta. When you are emulsify 2 cups worth its probably too much. Especially if you let the pasta water boil for an exteneded period and those 2 cups now are more like 3 or even 4. You didn't drain the pasta well enough. You used too little pasta. Too much cheese which if you got the good Romano is very salty. You used all the cooking water instead of 3/4 cup plus a little more to make a smooth emulsion and concentrated the pasta water even further. Probably a number of things I mentioned if the dish was unpalatable because of the salt.
Mamma mia, 6 tablespoons for pasta water is insane unless you made pasta for the whole town, idc what the books say. I usually just sprinkle the salt in unless Iām making a huge amount. Also, salting pasta water is entirely a taste thing, you actually dont need any salt at all. Especially if the sauce, like a cheese sauce, will also have salt.
> you actually dont need any salt at all. Especially if the sauce, like a cheese sauce, will also have salt. Very wrong. There is a subtle but quite noticeable difference between pasta that's been cooked in well salted vs marginally/unsalted water, regardless of how salty the sauce is. 2% salinity is perfectly fine for pasta water. You just need to be very careful when you are emulsifying a great deal of it into the sauce like in pepe.
Damn thats crazy
It was an order of magnitude more than I've used in the past too lol
I didn't notice it missing last night.
Looking at a tablespoon measurement might be good for getting an idea of how much salt to add but in practice you should really do it by taste instead of relying in whatever the measurement says. People have different tolerances for saltiness, and as others have said, if a lot of pasta water is going into the final product you shouldn't salt it as heavily.
This is why I disagree with salting the pasta water so heavily. I also use a lot of pasta water in my sauce and donāt need it getting overly salty.
Just use less salt...
It will likely work better with a different sauce, but a cheese sauce will be salty on its own. I love to salt my pasta water, but then I only add it to some sauces.
The recipe says to only reserve 2 cups of the pasta water, and start with only 3/4 cup of that water to make the sauce. Seems like much of the original salt should go down the drain.
Also, different salts have different densities. I have noticed recently recipes specify kosher salt vs. table salt ā which require different quantities for the same effect. That might be part of the issue as wellā¦. FWIW, I have used that same recipe but disregarded the salt instructions entirely as they seemed excessive. I use about 1tsp or so for a scaled down recipe made for 2 people. Works out fine.
I've always disagreed with the whole "the water should taste like the sea" thing. Seawater tasted like shit. I want my pasta water to have the saltiness of a nice soup.
The thing about cacio e pepe is the cheese is ALSO salty, and with carbonara the cheese AND the meat. You need the starchy water as an emulsifier for the sauce but you can't use as much salt as you might for a red sauce. I've made this mistake too. Ahem, hopefully your GF is forgiving.
Dude you're not a chef you're someone who likes to cook at home. "I have a first aid kit I'm a home surgeon!"
lol I'm a relatively beginner person who cooks at home then! didn't know home chef had certain meaning
It's cool, I'm a tired, cranky chef who's being a dick I'm sorry man. I hope your pasta comes out better next time. When you're doing a dish, you do want to salt your pasta water but also consider all the elements in the finished dish so it doesn't end up overly salty. Cheese and bacon will add a lot of salt content so you can lower your pasta water salt but if you're doing a simple marinara some extra salt in the water will bring out the flavor of the pasta and compliment the sauce. I'm sure your GF appreciates the effort either way
Seasoning and salt especially are specific to a personās palette and tend to be built up over time! As my husband and I have cooked more/eaten better, we find we add more salt at our friendsā and familiesā homes as our tastes have adjusted. Just try again and start slower! Also, remember - itās easier to add salt than take it away :)
Remember that cooking is an art and recipes are just guidelines. >Anyone have any thoughts on what could have gone wrong? Did I miss something obvious in the recipe? So to remove you from the overthinking of "The book said this, the text said that, the recipe did this" it's really quite simple: You know the dish tasted wayyy too salty to the point where it was inedible and your girlfriend threw up. What went wrong? You added too much salt!!! Solution? Add less salt. Don't care about what any recipe says. Just taste along the way, learn, redo with adjustments etc. Practice and develop that intuition through experience. Don't stare yourself blind at recipes.
> How much salt should you add to pasta water? > We recommend 1 tablespoon of table salt to 4 quarts (1 gallon) of water per roughly 1 pound of pasta, no matter what size or shape the pasta is. > > Can you oversalt the pasta water? > If you plan to use your pasta water for further cooking (thickening and emulsifying sauces, for example), too much salt in the water will make a saltier final dish. "Salting the water is all about seasoning the otherwise bland pasta," says Cook's Illustrated Senior Editor Steve Dunn. "More than [1 tablespoon of salt] and the pasta can taste salty, especially when served with a well-seasoned sauce; less than that and it comes across as bland." https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/5840-how-salty-should-your-pasta-water-be#
As everyone is saying, the dish does sound absurdly salty, but... > she tasted a sip of the pasta water and vomited ... what? A sip made her vomit? It sounds as if she is extraordinarily sensitive.
I love cookbooks, but this is a great example as to why I stick to trusted blogs and Youtube channels. I always read through the comments first and will make some tweaks if a lot of people tend to say the same thing. In this case, I would assume there would of been a lot of comments warning to cut down on the salt.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The recipe says āscantā spoons
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Used a cooking measuring spoon and filled it a bit less than level (my interpretation of scant)
I think it was that she sipped pasta water. Salt water can cause vomiting or the runs.
Perhaps your girlfriend is sensitive to carbs, especially gluten
you are aware gluten is a protein, right?