I know people say you are supposed to salt the water when cooking rice or pasta but I never do and have not had any problems or complaints with my cooking. Do the cooks out there always salt the water?
The main purpose is to lower the temp that the water boils. It's really up to you whether or not you use it.
I hadn't heard that before but it sounds logical. I had always been told it was so the starch you are cooking has some flavor of its own. Just a related tangent. I one time spilled some olive oil over some uncooked rice. I went ahead and cooked it and it tasted great.
Actually, adding enough salt will increase the boiling temperature of water (and lowers the freezing point), but most folks don't add enough for it to have an effect. It is done mainly for taste.
I have not heard about this theory, but I'm also not a cook. I guess I've been making pasta the wrong way this whole time. I do like to add salt to any noodle I'm having... and I'll add pepper to almost anything. /irrelevance
you dont salt to water for taste, you salt to water to lower the boiling point of water. Thus, the water boils faster.
Correct. I also always add a small amount of fat, butter when cooking rice and olive oil when cooking pasta. It's not neccessary to add the fat to the pasta, but it's just become a habit.
No, adding salt RAISES the boiling point of water. The temperature of water (or any liquid) plateaus at its boiling point until it turns completely into vapor. If you raise the boiling point, you're cooking at higher temperatures, thereby decreasing the time spent cooking. CHEM301 for the win.
I don't know where these folks came up with salt and temperature. Salt is put in for seasoning the pasta. Watch part two of this for proof (he talks about it in the first minute.)In fact, watch all three and learn something about cooking, people. <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9CxtwUQrjlM?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9CxtwUQrjlM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/i2Fbx_X-09w?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/i2Fbx_X-09w?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
My wife is a bad ass chef so I'm always guided by her when it comes to all things cooking. We always salt the water when cooking pasta shortly before dropping the pasta in the water.
As others have pointed out, adding salt to water actually raises the boiling point. But just to quantify what Sacudido said above about this being negligible: about 1 tsp is the recommended amount of salt to add to water when cooking noodles, but it actually takes almost 20 tsp just to raise the boiling point of 1 liter of water by 1.8 degrees F. So, this effect really is negligible. The salt is for taste.
NOTE: This is basically a chemistry lesson, so I'm just gonna go ahead and spoiler all of it, because most of you probably won't want to read it. Spoiler http://whatscookingamerica.net/boilpoint.htm (read the "boiling points of water" section on the left side) There's nothing special about the actual boiling of water that cooks food. It's heat that cooks the food. Lowering the boiling point would allow you to get the water to boil faster, but would actually make cooking the pasta take longer, since it's sitting in cooler water. When you put a pot of water on your stove, the heat from the stove heats the water in the pot until it reaches its boiling point. At the boiling point (generally 100°C), the temperature stays constant until it completely turns into a vapor, then the temperature rises again. I didn't believe it at first, but just stick a thermometer in a pot of water as you boil it and you'll see for yourself. Putting salt (or anything soluble) in the water increases the boiling point of water, which increases the temperature of the water as it boils. This allows your pasta to cook faster, since it's sitting in more heat. Theoretically, if you could get the boiling point of water high enough, you wouldn't even have to wait for the water to boil, since the pasta would be cooked before the water reaches its boiling point. On a side note, it works opposite at the lower end of the spectrum. Salt lowers the freezing/melting point of water, which is why people up north salt their roads in the wintertime.
I usually retain a bit of the pasta water for the sauce I put the pasta in -- that's mainly why I salt it.
