Took me 12 years to realize I was salting my pasta water wrong

I've been cooking professionally since 2008, started dishwashing at a spot in Portland. All that time I thought salting the water until it tasted like the sea meant heavily salted, like almost undrinkable. Then last fall a new sous chef at the place I work now watched me drop pasta and asked why I was using that much salt. He said he does about 1 tablespoon per gallon and finishes the pasta in the sauce with a splash of pasta water. I tried it and the pasta actually tasted better, less salty on its own but the sauce came together way cleaner. I felt like an idiot after breaking it down. I had been wasting salt for over a decade and probably over-salting plenty of dishes. Has anyone else had a basic technique they assumed they had down, only to get corrected by someone younger or newer in the kitchen? What was your moment?

1 comments

1 Comment

lane.eric2d ago

Damn, I saw Kenji talk about this exact thing and felt so called out lol.