Did you know?: The salt edition
A few days ago, I offered a tip for keeping your water from boiling over when cooking things such as pasta, potatoes and eggs.
One of our intrepid reporters commented that her mother always told her to salt the water:
"I forget why, but I know there was a reason!?"
"Can you tell I inherited neither my mom's good cooking genes, nor my dad's chef genes! :)
"BTW: What is the salt for, again?"
Good question -- my mom and grandma always salt the water, too. So, is there a reason for it?
Many sites mention that adding salt will raise the boiling point of the water, letting it boil at a higher temperature and cooking your food more quickly.
However, in this excerpt from "What Einstein Told His Cook," Robert Wolke says it doesn't matter:
"It's true that dissolving salt -- or really anything else, for that matter (I'll explain) -- in water will indeed make it boil at a higher temperature than 212F at sea level. But in cooking, the rise is nowhere near enough to make any difference, unless you throw in so much salt that you could use the water to melt ice on your driveway."
So, the verdict? Keep adding salt to your boiling water -- it won't cook any faster, but it'll still add a little flavor to your food.
Bonus tip: If you add salt to the water when boiling eggs, the salt will react if an egg cracks, coagulating the egg white and stopping it from streaming out of the egg.
Comments (2)
Mel,
Thanks for clearing that up!
I'll ask my mom and see what answer she comes up with. Then I'll surprise with my "depth of cooking knowledge" when I read off this explanation from your blog! :)
Posted on August 23, 2005 3:46 PM
Salt also comes in handy when someone pours you a beer in a mug and it ends up having a really thick head.
Can't remember who gave me this piece of advice, but it's come in handy over the years.
But you can say goodbye to foam mustaches.
Cheers.
Posted on August 24, 2005 10:05 AM