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Unpopular opinion: the chef who told me to season pasta water like the sea was wrong for my kitchen
When I was 19 and working my first line job in Providence, my sous chef Brian kept yelling at me to salt the pasta water until it tasted like the ocean. I did it that way for 6 years. Then a chef from Bologna came through our kitchen on a stage and pointed out that if you're finishing the pasta in a salty sauce with pecorino, that much salt in the water makes the whole plate taste like a salt lick. I tried it his way for a week, just enough salt to wake up the water, and my cacio e pepe finally tasted like cheese instead of brine. Anybody else get taught the ocean thing and later bail on it?
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ryan_hart3818d ago
My grandma from Naples used to say the water should taste like tears, not the whole Mediterranean. She'd flick a pinch in and call it done, then hit the sauce with the real salt at the end where it counts. Took me way too long to figure out she was right.
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