I started weighing my salt for my pasta water instead of just eyeballing it for the past two months, and my sauces finally taste balanced.

I realized my 'pinch' was always a different amount, so after a customer sent back a carbonara for being too salty last December, I bought a $20 scale and now use 35 grams of kosher salt per 4 liters of water every single time.

2 comments

2 Comments

lily896d ago

Exactly. I had the same thing with my sourdough starter. I was just dumping flour and water in until it "looked right" and my bread was a total crapshoot. Bought a cheap scale and started doing 100 grams of each, same time every day. Now it actually rises. What @jesse700 said about replacing guesswork is spot on. That number just takes the stress out of it.

jesse7006d ago

My grandma's cookie recipe just said "a handful of flour" and I could never get it right. That small choice to measure your salt is the exact moment cooking stops being magic and starts being a repeatable skill. I see it everywhere now, from people timing their coffee brew to weighing laundry detergent. We're all just trying to replace guesswork with a simple number so things turn out the same every time. Your 35 grams is the perfect example of that quiet win.