Once i completely forgot the salt in my bread. It was disgustingly bland; like, I couldn't believe a teaspoon of salt would have such a massive effect.
But I actually salvaged it by putting salt on every slice of toast I made with that loaf.
Get the pancetta nice and crispy in the pan, add the garlic in the final minute before finishing. Add your pasta (2 minutes under al dente) fresh out of the water into the hot pan with as much carry over liquid as you can to deglaze, toss like your life depends on it (it does.), cut the heat, then add your mixed yolks, parm and fresh black pepper. Allow the carryover heat to thicken the sauce along with vigourous stirring to get the starches emulsified with the egg and cheese. Add more cracked pepper to your taste. Maybe a pinch of crushed chilis. Add pasta water and stir to reach your desired texture.
I think (hope) they are just describing this wrong, rather than adding bacon to boiling water at the beginning.
The sauce for carbonara is just some of the (salty) pasta water and egg yolk.
Cook the pasta until just before al dente, then mix the yolks and (fried) lardons in the pasta for the final minute or two of cooking. Add parmesan as you like.
If you forget to salt the pasta water, there's no way of making it taste as if you had. And even if the salt dissolves well in the sauce, it won't permeate whatever chunky things there might be in the sauce as if you'd salted a lit bit every step of the way. But yeah, it'll be ok, even if it won't be as good as it would have been. (I know you didn't say it would be the same, just wanted to add).
You can use less salt if you use less water. I only add enough salt so that the water tastes as salty as broth.
Also pasta cooks just fine in a shallow pan of boiling water, you only need enough water to cover the top of the amount of pasta your cooking. Remember to stir it a few times though, or it clumps up.
(This is the best way to cook pasta if you are poor and live in a damp/poorly ventelated building. Boiling litres of water per serving is inefficient and expensive, and it makes your kitchen mouldy.)
This is the best way of getting sauces to stick as well. The concentrated pasta water left over at the end is great for making mac and cheese for example. Much better than a few teaspoons of pasta water from a large pot as is usually recommended.
Yup. I grab my salt can and do about two sprinkle passes and it seems to turn out pretty good. It's probably around a teaspoon (maybe more) per bag of pasta.
Oh, and use a bit of that pasta water in the sauce, that helps.
You just aren't putting enough salt in? Literally made pasta two days ago and upon eating my first thought was "damn I almost oversalted the pasta water" because the noodles were in fact, salty
Yup. Don't oversalt, but certainly add a healthy amount to the water. Some of that salt gets absorbed into the pasta, which gives it a richer flavor.
I personally bring the water to a boil, add pasta, and then add salt (to keep temps as high as possible), but I highly doubt the order here matters at all.
Yeah the only rule I know is don't add the salt to a cold pan with cold water as heating it up may cause it to damage the bottom of your pan. But adding salt at any point while the water is hot and you aren't done cooking the pasta is pretty safe.