Use Salt Generously

Most of the times the difference between an OK meal and a delicious, great tasting meal is the right amount of seasoning – particularly salt. A lot of people cooking at home are afraid to add salt because of fear of salting and spoiling the food. What ends up happening is that most people under season and the food ends up being bland.

Salt helps bring out all of the flavors in a dish (Acid will too, but we will get to that in other posts) so by using salt generously you are doing the food – and yourself – a favor by bringing out all the different flavors  hidden in your food. The way to do it’s to season and taste, season and taste, season and taste. Don’t be afraid to keep adding pinches of salt until you get it right. Try it and you will find that in the end, a little more salt goes a long way.

Storing salt

Although most people keep salt in some sort of bowl in the kitchen, close to the stove or cooking area, they are not too cautious about where they store the rest of the package. In general, salt is pretty inexpensive, thus people will not take a lot of care when storing it. If you buy salt in bulk, or at least a pound or two at a time, you want to make sure that after filling your everyday salt bowl, you store the rest in a dry, cool place far from heat of sunlight and ideally in a closed jar.

The reason salt needs to be in a closed jar is that it will absorb moisture and aromas from other things. If you keep it open in your spice drawer, it will absorb the aromas from other herbs and spices. Be extra careful when storing higher quality types of salt like Fleur de Sel since they have a pure and delicate flavor, which is probably why you bought it in the first place, and it can be contaminated easily.

Using different types of salt: Weight vs. Volume

When cooking or baking, one of the most common mistakes when substituting one type of salt for another, say ordinary table salt with Kosher or sea salt, is that recipes usually follow a measure of volume not weight. Tablespoons, teaspoons and cups are units of volume, not weight. Since the composition of different types of salt is not the same, the same volume of salt will have different weight, thus different “salting” capacity.

For example, Kosher salt weighs less than regular table salt per unit of volume. So, for every teaspoon of ordinary salt you will need more than a teaspoon of kosher salt. Since different salts have different weights per unit of volume, if you are going to use different salts in your kitchen, you really need to understand the equivalencies. There are salt conversion charts on the internet or if you want to be more precise, you can calculate your own equivalencies by weighing equal volume amounts of the different salts and comparing their weights. If you want a rough ratio for Kosher salt, I usually use about 1.5 volume units of Kosher for every unit of regular salt. But that’s just me.

Kosher Salt

An excerpt from Wikipedia about the main characteristics of Kosher Salt:

• Kosher salt has a much larger grain size than regular table salt, and a more open granular structure.
• Kosher salt typically contains no additives (for example, iodide), although some brands will include anti-clumping agents in small amounts.
• Kosher salt gets its name from  its use in making meats kosher, by helping to extract the blood from the meat. Kosher salt has a flat platelet shape and its grains are larger than regular table salt grains, so the salt does not dissolve readily; the salt remains on the surface of the meat longer to draw fluids out of the meat.
• Kosher salt can be used in nearly all applications, but it is not generally recommended for baking with recipes that use small amounts of liquid (wet ingredients). If there is not enough liquid, the kosher salt will not dissolve sufficiently, and this can result in small bits of salt in the resulting product.

Organic Salt

The term organic has become ubiquitous in the US nowadays. Major food companies  in an effort to take advantage of the consumer transition towards natural foods are stretching the limits of what organic means. Salt is not the exception and is great example of how companies are stretching the “Organic” claim. Technically, Salt cannot be organic since it’s a mineral. It is not grown. So what does it mean when we see “Organic” salt at the supermarket?

Organic Certified salt means they have complied with Nature & Progres and BIO-GRIO certification. According to Saltworks,  this certification is awarded to salt-works that are located in a nature reserve, without risk of pollution, producing strictly by hand, without purifying the salt, and fulfilling the high standards in chemical analysis.

Now, the more loosely “Organic Salt” term is used in marketing  just to signal salt that has no additives like iodine (in the form of sodium iodide, or NaI, to reduce thyroid problems) or anti-caking agents.

So, if you are looking for high quality salt, whether organic or not, is best to go with the Nature & Progres and BIO-Grio certifications.

Types of salt

No need to reinvent the wheel. Great post from the Real Simple website about the types of salt and how to use them.

Salt comes from the ocean … not quite!

If you’ve ever taken a swim in the ocean, I don’t have to tell you how salty it is. Just licking the water off your lips is enough to realize the high concentration of salt in the sea. However, contrary to popular belief, most of the salt we consume doesn’t come from the sea, but from salt mines. Of course, a lot of these places were once covered by sea, but it’s surprising to know that there are huge salt fields in states like Ohio, Michigan and Kansas.

According to various sources, the largest salt mine in the world is Sifto Salt mine. It’s located in Canada, and it extends 14 KM under lake Ontario.

Paid… in salt!

It’s hard to imagine that at one point in our history salt was not easily produced and it was regarded as a valuable commodity; even as valuable as gold. Believe it or not, they even used salt as a form of currency to pay the soldiers in ancient Rome. Anyone guess where the word “salary” comes from?

In my search, I found thousands of articles about salt and the role it has played in human civilization and our history. Here is an excerpt from Salt in history from the Salt Institute:

• Salt has influenced human existence virtually from the beginning. Neolithic settlements were at salt springs. Caravans trekked deserts trading salt ounce-for-ounce for gold.
• Most cultures have folklore and art forms based on salt. And many cultures share traditions such as offering bread and salt to welcome visitors.
• Salt’s economic and military significance produced trading partnerships…or armed combat. And economies and cultures ranging from the Sahara in West Africa to the Himalayan peaks of Nepal gives a glimpse of the salt trading culture of centuries gone by.
• Religious texts and liturgy frequently employ salt metaphorically (e.g. “ye are the salt of the Earth”).
• Roman soldiers were paid partly in salt, their salarium, today’s “salary.” Medieval Europe was forever changed when fishermen were able to salt the cod caught off North America’s Grand Banks, preserving them for sale in Europe.
• Salt was involved in such historic events as the building of the Erie Canal, the French Revolution and the drive for India’s independence from British colonial rule.

These are just a few facts about salt, an ingredient we might dismiss for its current widespread availability. But as I continue to explore and understand, I am sure there is a lot more to salt when it comes to food and cooking.

First Ingredient: Salt

When in doubt, go back to basics. So, in the spirit of basics, I am starting this project with one of the most basic ingredient in the kitchen: Salt. I mean, can you imagine a kitchen without salt? And as simple as this ingredient seems, salt has had an important place throughout our history; even in our evolution. Did you know that? Hint: As a species, we come from the sea.

Today, salt has more than 14,000 uses according to the Salt Institute. It’s a component that is found all over the world and it’s very unlikely that we will ever run out of salt. Luckily for us, and our food, there is enough salt in the oceans of the world that we could use salt to sculpt a full-scale topographic map of Europe – five times over (source: Salt Institute).

So now, let’s begin to explore and understand about salt and the role it plays in food.

The first ingredient!

A few days left until the beginning of November. A few days to muse on the starting ingredient for this blog. I have a lot to think about. For example, what is the criteria for choosing the ingredients? How will I categorize them? What will I write about them?

As with most of my projects, this will not end up being as I imagined. I am sure this will start in a certain way and then take a life of its own. It will evolve and mutate as I go along and it’s fine. It will be fun to look at how it actually progresses through time.

Well, back to musing about which ingredient to start with. Cheers!