Wednesday's GHI: Salt

Something that every kitchen's gotta have is salt. One of the biggest cooking mistakes one can make is under-seasoning the food. When I say under- or over-season, I'm referring to the most common seasonings people use: salt and pepper. A frequent misconception is that it is best to under-season the food while cooking and then serve salt and pepper at the table so people can season to their own taste. Over-seasoning during cooking is obviously bad, and a mistake that I have definitely been guilty of. It's a problem because it's much harder to fix than under-seasoning, but under-seasoning is not good either. The reason it's not ideal to just assume that diners will salt-and-pepper their own food at the table is because just sprinkling some table salt on top of the dish right before eating does not add the depth of flavor that would be present if the seasoning had been done properly while cooking.

Cooking is all about building layers of flavor with each and every step. When cooking a savory dish with multiple steps, you should be seasoning at every step. For example, in the recipe I posted earlier this week for the pasta with the veggie cream sauce, I made sure to season with every single step. The key though is to not season too much at each of these intermediate stages, and that just takes practice to learn the right amount. No recipe will be able to accurately and precisely tell you "1/8 tsp when you add the mushrooms" you just sprinkle a pinch and through trial and error you learn what the "right" amount is (technically speaking, a pinch is an actual unit of measure that equals 1/8 tsp, but you're not expected to actually measure out 1/8 tsp when a recipe calls for a pinch). A pinch is usually supposed to be how much you'd get if you had a bowl of salt and you picked up as much as you could with your first two fingers and thumb using only the pads of your fingers. That's what recipes usually mean when they say a "pinch," not precisely 1/8 tsp. More commonly though, recipes will say "to taste." This is because it's impossible to know the perfect amount. The necessary salt level depends on a hundred variables in each recipe (how big are the tomatoes that you used, what brand of broth did you use, etc.) which means it's up to you. 

Keeping that in mind, in the recipe I posted earlier this week I seasoned the mushrooms while they sauteed, I seasoned both sides of the chicken breasts before they were cooked, I added more salt and pepper when I tossed in all of the other veggies, a little bit more salt and pepper when I added the cream. And then the final step - TASTE before you serve! At that final tasting I decided the salt was perfect, but it needed more pepper. So a few turns of the pepper mill, and voila - dinner was served. Never serve a dish before tasting it. This is why I keep a pile of little spoons in the drawer next to my stove - those are my tasting spoons. I use them to taste my dishes throughout the cooking process but especially at the end before serving. I grab a clean spoon, dip it in my dish, take a taste, pop the used spoon in the sink. That tasting is your last line of defense, you should always adjust your seasoning before you serve. That's why you may have noticed that at nice restaurants, they don't put salt and pepper on the table... they season their dishes correctly throughout the cooking process so you don't need to add any more at the table. 

To further confuse matters, there are different types of salt that have different purposes. If you think I'm messing around, look at the picture of the different types of salts that I use in my cooking. Mike thinks I'm insane, but there is a reason for the insanity, and I'll tell you about each of the different types of salt and when to ideally use each one.

 Yes, I actually have all of these salts in my cabinet and use them all differently. The one that I don't show in more detail here (because I didn't want to waste any of this precious commodity haha!) is the truffle salt. This is used as a finishing salt, meaning you don't add it throughout the dish to add layers of flavor, because the truffle flavor would be cooked right out, and that would defeat the purpose. So this is used at the last step of seasoning before serving to give a nice salty truffle finish. My favorite use for this is sprinkled over top of pasta or risotto dishes. It also is incredible on homemade popcorn.

  Here are the salts here from right to left:

Maldon large-flake Sea Salt

 This is another finishing salt. The size of this flake creates a nice salty crunch for dishes that require that. Read: salted caramel. This is a great salt to use for sweet / salty dishes. I bought this to use with one of my FAVORITE desserts that I'll post about next time I make it... they're bars with a layer of shortbread, a layer of caramel (or toffee the way mine always come out), and a layer of dark chocolate ganache. And then you finish them with this beautiful, flaky, crunchy salt once the chocolate has cooled and they're phenomenal. I want to find other great uses for this beautiful salt. Can't wait to try more recipes!

 Coarse Kosher Salt

This salt is the work-horse of any serious cook's kitchen. Its the best salt to use in almost all savory cooking dishes, especially with meat. This salt has a flat, flaky texture. It is the preferred salt to use to season your meat when browning it in a pan or on the grill because the flaky structure creates a beautiful crust on the outside of the meat that you won't get as nicely if you use regular table salt. I keep this salt in a little dish with a magnetic lid. I do this because as the salt I use the most, I prefer to pinch it with my fingers vs. sprinkle it out of a container. This gives me better control over how much salt I'm using, exactly where it's going, and allows for more precision. It's also the perfect salt to use on a margarita rim... just saying.

Iodized Sea Salt

This one is kind of specific to my current situation. I use this as my primary salt when I can, especially as a finishing salt, for example when doing simple steamed veggies with a little salt and olive oil, or something like that where I'm just sprinkling some salt on top. I am only doing this for health reasons... truth is I miss my Kosher salt. I've read some interesting articles recently about a resurgence in iodine deficiency, which is particularly problematic among pregnant women. Kosher and Sea Salt don't usually provide iodine (iodine is never found naturally in salt, it is always added. But it is not added to Kosher salt, and this is the first sea salt where I've ever seen iodine added, so I snatched it up). Sea salt is a healthy alternative to traditional salt because a) it has a slightly lower sodium content for the same amount of saltiness (and less sodium is not a bad thing), and b) the natural sea salts have some minerals that you won't find in regular table salt. So I found a sea salt that has iodine added so that while I'm pregnant I'm getting those health benefits of sea salt and I'm getting my iodine. This salt does not have a long-term place in my kitchen. I will not be buying more of it after the baby comes. This particular salt has bigger granules than standard table salt, though not quite as big as the Coarse sea salt, and definitely not as big as the sea salt that goes in the salt grinder. It's more uniform in size than kosher salt (kosher salt is flat and flaky, this salt is more cube-like).

Standard Iodized Table Salt

This is a good salt to use in large quantities and for baking. The reason I like using it in large quantities is because recipes are typically written for this type of salt and when you're working with large quantities, weight matters in addition to volume. Because this salt is much finer in texture, more actual salt fits in a given volume than would Kosher salt. For example 1 cup of this salt would weigh more (because there's more salt that can fit) than 1 cup of Kosher salt. So when you're working with large quantities (maybe 1/2 cup or more), it's more accurate to use this type of salt, because this is the type of the salt that the recipe was typically written for. But when a recipe calls for "a pinch" or a tablespoon, the difference is not meaningful, so stick with your Kosher salt. I also like to use this when working with large quantities because it's much cheaper than the other salts I have. For these reasons, I use this one most commonly to salt my pasta water, salt the water to blanch veggies, make a brine for meat, and even in soups and other liquid applications (where it'll dissolve anyway so the texture doesn't matter). I also use this one for any non-cooking applications like cleaning my cast iron pan. This is also the best salt to use in baking because of that same precision in measuring. Again this is because of accuracy - baking is a precise science so the littlest details matter. It's also because this salt dissolves better due to its smaller size. And when you're baking, you usually don't want to bite into a salty crunchy flake (unless you're doing salted caramel, which we've already talked about).

Coarse Sea Salt

These big crunchy pieces are another great option when you want that salty, crunchy bite. They're more cubed than the flaky kosher or sea salt, but not quite big enough to fill the salt grinder. The best use for this type of salt is when I'm making pretzels, and other types of dishes where you want a bigger salty crunch.

Sea Salt Grinder

 This is what I serve as my "table salt." I personally prefer the flavor and texture of this better than traditional table salt that's served in a shaker. I've already noted the health benefits of sea salt vs. traditional table salt, and those benefits add to the reasons why I prefer this to be served. Although if I've done my job correctly while cooking, we shouldn't need it.

So that's the skinny on salt... every kitchen's gotta have it!! Let me know your thoughts!