Salt Uncensored
By land or by sea, shaken or stirred, crystals or grains, salt is indispensable to life - and to good cooking. It possesses a singular ability to help almost anything taste more like itself. And it's no stranger to healthy living. So if you've been missing out on the powerful culinary punch of this humblest of ingredients, shake free and celebrate with us.
 
Text and recipes by Michele Anna Jordan, Photography by Randy Mayor - Cooking Light, October 2001

"I never make soup," the woman bluntly declared as she approached me at a book singing. There was an edge of challenge in her voice, as if daring me to changer her ways. "Have you tried homemade stock?" I asked. She had. Fresh until we had analysed nearly aspect of her displeasure for one of cooking's most popular dishes. Then it came to me. "What's about salt?" "Salt!" She almost hissed it. "I never, ever use salt in anything." I saw from her expression I'd instantly lost all credibility. She walked away, soupless. And, to my mind, clueless. Salt is arguably the most important ingredient in our pantries. Without salt as a seasoning, most cooked foods and many fresh ones just don't reach their full potential. With it - and that can often mean nothing more than the classic pinch -flavors blossom. We can think of salt as the midwife of flavor, the deliverer of good taste. And although some people must closely monitor their sodium intake, for most of us, the moderate use of salt in cooking presents no health risks (see Salt vs. Sodium).

No one can quite explain why salt has this unique power, why it adds so much more than mere saltiness to food. Harold McGee, a well-known food scientist, explains that "salt contributes to the overall complexity and balance" of a dish, in part by determining chemically how various flavor components are made available to our senses. This influence on taste at the most basic molecular level is the subject of ongoing research, as is the large mystery of taste itself.

We do know that salt, in part because it dissolves slowly, enhance the ability of an ingredient to taste more like itself. Salt also creates harmony among surrounding ingredients, a pleasant finish that lingers on the palate. A dull soup, a flat sauce, or a curiously bland salad often needs nothing more than a sprinkling of salt to become irresistible.

It's not difficult to master the use of salt in the kitchen. As I tried to convince the woman at the book singing, soups - as well as sauces, stews, and the like - should be thought of as construction projects: You are not simply cooking ingredients, you are carefully building flavors. I season onions with salt after they have been sautéed; I salt rice before adding liquid when preparing risotto; I season meat with salt after it has been browned. Using salt this way, a pinch and a step at a time, means the final dish will be close to perfectly seasoned. A little salt at the right time is infinitely more flavor-enhancing than a downpour at the wrong time. This is how professional chefs make food taste so good; they know that salt added after cooking cannot make up for a lack of it during the process.

Salt has other culinary functions. Cooked in salted water, blanched vegetables retain their bright colors. Spread over the flesh of fresh salmon, salt transforms the fish into the silky Swedish specialty gravlax. Salt is the main ingredient in preserving everything from cod, pork, and beef to cabbage (sauerkraut is nothing more than fermented cabbage and salt), lemons, eggs, and all sorts of Asian vegetables that become such enticing condiments as Korean kimchi.

With all its uses, salt still seems all the same to most people. I used to think of it that way, too. My grandmother's pantry included only a round blue box of Morton brand "When It Rains It Pours" table salt; a neighbor with an ice-cream maker has rock salt. But salts are incredibly varied - with dozens of specialty and boutique salts available today, each with flavors, colors, and shapes by Nana could never have imagined (See the Table of Salts).

How does a home cook sort through this briny array? Certainly you can experiment with all the types, but perhaps the best starting point is to remember that most cooking purposes rely on three basic forms: table, sea, and kosher. Table salt is fine for many uses, especially baking. Sea salt and boutique salts are generally better suited as condiments. But for general cooking, kosher salt (Jewish dietary laws required a coarse salt in the process of preparing foods, especially meats, and the name stuck) is best. It's larger than the tiny granules of table salt, easy to grasp, and, in the case of the Diamond Crystal brand, fast to dissolve. In 1997, Diamond Crystal surveyed 50 top U.S. chefs and found that 86% prefer kosher salt over all other kinds. If you're sodium-sensitive, you may also want to turn to kosher, which offers sodium levels that are often much lower than those of sea or table salt.

Mastering salt is probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to improve your cooking. It's the critical factor in dish after dish, no matter how humble or fancy, simple or complex. Salt is essential - inseparable from good cooking.

NEXT : Salt vs. Sodium + recipes! >>
PAGE 1, 2, 3, 4