{"id":793,"date":"2013-01-30T10:09:03","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T10:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=793"},"modified":"2015-04-08T14:54:14","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T13:54:14","slug":"a-word-on-salt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"A word on Salt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learn how to properly salt your food.\u00a0 Ignore the silly health warnings, the mad ravings of the health freaks and the government guidelines to salt intake – it’s for the those of us who live off microwave and packaged meals and fast food 7 days a week.\u00a0 When you are cooking at home and making things from scratch you need salt.\u00a0 No, not lo salt (or No Salt), put that rubbish away!\u00a0 I’m talking about real salt; Sea salt not that highly refined table salt\u00a0either.<\/p>\n

\"salt\"<\/a>I suggest you taste your salt.\u00a0 Take a pinch of table salt, lo\u00a0salt and good quality sea salt and place each one on the tip of your tongue in turn.\u00a0 You will notice the difference.\u00a0 The table salt will have a slight chemical like (iodine) after-taste and a grainy texture but you will get that salt taste.\u00a0 Now try the lo\u00a0salt (or other artificial\u00a0alternative) and taste that.\u00a0 I have to fight the urge to spit it out, it just doesn’t taste of anything real – a bit like artificial\u00a0sweetener.\u00a0 Now try a flake of sea salt, clean, crisp and sharp in taste.\u00a0 After that experience I ditched any thought of cooking with anything less than good quality sea salt.\u00a0 I’ve tried Fleur de sel, Cornish and Maldon sea salt, I prefer the crunch of Maldon but there isn’t much in it.<\/p>\n

Hopefully you have now realised the difference in the type and quality of salt.\u00a0 It doesn’t mean that table salt or cheaper grinding sea salt doesn’t have its uses.\u00a0 I use the grinding sea salt on the table.\u00a0 I use the cheap table salt for salting boiling water, pasta or potatoes, that sort of thing.\u00a0 I might also use it to preserve things, no point in using the expensive stuff if you need large quantities and taste isn’t a real issue.\u00a0 Also the more expensive gourmet salts are really finishing salts, in general cooking you should use a cheaper sea salt that you can crush – kosher salt is often used in the USA but any cheap salt flake will do the job.\u00a0 Then again, a box of Maldon sea salt lasts me 3 months, so it doesn’t make that big a difference.<\/p>\n

Salt is a natural desiccant.\u00a0 It draws out the moisture in food, so it is often used to dry food – since it is also a natural preservative (anti-biotic, anti-fungal).\u00a0 But even applied to food for a short period, it will bring out the moisture.\u00a0 I often roast beetroot in tinfoil, lined with salt.\u00a0 It makes the beetroot juicy and intensifies the flavours, but since the skin is still on the beetroot it doesn’t make them salty.\u00a0 Salt alters food in more ways than just taste.<\/p>\n

Now that we understand the taste and uses for salt, I can focus on the real issue – quantity.\u00a0 How much is enough?\u00a0 Have you seen the Chef’s on TV throw handfuls of salt on food like it is going out of fashion?\u00a0 That would be about right.\u00a0 When you first season food with salt, most of it is lost in the cooking process;\u00a0Unless you let the salt sit on the food for 40mins\u00a0or more, then it will soak in and start to cure.\u00a0 When you salt a steak, I suggest to salt it just before you cook it.\u00a0 If you leave the salt on the steak for 5mins, it will start to draw out the juices of the steak – it doesn’t dry the steak out but it adds moisture to the pan and stops the steak searing properly.\u00a0 After an hour of being salted, the steak actually starts to cure and the juices go back into the steak, intensifying the flavour.\u00a0 But I’d rather just salt the steak and put it in the pan rather than wait an hour.<\/p>\n

I picked up a fantastic tip from a Chef at a food festival this year.\u00a0 Salt your meat just before you cook it and then, within a few minutes of cooking, salt it again.\u00a0 The first salting will cook into the meat and flavour it but the best way to really enhance food and what can separate good food from great food is a second salting – it really brings out the flavour.\u00a0 After testing that out myself, I’m convinced!\u00a0 Of course, you’ll use up your 6g\u00a0of salt for the day on that one bit of meat but you try sticking to that 6g limit… your food will be tasteless.\u00a0 Salt is a flavour enhancer, don’t be afraid of it.\u00a0 If you attend a cooking course, one of the most common criticisms you will hear from the instructors is “it’s under seasoned”.\u00a0 It’s a crime, you spend hours cooking something to perfection and it ends up lacking flavour.\u00a0 I know when something is properly seasoned because I don’t even think about reaching for the salt on the table but it’s not so salty that I need to start drinking pints of water!<\/p>\n

\"Salt<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, I highly recommend buying yourself a salt pig – see the picture, if you’ve not seen one before.\u00a0 Not only does it provide easy access to salt when you need it for cooking but it keeps the moisture away from the salt, ensuring it remains in top condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learn how to properly salt your food.\u00a0 Ignore the silly health warnings, the mad ravings of the health freaks and the government guidelines to salt intake – it’s for the those of us who live off microwave and packaged meals and fast food 7 days a week.\u00a0 When you are cooking at home and making things from scratch you need salt.\u00a0 No, not lo salt (or No Salt), put that rubbish away!\u00a0 I’m talking about[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tips-and-tools"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/salt.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PTCG-cN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1446,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/1446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}