Pro-Pantry #4: Salt

 

Nate Whiting-  Hi everyone!  It's time again for another instalment of Pro-Pantry, the series where we take you through ingredients you need in your kitchen.  Today, we are going to talk about one of the most absolutely fundamental ingredients of all: salt.  There's no ingredient more important than salt.  It goes in literally everything.  The word 'salad' is a corruption of the Latinate form of the word 'salted'.  Ditto for the word 'sauce.'

Salt was so important to the ancient world that Romans used it as currency.  You see this in the word 'salary,' and also in the expression 'worth his salt.'  

Our bodies crave salt, and need it to survive (of course, not necessarily in the quantities we take it in, but that's beside the point).  It is absolutely essential for preservation, without which mankind could never have settled cold regions or crossed oceans.  

So today, we are going to take a closer look at this ingredient.  Like our last subject, pepper, salt is simultaneously overlooked and under-appreciated.  It's taken for granted by most.  Most chefs just have a little crock of kosher salt on hand.  Most home cooks have a shaker of chemically-tasting iodized salt in a shaker, which is a next-to-useless tool, unless one is seasoning popcorn.  

However, in a serious kitchen, salt takes several forms, with several specialized uses.  Let's get into it.

What is Salt?

As we all know, salt is a combination of crystallized minerals, dominated by sodium chloride (chemical formula: NaCl).  Generally speaking, salt is the only edible mineral, an essential nutrient, and a cooking essential.  {Yeah, there are mineral nutrients, like phosphorous and potassium, but you'd be in some real trouble if you ever tried to eat a teaspoon of either chemical.  Salt is the only mineral we actually use as an ingredient.  -js}  Since the beginning of time, and throughout evolution, not only do we humans need it, we've been genetically hardwired to crave it!  

So What's This About Different Kinds of Salt?

Part of the point of the Pro-Pantry series is this: try not to overlook any ingredients.  Everything we use is carefully chosen.  There are many different salts, with many different uses.  If you want to up your cooking kung fu, don't be an ingredient zombie and mindlessly reach for the salt shaker.  A little more thought makes a huge difference. 

Salts I Love

The gold standard for restaruatnts is Diamond Crystal kosher salt.  It's my go-to, general-purpose salt.  It's crystals are a little less 'pebbly' than Morton's, which allows more control and precision of your seasoning, as well as dissolving into liquids better/faster.  If you look at it under a microscope, the flakes are actually hollow, which also aids in even seasoning.  It promotes proper seasoning with every bite, as opposed to clusters of seasoned and unseasoned bites. 

Redmond Real Salt: prehistoric sea salt from Utah. It's something that I've been crushing on for the last year, and i absolutely love it!  Since it's a naturally mined salt, it's got a lot of inherent mineral character.  It hasn't been 'scrubbed' the way industrial salt has.  Appreciate its flavor on something delicate, like a perfect raw tomato or a slice of fresh, raw yellowtail.  Another great example of a salt from this category is Himalayan pink salt.

Sea Salts: I have four sea salts I really lean on.  They are all pretty similar in flavor, but what really separates them is their unique textures.  They are all really terrific finishing salts (more on this later.)  Maldon Sea Salt, from England, has large, flaky, pyramid-shaped crystals.  It has a delicate crunch, and is a great finishing salt.  French Fleur de Sel is the top layer of crystals that form on evaporating pools in northern France.  It's texture is delicate, light, and irregular, with a stronger minerality.  Sale Marino de Trapani is Sicilian.  The texture is a little finer, with a less-pronounced crunch, than the other varieties.  Lastly, Sel Gris, or grey salt, also from France, has the coarsest texture, and the most mineral content of any of these.  It's much more deep in flavor, but it's coarse texture means it can be a little difficult to use.

Fine Salt: Often called popcorn salt, or nut salt, this is finely powdered salt.  You can buy it, but it will have that iodized flavor, which can be undesirable.  It's easy to make, by buzzing a coarse salt in the grinder, but it doesn't last long before it cakes up from ambient humidity.  This is what you want to season nuts with, or popcorn, or potato chips.  Crispy, hard things won't have enough surface adhesion to hold larger salt crystals, so you need to go fine.  

Pretzel Salt: This is an interesting one, because it's a salt that is manufactured, but still has an important niche.  Pretzel salt has a large grain, even larger than sel gris, but it's crystaline structure is not as dense as other salts, so instead of biting down on a pebble, you get that satisfying pretzel crunch.  Not particularly useful unless you're making pretzels (or pretzel buns, or that pretzel gnocchi Jesse's been talking about), but if you are making pretzels, accept no substitute.

There are sooooo many to choose from, and you really can't go wrong as long as you stay away from the iodized bullshit table salt. 

Here’s a few pro tips on seasoning: 

Keep your hand DRY!  If something is salty in the kitchen, thats the first thing I check to see.  I need to know that the cooks' hands are dry when seasoning.  Wet/moist fingers lead to clumping and over-salting.  Assuming they pass that check, I then look at the salt container to see if it's wet.  If it is, toss it.  And for god's sake stop keeping your salt crock in the refrigerator!  Salt is hygroscopic! 

Season with your eyes!  Look and see where the salt is falling.  Is it evenly distributed?  Or in clusters?  Are your fingers dry?  You can't taste every steak and burger you cook; so start with your eyes!  Cook off a test piece if its an ingredient you've never used to check your seasoning, especially fish and seafood.

Season up high: Im not talking about that Salt Bae douche: screw that guy, he's making salt into a joke, and salt is serious business.  But do keep your hand about 6-8 inches above your ingredients.  Sorry fellas but 8 inches is a lot longer than you think it is.  {Ha ha, I get it!!  -js}  This will evenly distribute your salt.  And it's way more important to season your food properly than it is to avoid getting a little salt on the floor.  Just promise your spouse you'll clean it up.  In professional kitchens, we use seasoning racks (sheet pans with a wire rack) to cut down on the mess. 

Avoid the slash mix!  Good cooking is all about control.  I'm all for spice blends, and your secret wizard spice and honkey tonk bbq backflip rubs.  I love that shit!  However, most good blends don't have salt.  There are a few exceptions), but in general, I avoid them.  Especially the salt and pepper slash mix!  Come on, you're better than that.  Pepper good, salt good; take an extra second and season it correctly.   Are you really saving that much time?  Because you're certainly not seasoning your food properly.  Some things need more pepper, some need more salt.  Ya understand… 

And finally, I said I'd get to it, finishing salt.  Save the really good stuff for the end.  Seasoning in layers is a pro move you need to adopt, and a little crunchy salt on top of your fish or the eye of your sliced ribeye can take it to another level.  Here's a pro move- drizzle some olive oil on the cooked protein first or toss your finishing salt in a little olive oil before you season the eye of that beauty of a steak you just sliced… yes it's a little harder to work with the oil salt, but the benefit is the light coating of oil on the salt creates a thin barrier between the moisture of the protein and keeps the salt in tact longer so it doesn't dissolve as quickly and stays crunchy till the last bite.  It's a great restaurant trick, and for family style service. 

Well, that's about enough for one session.  I hope I've inspired you all to start getting a little adventurous with your salting!  See you next time.

-NW