It’s an essential ingredient in food, salt. Most often, we notice it when it’s overused or missing: Dishes taste too salty, or too bland. Home cooks tend to skimp on salt; commercial food processors load up on it (to the detriment of our collective health). People have been using salt to preserve and season food for many thousands of years.
Recently, I switched from using fine sea salt for general cooking to kosher salt. When I spent a couple of days cooking with my brother, who owns the award-winning Baker & Nosh in Chicago, I used kosher salt in his bakery kitchen. When I got home, I filled the little dish next to my stove with kosher salt.
I like the way kosher salt, with its slightly larger and coarser grain, feels between my fingertips as I pinch some to add to the bowl or pot. The coarser grains of kosher salt are easy to grasp and pleasant to sprinkle. I can see and feel how much salt I’m adding to my cooking. I use kosher salt to season dishes as I cook, layering in flavor by sprinkling in a pinch when I add new ingredients to the pan (tasting as I go to be sure it’s needed). I also like kosher salt for bread-baking, although I typically use table salt in baking unless the recipe specifies kosher. (Note that there’s a difference in volume between kosher and table salt, so you’ll need less table salt than kosher salt.)
For finishing a dish, I have two preferences in my kitchen. First, I like Maldon sea salt flakes, which many professional chefs recommend. Maldon sea salt has a nicely briny flavor; just a little goes a long way. I like the crunch that it adds to a dish, particularly to salads. I used Maldon sea salt with this recipe for sea salt chocolate chip cookies.
If I want the salt to disappear texturally but add a snap of flavor, I’ll use extra-fine French gray sea salt. This salt is soft as sand and is best used sparingly. It dissolves quickly in salad dressing, it’s perfect for popcorn and I love it on a soft-boiled egg.
Where can you find these excellent salts for cooking?
find kosher salt at Penzeys (or your grocery store)
find Maldon sea salt at King Arthur Flour (or your local specialty food store)
find extra-fine French gray salt at Williams-Sonoma
I have an excellent flaky sea salt that I got at Borough Market in London. You can get it plain or mixed with herbs, and both are delicious. I’ll be there this weekend if you want me to score some for you.
Ooh, I’d love some plain flake salt. If you score some, I’ll pay you and collect it when we meet up in SF in June. (Why does this feel kind of like a drug deal?)
Dealing salt internationally. 🙂
If you’re going to be in SF, check out Rainbow Grocery. They used to carry about a dozen kinds of bulk salt (up ’till 4 yrs ago, haven’t been there recently) from celtic to hawaiian to french to local from the SSF salt flats!)
Bryn,
I stocked up on Diamond Crystal at my local Penzey’s in Virginia before moving to the wilds of Ohio where there wasn’t a nearby Penzey’s. There’s still not a *nearby* Penzey’s, but the one in Cincy isn’t too much of a haul for me when I am down in Cincy. I prefer Diamond Crystal Kosher to Morton’s Kosher. I wonder why?
It’s soon time to break out my carefully-hoarded bag of Hawaiian sea salt as I’ve got a pork roast to turn into Kalua pig. Aloha!
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