Seasonings for food come in a huge variety of forms from spices to herbs to marinades and more but undoubtedly the most widely used seasonings are salt and pepper. And so I thought it might be worth discussing these humble but oh so essential pantry staples.
Salt
So, what can you say about salt? Quite a lot, actually. Books have been written about salt. Wars have been fought over salt. In ancient times it was a form of currency. Roman soldiers were paid in salt (from which we get the words, Salary and Soldier). Yeah, for such a humble mineral salt is quite a big deal.
I just checked in my kitchen and I have no fewer than 8 different kinds of salt! There is a pink Hawaiian salt, a pure Himalayan salt, a couple of smoked salts, Malden sea salt, a Fleur de Sel I picked up in Vancouver, Kosher salt and a tub of fine sea salt. A bit over the top, you think? Yeah, probably, but when you consider there are 4,000 varieties of salt in Japan, my collection of 8 is pretty modest.
Why so many?
Well, some of them were gifts, some I just wanted to try and the two workhorses, Kosher and sea salt are staples I am never without. (I used to keep common table salt but a few years ago I gave that up in favor of sea salt.)
I almost never add salt to a finished dish, French fries and other deep fried foods being the exceptions. I season the food as I go and it shouldn’t need any more by the time it gets to the table. I don’t even own a salt shaker. Another exception to the salting at table rule is so called ‘Finishing’ salt. That’s when you sprinkle a little Malden or smoked or Fleur de Sel on a piece of steak or other grilled or roasted meat. The large grains of these salts do not dissolve readily and give a nice crunch and a little salty zing to the food. It is not the same as sprinkling regular table salt on your food which has a totally different reaction in the mouth.
Kosher Salt
Kosher salt is not Kosher because it is produced under rabbinical supervision but because it it is considered pure enough for koshering meat. In fact, it is properly called “koshering salt” but has long since been marketed as Kosher salt. This is the salt I use the most often. It has a cleaner, more pure saltiness, unlike table salt which is more harsh. If you dip your finger in a little table salt and taste it, you get an instant hit of saltiness on the tip of your tongue that quickly dissipates. Do the same with Kosher salt and you can taste it all around your mouth. It has that same effect when you cook with it, giving food a roundness of flavor instead of a one dimensional, in-your-face salty taste.
The two most common kosher salts in the US are Morton’s and Diamond Crystal and each has its devotees; my preference is for Diamond Crystal. It has large, irregular grains that make it easy to pick up with your fingers. Try doing that with table salt and you find you pick up about 5 grains!
If you do use Kosher salt, don’t try putting it in a salt shaker; the grains are too big to come out of the little holes in the top. Instead put it in a small bowl (I used to use a rice bowl before I got a salt box or two or three!!) and pick it up with your fingers which should be impeccably clean while you are cooking anyway. But if you are really fastidious, use a small spoon.
Size Matters!
With salt crystals it really does. Kosher salt crystals being much bigger than table salt crystals means that spoon for spoon Kosher salt is only about half as salty as table salt. By weight all salts are as salty as one another; 1 oz of any salt is just as salty as 1 oz of any other salt. Not so by volume.
1 Tsp of table salt weighs 7 grams, while 1 Tsp of Kosher salt weighs 4 grams; ergo by volume, table salt is saltier than Kosher salt.
Why is this important? Because whenever a recipe says ‘x’ amount of salt you need to be sure you are using the same salt as the recipe author, otherwise your food may be over or under seasoned.
Hard to find Kosher salt
Here in the US, Kosher salt is available in every supermarket. It is more expensive than table salt or fine sea salt but, in my opinion, well worth the extra $$$.
I understand that Kosher salt is not so widely available in the UK, or perhaps not at all which is too bad. I suppose, if there is no demand for it stores won’t bother carrying it. If you find a Jewish deli they might sell it. If you are lucky enough to find it, check its saltiness compared to what you are used to using.
Not all Kosher salts are created equal!
Diamond Crystal salt grains are relatively large and that is why it is less salty than table salt. If you imagine filling a bucket with tennis balls and then the same bucket with basket balls, you will obviously get fewer basket balls in the bucket. So it is with the salt grains; there are fewer Kosher salt grains in the teaspoon than table salt grains and are therefore less salty. Actually, it is a bit of a misnomer to say it is less salty. I should say its effect on the food it is seasoning is less pronounced.
Other brands of Kosher salt have different sized grains so you may need to do some trial and error or get out your handy dandy electronic kitchen scale to weight it and compare. Over the top again? I suppose. How do you think I know how much a teaspoon of salt weighs?
Sea Salt
Now this is interesting stuff. Sea salt, if you don’t, know is harvested from the world’s seas and oceans – I guess the clue is in the name!! The process for harvesting the salt is little changed since ancient times: basically salt beds, either natural or manufactured trap sea water which, with the aid of sun and wind evaporates thereby concentrating the salt. Eventually the concentration is sufficient that some salt crystals film the surface of the water. That is the iconic and very expensive fleur de sel (flower of the sea in French). It is expensive because a) there is very little of it in relation to the amount of sea water and b) it must be harvested delicately by hand. It gets its name from the flower like patterns the crystals form on the water’s surface.
As the fleur de sel is harvested other larger and heavier salt crystals sink to the bottom of the salt beds. This salt has a gray color from the clay at the bottom of the salt bed. The clay and minerals are not processed out of the salt and it is sold as Gray Salt or Sel Gris in French.
Turns out some of the sea salt sold (in the US anyway) is not actually harvested from the sea. Well, not exactly. Many of the landlocked salt deposits from which salt is mined for consumption were once prehistoric seas. Over millions of years the seas dried up… OK, we all know this story, right? Anyway, what remains are the salt deposits that are mined, processed and sold variously as table salt or sea salt; the difference being how the salt is processed.
The Diamond Crystal kosher salt I like so much is in fact pure sea salt produced just south of San Francisco airport. You can see the mountains of salt as your plane comes into land at SFO. It takes as much as 5 years from first capturing the water in salt beds to finally boxing the salt for market. Inexpensive sea salts in fine, medium and course grains are widely available. They have different minerals from the sea that are absent in other salts and that give them a slightly different flavor. Some people claim that the unrefined, mineral rich salts are healthier than the more refined salts. That is the subject of some debate and in any case, even if they are, the quantities we consume are so small that any benefits would be negligible. Or so one school of thought posits and one I happen to agree with.
Malden Sea Salt
Malden sea salt has gained international recognition in the last 20 years or so. I can remember seeing it for the first time in a specialty cookware store in San Francisco called Williams Sonoma and it was very expensive compared with the basic supermarket table salt. It is still relatively expensive but it is sold in pretty much every grocery store now. The salt is produced in Malden, a small town in the county of Essex in south east England
The lowly table salt
What about that ubiquitous salt shaker found at every dinner table in the land. Gone forever one day, I hope. If food is properly seasoned at the stove it shouldn’t need seasoning at the table.
That said, it has its uses. For example, you are salting pasta water you don’t want to use to use an expensive salt; cheap, plentiful table salt will do just fine thank you. It is often the salt of choice in baking because, bakers will tell you, it dissolves more easily (although I know of a few very successful professional bakers who use Kosher salt exclusively). In baking it is a critical ingredient when called for but used in such small quantities that you don’t get the flavor nuances you do in savory dishes. If you are brining lean cuts of meat like boneless, skinless chicken breasts or pork chops, table salt will do the job.
Salt Free Diets
I am not a doctor (I just play one on TV – not really!) and I would not presume to counter any directive a doctor might give a patient regarding salt intake. There are indeed some people for whom any salt may present a health risk. Those folks aside, I am of the opinion that many salt deniers are so because it has become popular to believe that salt is the enemy. And given my propensity for lecturing I will stop there. Nah! Can’t do it!
Salt is an essential mineral the body needs for certain internal processes to function properly. As with anything else though, too much of a good thing becomes bad. As a society the industrialized world consumes way too much prepared and processed foods which are often grossly over salted and this is where salt gets its bad rap. The answer to that is simple; stop eating these salty processed foods and eat fresh, properly seasoned food with just the right amount of salt. It is almost impossible to avoid all processed foods today but I do try to keep my consumption to an absolute minimum. The last time I ate any processed food was… can’t remember. Probably the weekend before last when I had some bacon at breakfast.
Salt reacts with the taste buds to heighten their sensitivity and allows us to enjoy the full flavor of the food seasoned with it. Without salt food is just plain bland! If you cut back on processed food and season your fresh food with just enough salt all will be well in your diet (doctor’s orders notwithstanding).
OK, rant over.
My last word on salt
For all that it is just a rock, salt is perhaps the single most important ingredient that makes food taste good. Too much and food tastes awful; too little and it tastes of nothing. You know why Goldilocks ate baby bear’s porridge? Not because it was neither too hot nor too cold but because it had just the right amount of salt – true story!!
Different salts have different colors, mineral content and crystal structure depending on how or indeed, whether it is processed. But in the end all salt is sodium chloride, regardless of where it originated.
Pepper
You can’t talk about salt without mentioning its partner in crime – pepper. So how many kinds of pepper do I have in the kitchen? Two; whole black peppercorns (Piper Nigrum to give it its botanical name) and whole white pepper corns.
Black Pepper
There are any number of varieties of black peppercorns you can buy; all of them from Asia, the indigenous origins of the plant. (Although the Piper Nigrum plant is native to South India, Vietnam is the world’s largest single producer of pepper today). The good stuff lists the type and source region on the label. Purists will tell you there are flavor differences in the various varieties of pepper and indeed there are. In my opinion, though, once the pepper is ground and in the food it is difficult (for me anyway) to tell the difference. Ideally you want to find a good, reliable source for your pepper corns though. You don’t want to be buying old, musty pepper. A bulk spice shop with a good turnover is best, where you can be sure they replenish their stock regularly.
Why whole peppercorns?
What’s wrong with the pre-ground pepper you buy in a tub at the grocery store? It has no flavor, that’s what! Oh sure, it still has heat and it will make you sneeze if your nose gets too close but that’s all.
Pepper gets its spicy heat from a substance called piperine but the dark skin on the peppercorn also contains aroma compounds that give pepper its character. These compounds evaporate very quickly (within 30 minutes) after grinding so all that is left is the heat from the piperine. It is far better to grind pepper at the time it is needed to get the full benefit of all its myriad characteristics.
White Pepper
White pepper is just black pepper without its overcoat. Because the outer skin of the black peppercorn contains all the aroma compounds, without it white pepper has fewer nuanced flavor characteristics. Its flavor is more delicate and floral, fine if you want pepper with a less aggressive presence. So why use it? Some cooks like to use it in light colored dishes because it blends in well. Black pepper leaves little black specs in white sauces, for example. I don’t use white pepper all that much; I’ll sacrifice aesthetics for flavor any day.
Seasoning food with pepper
Like salt, pepper is added to the food at the stove and shouldn’t be necessary at the table. Although, there are many more applications where adding pepper at the table is acceptable and even desirable than with salt.
Dump the tub!
I strongly recommend dumping the pre-ground pepper you may have in the pantry and invest in a good pepper mill and quality whole peppercorns – black or white. You’ll be amazed at how much better your food tastes when you do.
