Salt is a seasoning and an important preservative in food. It works to enhance flavor and helps to reduce bitterness and acidity in foods. It comes in many different forms, all of which have their uses. A well-stocked kitchen will have at least a few different forms on hand.
EditVarieties of salt
Translated from French, Fleur de sel means "Flower of the sea". It gets this name from the flower-like formations of salt crystals on the rocks of France's Brittany coast. Fluer de sal is special in that to earn the name, it must be scraped from these French rocks each day at low tide while it is clean and fresh.
Sold in small jars, the salt is courser than table salt, but not as course as Kosher salt. It absorbs moister quickly and so appears a little wet in the jar. It should be sprinkled onto foods as they are served so that its slightly sweet and pleasing mineral flavor can be enjoyed before it dissolves into the dish. Use sparingly as it is quite expensive.
When recipes in VittleAnte call for salt, they are referring to Kosher salt. It is a course salt favored by restaurants and chefs worldwide. Its coarseness provides a better sense of how much you are adding when you take a pinch of it between your fingers. Seasoning food by touch, rather than sight (in the case of pouring salt from a salt shaker) is a more accurate way of salting.
As its grains are courser, Kosher salt also takes slightly longer to dissolve on food than table salt. This helps to create a more even coat when sprinkling salt on food as you can see it before it dissolves.
Kosher salt comes without any extra additives such as iodine. Chefs often prefer this as it creates a cleaner taste in dishes.
1
cup Kosher salt =
9 ounces255 grams
Similar to table salt, but lacking any additives, pickling salt (as its name suggests) is ideal for pickling as the additives in regular table salt turn pickles an unattractive dark color and the pickle juice cloudy. If you don't have pickling salt on hand when it's time to pickle, use Kosher salt. Be careful though as kosher salt is less dense (on account of the extra air between its larger crystals) and so you will need more of it.
Table salt is the fine grained stuff that comes in large plastic salt shakers. It usually contains additives such as iodine and an anti-caking agent to prevent it from clumping. Although perfectly reasonable for cooking, I avoid it in favor of kosher salt (see above for details).
1
cup table salt =
11 ounces310 grams