The Science of Salt: How it Impacts Your Cooking and How to Make Your Own: Salt | What’s Eating Dan?
How is sea salt made? What’s the difference between table salt, kosher salt, and sea salt? When exactly should you add salt to a dish? Dan answers these questions about the one ingredient everyone has in their kitchen.
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I love how Americans explain the difference in salt volume using volumetric measurement. 1 g of salt is 1 g of salt, it doesn’t matter the volume. Why the hell can’t America’s test kitchen switch to metric. It would make life so much easier for everybody else, including Americans.
the issue with sea salt is the growing amounts of micro-plastics that are in the oceans….probably insignificant, but any plastic ingested is too much
5:49…lol! Dum-dum!
For me the most interesting factoid about salt is how we are being sold on how super duper healthy pink himalayan salt is because of it having absurdly small amouts of minerals (as in the amount found in one bite of veggies), for which we stop using cheap, easily attainable iodized salt, which is the one preventing illness gioter or hypothyroidism.
NOW I know why my beautiful (and expensive) All-Clad stainless steel pots and pans are pitted! 🤦🏼♂️😒
Like you, I am a salt lover. When I cook steak, I go a little heavy on the salt and only salt, no pepper. I wait an hour after salting to cook it, and it is so good that if I didn't have any steak sauce, the steak is good enough without it.
A corollary: does salt toughen the meat in stews when added early? Heard an uncle ranting that somebody sabotaged his stew this way and made the beef tougher than usual LoL In short, does timing of salting impact the texture of meats?
I harvest sea salt directly from a salt pond using solar energy only.
During times when water level is low we just collect the salt crystals from the edge. That’s it. Well, it’s work, we have to get to the salt pond, and it’s hot as hell out there, but yeah, that’s it.
Wonder what happens to the bitter calcium in this case because my salt is not bitter and highly coveted by friends for the wonderful flavor.
Good result, but it’s easier to buy it.
This is why I keep telling people no you can't salt your food once it's on your plate you've got to salt it during cooking!! Leaving out the salt until people eat just gives them a salty coating on their food and it tastes nasty! I have never had to put salt and pepper on my table and nobody has ever asked me for it. 🙂
I lived in Maldon for a while.
I was born and raised in Maine. What do you think a lot of us do with our spare time but we don't boil it!
Soap
05:30 'WTF'! (Way Too Funny!)
Awrsome episode, but im gonna stay at my own saltmaking process, playing lol.
So, Dan, I have high blood pressure and had a heart attack [17 years ago, remain calm] so I usually use salt substitute for seasoning cooked food at the table. I have also sometimes used it in cooking [boiling noodles, for example]. I'm OK with the taste and can see the effect on my blood pressure [I'm not terrorized by salt and still use it]. I'm wondering what salt does in cooking and whether you can accomplish something the same or similar with the substitute or if you're just engineering a failure.
Your bitter early salt story reminded me of my own, although not salt….I was ten and made a ham steak for my family by grilling it own a hibachi. I wanted to present it fancily, so I put orange extract on it and lit it on fire. It looked very impressive but it tasted awful! Soooo bitter! Its still a joke with my parents and brother to this day some fifty years later. Why orange extract? I have no idea…it just seemed like a thing to do!
What about other salts? For instance Hymilayan Pink Salt. It is ground in many sizes
The ending was hilarious! Thanks for the laugh.
Bring these back
Is kosher salt better healthier than table iodine salt or Himalayan pink salt? At times I don't salt dishes anymore coz I'm afraid of the salt is not healthy enough. I use kosher salt. Thank you &take care.
❤️
I season my food at the end, because I want to use less, watching blood pressure here.
I feel like Spock. Fascinating.
Some flaky salt … MMM