I do my best to be a kind, loving, and generous person, but when I eat, as a Chef, I’m secretly judging you! (I know, I know, judge not…) Please don’t be offended, it’s a part of my job. The first judgement I make about food is how well its been salted, because to me, that’s the mark of a good cook.
The food that we prepare, and share is an extension and expression of the love we have for those we share it with. But when that food is delicious, it marks our lives in very real ways. I’m someone who loves food so much that I have made it my career, and I can tell you that there is a magic that occurs when you take a bite of something that is properly seasoned. If you’ve eaten something delicious, and you can’t put a finger on what makes it so good, or you question what makes it taste so different from the food you make. More than likely, the simple answer is salt!
So, there are two things I have to say right up front: 1. I understand that there are health consequences to the use and over consumption of salt, and for the sake of today, I’m going to pretend that we are all in peak physical shape and don’t have any maladies. (I’m laughing to myself right now) 2. Taste is subjective. That being said, salt will absolutely let you know when you’ve added to much. The Chef David Chang once said, “When a dish is perfectly seasoned, it will taste simultaneously like it has too much salt and too little salt. It is fully committed to being both at the same time.”
Don’t let that last conundrum confuse you. It’s just a way to verbalize a rather difficult concept. The concept is even more challenging to teach without a guide. When teaching a young chef, there are some tried and true methods to accomplish this. Here is the exercise I went through at culinary school: The instructor would make a properly seasoned let’s say…soup, then we would follow their exact method, (in commercial kitchens, there are rarely measured amounts of salt on a recipe, it is always ‘to taste’ ) and season to the point that we thought was appropriate. The Chef would taste our product, and then critique it against their own. Then they would have us taste their item to compare for ourselves. Let me tell you, the first day I went through this tasting, I was absolutely astounded! I mean like, mind-blown! The correctly seasoned soup tasted much more complex, and you could make out so much more of the flavor of each ingredient. The flavors kind of popped when it hit your taste buds, they were bright and fresh tasting.
So how should you season, and when should you stop? As a rule of thumb, you should salt in layers, start moderately, and continue through the course of the recipe. And most importantly, taste! Taste your food at every step of the process, assuming its safe to do so. (DON’T taste the seasoning on your raw chicken, but DO taste the spice blend before you put it on there) I even taste the water for my boiled potatoes to make sure its properly seasoned before they go onto the stove. It’s disgusting, and I do not enjoy the taste of raw potatoes and saltwater, but it’s the only way that I’m able to tell if its properly seasoned. For boiling pasta and vegetables, I recommend the water is a little less salty than ocean water. For seasoning lager proteins, I recommend adding 1/3 more salt than you’re currently using, so if the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon, I will use 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon. Season by hand! Use your fingers and palm to get a feel for the actual amount your using. Measuring spoons are fine, but take a tablespoon of salt, and pour it into your palm so you can see how it feels in there. It’ll help you decode the recipes you create if you ever want to write them down. Try to avoid using a shaker of table salt when seasoning your food during cooking, that’s the easiest way to over salt your food, since there is no way to determine how much salt will flow out. The process of salting is made much easier if you use a good quality Kosher salt, and for me, Diamond Crystal is the one! It has a course but flat crystal, and it makes feeling the quantity that I use much easier. Other brands are absolutely fine, but some are very, very course like the salt on pretzels, and some are super fine, like table salt.
This is one subject that you can take a deep dive into if you’d like. There are 2 books that I would recommend: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky, and On food and cooking by Harold Mcgee. Ultimately, you will make the determination as to how much salt you use, but these are just some of the things that I think about when I’m cooking. Now go and share your love. Cook!
