Get Better at Cooking by Storing a Spoon in the Salt Cellar
As an implacable aficionado of the great mineral sodium chloride, I strongly believe that anyone who is serious about food preparation needs an easily available salt shaker. No other ingredient changes your perception of taste like salt; Although it is rarely the only seasoning in a recipe, the most important thing is to make the right choice.
I’ve used salt shakers of various shapes and sizes for years, but recently I ditched coarse kosher salt in favor of something finer – and found that the switch makes the old pinch-by-pinch method rather tedious. Since I’m never in dire need of exactly a quarter teaspoon of literally anything, I decided to rip the smallest (and most neglected) spoon in my ring set and stick it into the bowl. This was a practical solution to my problem and was all I expected.
Oddly enough, this dumb little spoon changed the way I cook for the better. I see two big benefits of this system: first, when salting something bulky, like a pot of water for pasta , using a spoon is faster than using your fingers, and more accurate than pouring salt straight from the bowl into the pot. Second, and more importantly, a spoonful of salt of a known volume makes it easy to keep track of how much salt you are using. Anyone who cooks by instinctively mixing ingredients together – and dreading answering questions from friends and family about exactly how they season something – should find this particularly useful.
Personally, I find my little salty spoon to be the most useful for developing recipes, while salt is an extremely controversial subject. Name more than half a teaspoon – you risk scaring people away; demand a less dangerous (but not enough!) amount and get disappointing feedback that the recipe is tasteless. Experienced chefs and bakers know to add salt to taste, but a beginner may lack the confidence to taste and adapt and will be disappointed and disappointed when a poorly composed, insufficiently seasoned recipe does not work. … Good recipes make good cooks, and the measuring spoon in my salt shaker helps me write the best recipes I can.