Actually, the Rules of Table Salt
For years, I have politely refused to store pedestrian salt in my pantry. Inspired by the belief that real chefs use kosher salt – and my desire to be one of them – I dutifully bought box after box of Morton, painstakingly rechecking recipes to make sure I added “Morton’s amount” and not “Diamond crystal count” … … “
Salt is salt; except for the granular lie, which is marketed as “light salt,” we are talking about a box of crystalline sodium chloride. However, for some reason, people will put their lives, reputation, different limbs and / or firstborns at stake, not only because of their preference for kosher salt , but also because of their special and strong disregard for table salt. So did I, until I bought a can of regular Morton table salt on a whim – and was shocked to find that I actually had a strong preference for it.
I feel like I’ve been deceived throughout my culinary career. Literally none of the alleged vices of cooking with table salt is true: it has neither sad nor boring taste, nor two-dimensionality, nor anything else; it just tastes like salt. Plus, iodized varieties don’t contain enough iodine to add metallic flavor (let alone kill yeast), and the smaller grains are just as easy to manipulate with your fingers as the coarser, more flaky varieties. There is no shame in cooking with table salt, and here are three very good reasons.
It is better
The fine grained texture of table salt makes it the best choice for the vast majority of culinary uses. Fine salt disperses more evenly and dissolves faster than coarse salt, which is ideal for mixes. Cooking and baking usually requires stirring, and the fine salt will quickly and evenly season any liquid, solid, or non-Newtonian liquid you can imagine. There isn’t really much it can do, but I find table salt especially useful for dressing large volumes of liquids such as pasta, stews, soups, and pickles; I also like that the spices made with table salt are uniform in texture and therefore easy to apply evenly. Baking with table salt is also a dream: it dissolves in flour, which does not do kosher salt, so my dough and batter are always perfectly seasoned. Perhaps best of all, table salt is good enough to stick to buttered popcorn, which is extremely important to me on a personal level.
In general, if you need your salt to crumble or dissolve, table mixtures are kosher all day long. So it’s no surprise that table salt is a garbage-finishing salt, but kosher salt is, in my opinion. If I’m going to go the fancy salt route , I want Maldon or sel gris or something really special ; The diamond crystal just doesn’t cut it.
It’s cheaper
In my entire life, a can of Morton table salt has never cost more than a dollar, but I’ve watched the price of kosher salt rise steadily over the years. This is unlikely to be the only factor, but I suspect the explosive growth of the “serious chef culture” has prompted kosher salt suppliers to raise prices. Beloved by chefs the world over, Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt is by far the worst offender: depending on the seller, a three-pound box costs between three and eight dollars. (Jet sells it for almost twelve , which is absurd.) Morton Kosher Salt, at about $ 3 for a three-pound box, is much more affordable, but I can get a 26-ounce can of table salt in my wine cellar. for one American dollar.
In terms of price per ounce, you can assume that a tiny 26oz jar of salt is comparable to a large, large box. You’re wrong: Morton table salt costs four cents an ounce versus six Morton kosher ones, while Diamond Crystal kosher salt costs six to twenty-five cents an ounce. When you consider density, the cheaper product is even cheaper: Morton table salt is 25% denser than their own kosher salt, and more than twice as dense as Diamond Crystal. In other words, one meager teaspoon of table salt does the job of two rounded teaspoons of kosher Diamond Crystal, making a three-pound box much smaller.
It’s salty (well, sort of)
Sodium chloride is thirty-nine percent sodium by weight, period. No brand of salt contains less sodium than any other; differences in perceived salinity are actually differences in density. Table salt, which is denser than kosher salt, is generally considered saltier than its rougher counterparts.
Kosher salt aficionados describe table salt as “incredibly salty,” as if it were somehow bad. I just do not understand. Of course, the potent ingredients need some work, but because of their responsiveness, they are worth it. When I cooked exclusively with kosher salt, I find myself adding pinch by pinch to the dish, and I feel like nothing has changed – until I went too far. Table salt announces its presence loudly and immediately, which makes you really pay attention to what you are doing. For this reason alone, table salt made me a better cook.
I want to make something clear: if you prefer kosher salt, you are not wrong. But the smear campaign against table salt – which I would not call “fact-based” – went on for quite some time. The fine or coarse, iodized or kosher salts we choose are simply different means to achieve the same goal: food that tastes good. If you and your salt prefer to cook beautiful and delicious food together, this is all that really matters.