In Praise of Salt
If 70.8 percent of the Earth is covered by the oceans, and if we consider the fact that salt is also present in some mountains around the globe, it seems safe to say that salt is everywhere, even if it was at one time, unevenly distributed. In the olden days, salt was extremely precious. There is a common belief that it was used as a currency to pay Roman soldiers and that in fact it is where the word “salary” originates from. Nowadays, it is more available and every household has at least a container of salt in the cupboard.
Salt is also heavily charged with symbolism. In Semitic cultures for example, salt and bread have been associated in order to seal an alliance. It is a tradition that Jewish people around the world are still honouring during shabbat when family and friends share challah bread dipped in salt. Salt is also used ritually to purify. Sumo wrestlers in Japan spread salt over the ring to purify it before a combat as part of the sumo wrestling ritual. In certain cultures, it is also believed that accidentally knocking down a salt shaker on the dining table is bad luck. In France, people throw salt over their left shoulder to ward it off — a practice inherited from Ancient Greece.
Talking about salt shaker on the dining table, many of us hardly pay a thought to when we add salt to our food and how many of us have found ourselves mindlessly grabbing the shaker and giving it a few shakes over our food before even tasting it? But in fact, the taste of our food changes so much depending on when salt is added to our food.
For Paul Pairet, Chef de cuisine and Founder of the 3-Michelin starred Ultraviolet, the acclaimed Mr & Mrs Bund and the newly opened Polux in Shanghai, there is absolutely zero room for chance. Every dish is precisely seasoned in terms of the quantity of salt, the kind of salt he chooses, the sequence and the timing it is added in order to achieve consistency in taste and his exacting standard for perfection. For his famous short-ribs teriyaki, Chef Pairet cooks the short-ribs seasoned ahead with a brine solution at low temperature. Salt slowly dissolves into the meat — otherwise the meat would taste tepid, I was told. When the meat is cooked he adds the final salt seasoning to enhance the taste.
So what if you are not a chef but you want to use salt in the best way to bring out the optimal taste of your dish?
First, consider the kind of salt you want to use. Refined salt (97.5 percent sodium chloride) is often mixed with anti-caking and other additives. It has a pure, brilliant white look and is a “lifeless” produce made for long-shelf life. Most of the time, refined salt is iodised, which helps fight goiter, a disease provoked by a deficit in iodine. Most table salts are refined salts.
Some people though prefer the more natural unrefined salt for reasons of taste or health. And here are a few that are worthy of our attention:
Fleur de sel — known in Europe since Ancient Greece, “flower of salt” is a salt that forms at the tip of sea waves when it evaporates and is hand-harvested. It’s a great finishing salt and some of the most appreciated are Sel de Guérande (France) and Flor del sal (Portugal).
Himalayan salt — originated from Punjab (Pakistan), it is made out of salt rocks and retains a pretty pink colour from mineral impurities (mostly iron). It adds an aesthetic touch on dishes as a finishing salt.
Kosher salt (semi-refined) — kosher salt is not a religious salt per se, but its coarse-grained texture provides the best result when it comes to purifying the meat in the Jewish religion. It also has a purer flavour due to the lack of additive and is often used for seasoning of meats and raw vegetables.
Moshio — not as widely known, moshio is a Japanese salt harvested from seaweed. In a humid and wet country like Japan, where it is almost impossible to harvest salt from salt pounds using solar evaporation, salt farmers harvest sea salt from Hondawara seaweed to produce one of the finest sea salts.
In addition to picking your salt, it is important to consider the timing of when salt is added in the cooking process.
For instance, you should always season meat before cooking it. When you are boiling vegetables or meat, you should add salt at the beginning of the process and use only coarse salt, since it dissolves and can penetrate the ingredients rapidly. If you want to adjust the flavour of food that is already cooked, using fine sea salt as a finishing salt is a great option. And finally, salting raw vegetables in advance (say for a salad) will extract the juice and flavours out of them and will enhance the taste of your dish.
Here is a simple recipe to help (re)discover the beauty of salt:
Serves four.
Sprinkle sea salt abundantly on four large tomatoes, use tomatoes in season.
Rest for five minutes.
Add olive oil liberally, ideally cold pressed Sicilian olive oil for its strong and nutty taste. Basil-infused olive oil would do nicely too.
Optional ingredient: Greek feta cheese.
Serve at room temperature for best effect.
Besides using salt to season, you can also use it to cook. The principle is straightforward. It is all about smothering an ingredient(meat or fish) in a salt crust. During the cooking process the ingredient “sweats” with the heat and in turn makes the crust hard. The end result if done well, is mind-blowing: the flavours are intensified, the texture of the food are soft and succulent, best of all, the nutrients are kept intact.
Typically, coarse salt is used to make the salt crust but flour or egg white could be mixed into the salt. The sacred rule here is quantity; you will need a lot of salt in order to create the crust.
Here is a book where you can find a recipe by Joël Robuchon using salt crust that is well worth trying:
With that recipe from one of the most iconic French chefs of the 20th century you will be sure to impress your guests.
