The Use of Salt

Salting your food is very important for many reasons. It enhances the flavor of your foods as well as creating levels of flavor when other herbs and spices are added as well.

Salt will draw the moisture out of vegetables and will also draw out the sugars causing onions and carrots, for example, to taste sweeter, especially when sautéed.

Remember that when you’re making a recipe, you’re starting with separate elements that will come together as a whole. If you salt one element to taste, and add another, which is unsalted, the end result will be altered. Salting as you go is important, but you need to remember to consider what your end product will be and the components of your recipe; for example:

In one of our first classes, you learned about white sauces. You start with equal amounts of butter and flour. “Cook off” your flour and start adding liquids. You may “thin” your sauce with some kind of stock, milk or cream, depending on what the end use will be. If you’re making a cheese sauce, you’ll be adding cheese at some point. You must consider this:

If you use unsalted butter and salt free stock, milk or cream, you’ll need to add salt to your sauce, however, if you’re using salted butter and bullion to thin your sauce, there is quite a bit of salt already in your recipe. If you then add something like Parmesan cheese, which is more salty, you definitely don’t want to add salt along the way. Think of the ingredients you’re using in a recipe. This will give you a good indication of how much you want to salt your recipe along the way. You may have several different components; consider each component and how it affects the whole. There’s nothing wrong with salting at the end, but you’ll need to add salt slowly, taste and allow the food to cook a little to allow the flavors to blend, then re-taste.

I think that salting along the way is a good thing, it actually will enable you to use much less salt at the table, however, always remember that “less is more”. Don’t loose sight of the end results and what ingredients are contributing to the whole.