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Cookery 101: Salts
Posted By CindyP On June 18, 2011 @ 1:03 am In Blog,Cookery 101,Ingredients | 6 Comments
Another main ingredient in cooking and baking! Salt–or Sodium Chloride! Salt, salt, salt…as with everything there is on this earth, there are debates on sodium intake–if a high-sodium intake is harmful to you or if a low-sodium diet is harmful to you. Salt is needed in your body for it to function properly. But, of course, that is between you and your doctor. For me, it’s all about moderation–too much of anything is bad for you! Well, maybe not. I’m sure there’s something I’m not getting enough of 🙂
There are so many salts to choose from. Many can be substituted for another, but each has its own benefits. There isn’t much in the way of make-your-own substitutions with salts, just substituting one for another.
Salt is the world’s oldest food additive. It enhances other tastes–sweets taste sweeter, bitter tastes are masked (like chocolate or broccoli!)–and has played an important part in economic, religious, and warfare history as well as in foods. Did you know the word “salary” comes from salt? Roman salarium is linked to “worth their salt”.
There are refined and unrefined salts. What we eat is mostly refined. Completely raw sea salt is bitter because of magnesium and calcium compounds, so it is rarely eaten, but used in bath and cosmetics (bath salts, for example) for its magnesium and calcium benefits.
Chemically there is little difference. They all contain 97.5% sodium chloride; however, the larger the grain, the smaller amount of sodium chloride in a given tablespoon or teaspoon. These days, salts come from all over the world, in many hues and crystal forms and textures, the difference being from where and how it’s harvested and processed. It’s used not only for taste, but for texture in baking breads and tenderizing meats, for preserving by protecting against micro-organisms which slows or prevents spoiling, and for fermenting and pickling.
Substitute: Grind your favorite salt in a spice grinder until a very fine powder. You can add any spices you’d like right in with the salt at the same time.
Substitute: A large, coarse-grained Kosher salt.
Coarse Kosher Salt
Substitute: A coarse, non-iodized (make sure there are no additives) Table or Pickling/Canning Salt.
Flaked Sea Salt
Substitute: Kosher Salt can be substituted for Pickling/Canning Salt. For those brands that add the anti-caking agent–this agent doesn’t cause the pickles to turn dark or cloud the liquid as table salt does.
Substitute: A medium-size grained Kosher or Pickling/Canning Salt.
Most salts can just be stored in the container you buy them in, in a cool, dry place, far from any sources of heat or sun light and in a container that can be well closed after each use.
P.S. (pre-Suzanne and this wonderful site!), that’s exactly how I did it. I only bought iodized table salt with the metal pour spout–had no use for anything else. Most of my sodium intake was from processed foods, I didn’t have use for pickling salt (or to even know I could substitute my kosher salt, if I had any, for it), baking was limited, bread-making was just a memory of my Mom’s Sunday activity. The only use I had for that pour spout was to pour it into the salt shaker in the middle of the table.
NOW! While we don’t use a lot of salt here, I do use table salt for baking, coarse kosher salt for making pretzels, canning salt for pickling and making cheese, popcorn salt for a special treat sometimes, and a flaked kosher salt in the salt shaker. All of them (except the salt for the shaker and the popcorn salt) are stored in my green Ball jars. It’s much easier to stick a measuring spoon in or pour into a cup.
I also add a few grains of rice to the salt shaker since it’s open to the air. This is also, along with having a flaked salt in the shaker, my way of “putting one over on” John, who is on a sodium-restricted diet per the doctor. He shakes the salt shaker 5 times. Always 5 times. No matter if there was a fine salt or a coarser salt. 5 times. Having rice and a larger grain of salt makes his added salt waaay less. His sodium levels are great, says the doc.
John’s sodium restriction has been one of the reasons I’ve researched and experimented with so many substitutions. By knowing the different salts, it really helps me to keep all of our restrictions in check but still enjoy some of the “saltiness” that we love.
The salt substitutions have been updated to the Emergency Substitutions.
Cindy blogs at Chippewa Creek ~ Our Life Simplified. Do you have a recipe post or kitchen-related story to share on the Farm Bell blog? See Farm Bell Blog Submissions for information, and to submit a post.
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