by Samin Nosrat
Read on to learn more about the nuances of blanching, braising, simmering, and poaching, in Heat.
DIFFUSION CALCULUS
The three most valuable tools to encourage salt diffusion are time, temperature, and water. Before setting out to cook—as you choose an ingredient, or a cooking method—ask yourself, “How can I season this from within?” Then, use these variables to plot out how far in advance—and how much—to salt your food or cooking water.
Time
Salt is very slow to diffuse. If you are cooking something big or dense and want to get salt into it, season the ingredient as early as possible to give salt the time to travel to the center.
Temperature
Heat stimulates salt diffusion. Salt will always diffuse more quickly at room temperature than in the fridge. Use this fact to your advantage when you’ve forgotten to salt your chicken or steak in advance. Pull the meat out of the fridge when you get home, salt it, and let it sit out while the oven or grill preheats.
Water
Water promotes salt diffusion. Use watery cooking methods to help salt penetrate dense, dry, and tough ingredients, especially if you don’t have time to season them in advance.
USING SALT
The British food writer Elizabeth David once said, “I do not even bother with a salt spoon. I am not able to see what is unmannerly or wrong with putting one’s fingers into the salt.” I agree. Get rid of the shaker, dump the salt in a bowl, and start using your fingers to season your food. You should be able to fit all five fingers into your salt bowl and easily grab a palmful of salt. This important—but often unsaid—rule of good cooking is so routine for professional cooks that when working in an unfamiliar kitchen, we instinctively hunt for containers to use as salt bowls. When pressed, I’ve even used coconut shells to hold salt. I once taught a class at the national cooking school in Cuba: the state-run kitchen was so barren that I ended up sawing plastic water bottles in half to use for holding salt and other garnishes. It got the job done.
Measuring Salt
Abandoning precise measurements when using salt requires an initial leap of faith. When I was first learning how to cook, I always wondered how I’d know when I’d added enough. I wondered how I’d avoid using way too much. It was discombobulating. And the only way to know how much salt to use was to add it incrementally and taste with each addition. I had to get to know my salt. With time, I learned that a huge pot of pasta water required three handfuls to start. I figured out that when I seasoned chickens for the spit, it should look like a light snowstorm had fallen over the butchering table. It was only with repetition and practice that I found these landmarks. I also found a few exceptions: certain pastry, brine, and sausage recipes where all of the ingredients are precisely weighed out don’t need constant adjusting. But I still salt every other thing I cook to taste.
The next time you’re seasoning a pork loin for roasting, pay attention to how much you use, and then take a moment when you take your first bite to consider if you got the seasoning right. If so, commit to memory the way the salt looked on the surface of the meat. If not, make a mental note to increase or decrease the amount of salt next time. You already possess the very best tool for evaluating how much salt to use—a tongue. Conditions in the kitchen are rarely, if ever, identical twice. Since we don’t use the same pot every time, or the same amount of water, the same size chicken or number of carrots, measurements can be tricky. Instead, rely on your tongue, and taste at every point along the way. With time, you’ll learn to use other senses to gauge how much salt to use—touch, sight, and common sense can be just as important as taste. The late, great Marcella Hazan, who authored the indispensable Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, could tell when a dish needed more salt by simply smelling it!
My general ratios for measuring salt are simple: 1 percent salt by weight for meats, vegetables, and grains, and 2 percent salinity for water for blanching vegetables and pasta. To see what these numbers translate to by volume for various salts, take a look at the chart on the next page. If using the amounts of salt I prescribe terrifies you, try a little experiment: set up two pots of water, and season one as you normally would. Season the other to 2 percent salinity, and note what it feels and looks like to use that much salt. Cook half of your green beans, broccoli, asparagus, or pasta in each pot of water, and compare the flavor when you eat them. I suspect the taste test will be enough to convince you to trust me.
Consider these ratios a starting point. Soon—maybe just after one or two pots of pasta—you’ll be able to judge how much salt is enough by trusting the way the grains feel as they fall from your palm and whether or not, upon tasting, you’re transported to the sea.
How to Salt
Once you realize how much salt it takes to season something properly, you might start to believe there’s no such thing as too much. This happened to me. I remember when a chef I particularly admired walked into the downstairs butchery room where I’d been sent to season pork roasts for the following night’s dinner. Having recently come to appreciate the power of salt, I decided that in order to cover the roasts evenly, I’d roll them in a huge bowl of salt to ensure that every surface was adequately coated. As she came down the stairs, her eyebrows shot up. I’d been using enough salt to cure the roasts for three years! They’d be completely inedible the next night. I spent the next twenty minutes rinsing the salt off the meat. Later, the chef showed me the proper hand grasp for distributing salt evenly on large surfaces.
I didn’t understand the nuances of the act of salting until I began paying attention to the various ways cooks used salt in different situations. There was the way we salted pots of water for blanching vegetables or pasta with near abandon, adding palmful after palmful, only to await its dissolution, lightly skimming a finger across the rolling boil, tasting thoughtfully, and more often than not, adding even more.
There was the way we seasoned trays of vegetables, lined up duck legs butchered for confit, even larger cuts of meat, and pans of focaccia ready for the oven. This was done by lightly grasping the salt in your upturned palm, letting it shower down with a wag of the wrist. This grasp—not the hovering pinch I was used to—was the way to distribute salt, flour, or anything else granular, evenly and efficiently over a large surface.
Practice the wrist wag in your own kitchen over a piece of parchment paper or on a cookie sheet. Get used to the way the salt falls from your hands; experience the illicit thrill of using so much of something that we’ve all been taught to fear.
First, dry your hands so the salt won’t stick to your skin. Grab a palmful of salt and relax. Jerky or robotic hand motions make for uneven salting. See how the salt lands. If it lands unevenly, then it means you’re seasoning your food unevenly. Pour the salt back into the bowl, and try again. The more your wrist flows, the more evenly the salt will land.
This isn’t to say that you never want to use a pinch of salt, which can be used like a nail-polish-size bottle of touch-up car paint to fix a scratch on a fender. It might not have much potential to repair major damage, but applied precisely and judiciously, it will yield flawless results. Use a pinch when you want to make sure each bite is salted just so: slices of avocado atop a piece of grilled bread, halved hard-cooked eggs, or tiny, perfect caramels. But try to attack a chicken or a tray of butternut squash slices with the pinch, and your wrist will give out long before you’re done.
Salt and Pepper
While it’s true that where there’s pepper there should almost always be salt, the inverse isn’t necessarily so. Remember, salt is a mineral and an essential nutrient. When salted, food undergoes a number of chemical reactions that change the texture and flavor of meat from within.
Pepper, on the other hand, is a spice, and proper spice usage is primarily guided by geography and tradition. Consider whether pepper belongs in a dish before you add it. Though French and Italian cooks make abundant use of black pepper, not everyone does. In Morocco, shakers of cumin are commonly set
on the table along with salt. In Turkey, it’s usually some form of ground chili powder. In many Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon and Syria, it’s the blend of dried thyme, oregano, and sesame seeds known as za’atar. In Thailand, sugar can be found alongside chili paste, while in Laos, guests are often brought fresh chilies and limes. It doesn’t make any more sense to automatically season everything with pepper than it would to add cumin or za’atar to every dish you cook. (To learn more about spices used around the world, refer to The World of Flavor.)
When you do use black pepper, look for Tellicherry peppercorns, which ripen on the vine longer than other varieties, and therefore develop more flavor. Grind them at the last moment onto a salad, a toast smeared with creamy burrata and drizzled with oil, sliced ripe tomatoes, Pasta Cacio e Pepe, or slices of perfectly cooked steak. Add a few whole peppercorns to a brine, braise, sauce, soup, stock, or pot of beans as you set it on the stove or slip it into the oven. In liquid, an early addition of whole spices initiates a flavor exchange: as the spices absorb liquid, they relinquish some of their volatile aromatic compounds, gently flavoring the liquid in a way that a little sprinkle at the end of cooking could never achieve.
Spices, like coffee, always taste better when ground just before use. Flavor is locked within them in the form of aromatic oils, which are released upon grinding, and again upon heating. The slow leak of time causes preground spices to relinquish flavor. Purchase whole spices whenever you can, and grind them with a mortar and pestle or spice grinder as you use them, to experience the powerful release of aromatic oils. You’ll be astonished by what a huge difference it makes in your cooking.
Salt and Sugar
Don’t abandon everything you know about salt when you turn to making dessert. We’re taught to think of salt and sugar existing in contrast to, rather than in concert with, one another: food is either sweet or savory. But remember that the primary effect salt has on food is to enhance flavor, and even sweets benefit from this boost. Just as a little sweetness can amplify flavors in a savory dish—whether in the form of caramelized onions, balsamic vinaigrette, or a spoonful of applesauce served with pork chops—salt will also improve a sweet dessert. To experience what salt does for sweets, divide your next batch of cookie dough and omit salt from half. Taste cookies from both batches side by side. Because salt will have done its aroma- and taste-enhancing work, you’ll be astounded by the notes of nuttiness, caramel, and butter you detect in the salted cookies.
The foundational ingredients of sweets are some of the blandest in the kitchen. Just as you’d never leave flour, butter, eggs, or cream unseasoned in a savory dish, so should you never leave them unseasoned in a dessert. Usually just a pinch or two of salt whisked into a dough, batter, or base is enough to elevate flavors in pie and cookie doughs, cake batters, tart fillings, and custards alike.
Considering how you plan to eat a dessert can help you decide which type, or types, of salt to use. For example, use fine salt that will dissolve evenly in chocolate cookie dough, and then top it with a flakier one such as Maldon for a pleasant crunch.
Layering Salt
From capers to bacon to miso paste to cheese, there are many sources of salt beyond the crystals we add directly into our food. Working more than one form of salt into a dish is what I call layering salt, and it’s a terrific way to build flavor.
When layering salt, think about the dish as a whole and consider all of the various forms of salt you hope to add before you begin. Neglecting to account for the later addition of a crucial salty ingredient could result in oversalting. Think of layering salt the next time you make Caesar Dressing, which has several salty ingredients—anchovies, Parmesan, Worcestershire sauce, and salt. Garlic, which I like to pound with a pinch of salt in a mortar and pestle into a smooth paste, is a fifth source of salt. Since making a delicious, balanced dressing depends on working in the right amounts of each of those—and other, unsalted—ingredients, refrain from adding salt crystals until you’re sure that you’ve added the right amount of everything else.
First, make a stiff, unsalted mayonnaise by whisking oil into egg yolks, drop by drop (find more specific instructions for making mayonnaise by hand). Next, work in initial amounts of pounded anchovies, garlic, grated cheese, and Worcestershire. Then, add vinegar and lemon. Taste. It will need salt. But does it also need more anchovy, cheese, garlic, or Worcestershire? If so, add salt in the form of any of those ingredients. But do it gradually, stopping to taste and adjust with acid as needed. It may take several rounds of tasting and adjusting to get it right. As with any dish with multiple forms of salt, add crystals only after you’re satisfied with the balance of all other flavors. And to be sure you’ve gotten it right, dip a lettuce leaf or two into the finished dressing to taste, to ensure that the combination delivers the zing! you’re after.
Even when following a recipe, if you realize that a dish needs more salt, take a moment to think about where that salt should come from.
Balancing Salt
No matter how attentive you are while cooking, there will be times you sit down to eat only to discover that you’ve underseasoned your dinner. Some foods forgive undersalting more readily than others. You can easily adjust a salad at the table with a pinch of salt. Stir a shaving of salty Parmesan into a cup of soup to bump up its seasoning. Other foods don’t respond as well: no amount of salty sauce or cheese or meat could ever make up for bland pasta—the tongue will always know the water was nowhere nearly as salty as the sea. Roasted and braised meats cannot pardon the transgression of underseasoning, either.
Ever since witnessing a series of underseasoning disasters at Chez Panisse, I’ve been obsessed with preventing it. There was the day a cook forgot to add salt to the pizza dough altogether, an accident we didn’t notice until the taster, when nothing could be done but remove pizza from the menu. There was the time I braised chicken legs that had been marked “salted” but clearly were not, a mistake that went undiscovered until I pulled the chicken from the oven and tasted it. Since sprinkling the surface of cooked meat will do little to make up for the lack of seasoning within, the only thing we could do was shred the meat, season it, and turn it into a ragù to be served with pasta. The instance of underseasoning that made the biggest impression on me, though, was the time a very senior cook undersalted his lasagna, which he had already cut into one hundred pieces for that night’s service. Since salting the top would do little to correct a mistake that had been made from within, as the intern I was given the task of gingerly lifting each of the twelve layers on each of the one hundred pieces of lasagna to sneak a few grains of salt into each one. After that, I’ve never underseasoned a lasagna.
You will also inevitably oversalt. We all do. It might happen soon after you become a member of the newly converted, now awakened to the power of salt. You might grow cavalier, like I did as a young cook with those pork roasts, and start to use so much salt, you render everything inedible for a while. It could happen when you’re simply not paying attention. It’s not that big a deal. We all make mistakes from time to time. I certainly still do.
There are a handful of fixes for oversalting. But none involves serving something terribly salty alongside something terribly bland. Intentional blandness won’t ever cancel out oversalting.
Dilute
Add more unseasoned ingredients to increase the total volume of the dish. More of anything that’s unsalted will work to balance out what’s salted, but bland, starchy, and rich things are particularly helpful in these circumstances, because just a small amount of them can help balance out a relatively large amount of food. Add bland rice or potatoes to an overseasoned soup, or olive oil to an oversalted mayonnaise. While water evaporates from a boiling soup, stock, or sauce, salt won’t, and what’s left behind will be overly salty. The solution here is simple: add more water or stock. If you overseason a dish made with many ingredients mixed together, add more of the main ingredient and adjust everything else until it’s all balanced ag
ain.
Halve
If you’ve already put the dish together and diluting will yield more food than you’ll be able to use, then divide the oversalted amount and correct only half of it. Depending on what it is, you may be able to refrigerate or freeze the rest until you can get around to adjusting and using it. Or, you might have to face the sad reality of throwing it out. But that’s better than using thirty dollars’ worth of olive oil to correct a batch of mayonnaise, and then only using a quarter of it.
Balance
Sometimes, food that seems salty isn’t actually oversalted; it just needs to be balanced with some acid or fat. Doctor up a spoonful of the dish with a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar, a little olive oil, or some of each. If it tastes better, then apply the changes to the whole batch.
Select
Foods cooked in liquid, such as beans or braises, can often be salvaged if the salty cooking liquid is discarded. If beans are too salty, change out the water. Make refried beans or turn the beans, but not their liquid, into soup, adding unseasoned broth and vegetables. If braised meat is just a little too salty, serve it without the liquid and try to balance it with a rich, acidic condiment such as crème fraîche. Serve a lightly seasoned starch or starchy vegetable alongside it to act as a foil.