In this episode of Bending the Spoon, entitled All About Salt, Chef Laura talks all aspects of the fascinating and exalted staple, salt.

Bio: With over 13 years of professional cooking experience with her meal delivery and catering business and restaurant, Chef Laura founded Bonicelli Cooking Club in 2018. Chef Laura brings professional cooking techniques, knowledge, great recipes, and inspiration to home cooks and food lovers everywhere. She is known for her love, support, and advocacy for local, organic, and well-sourced food, and her expertise in navigating dietary preferences and issues. Chef Laura has a cookbook coming out in the Spring of 2023.

Timestamps

• [00:00] - Intro
• [0:51] - Salt - where it comes from - why it's important
• [05:27] - Featured ingredient
• [06:54] - Finishing salts
• [08:48] - Tip of the week
• [010:26] - How to use salt in cooking
• [13:18] - Processed foods and recommendations

Key Takeaways

• where does salt come from
• featured ingredient
• types of salt - base - finishing
• health benefits
• health issues
• salts role in flavoring food
• how to use salt
• Top Tool

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Links mentioned in the episode:

Bonicelli Cooking Club

Bonicelli YouTube

Maldon Sea Salt

Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

In the next episode of Bending the Spoon, "All About Acid", I'll continue to talk about manipulating the flavor of food. We'll explore the what, why, and how acids are used in cooking. Think - Lemon juice, vinegar, wine. I'll give you some of my favorite methods for using them and resources for buying them.

All about salt.

Salt is a seasoning you literally can't live without.

I'm going to tell you all about this fascinating and exalted staple that

everyone has in their cabinet and much, much more today on bending the spoon.

But before we get to that, I'd like to remind you that if you like recipes, go

to Bonicelli cooking club.com and sign up for my email list and check out all

of the options of participating in the club.

And if you like what you hear today, hop over to Podchaser.com and leave

bending the spoon, a positive review.

Also, for the video version of this podcast, subscribe to

Bonicelli Cooking Club on YouTube.

Now let's talk about salt.

Salt is the only seasoning that I can think of

that your body actually needs.

In fact, you can't live without it.

It has the power to manipulate flavor in such a unique way.

It enhances flavor.

The right amount is truly perfection.

Now, if you search the internet, you'll find sources that recommend

between 3000 to 6,000 milligrams of salt, aka sodium per day.

But the U S D A recommends a daily allowance at 2,400 milligrams per day.

For reference, one teaspoon of salt is roughly 6,000 milligrams,

so you're really allowed about half a teaspoon of salt per day.

Yikes, right?

Many raw ingredients contain salt, like a couple of spinach has 27.3

milligrams of salt, a medium size 42.1.

Even an apple has 1.8 milligrams of salt.

So you can see it adds up really quickly.

But let's talk about what salt actually is.

Salt is actually a mineral sodium chloride.

To be specific, it's essential to your bodies for maintaining

blood pressure and carrying out many of our biological processes.

Our bodies don't store it.

We naturally crave it for just that reason.

American food manufacturers figured out years ago that adding huge amounts

of salt to processed and fast foods would make people crave more food

so they could sell more product.

This is how powerful salt is.

We use salt in so many ways.

It is a great preservative.

It melts snow and ice, it enhances, brings out the flavor of food, as I said.

So salt stands alone.

It is not a spice, but often referred to as a seasoning.

Now, the term season with salt is so often used because it has

the power to manipulate flavor.

The right amount of salt sprinkled in just the right amount can

completely change a dish.

Its purpose is not to make your food salty.

Its purpose is to amplify the flavor of whatever you put it on.

I want you to try this at home.

Take a piece of chocolate or even a few chocolate chips.

Good.

Eat that!

Right, chocolate is good.

Now sprinkle another piece of chocolate or your chips with a little bit of sea salt.

Now taste that.

Once your taste buds detect the salt, that chocolate gets really chocolatey.

As far as where salt comes from, all salt comes from oceans or seas.

Sea salt is whatever's left when sea water evaporates.

Rock salt is mined underground from ancient seas.

Salt comes in many different forms, and most chefs and cooks are very,

very particular about what they use.

The saltiness in a teaspoon of one salt, say kosher salt

versus a teaspoon of another.

Say coarse sea salt can vary greatly because of the size of the grain,

so your teaspoon of kosher salt may be two or even three times

saltier than a coarser grain salt.

This even applies to just Kosher salt.

There are two brands of Kosher salt only on the market these days.

Morton and Diamond Crystal.

Morton, Kosher Salt has very small crystals and is very dense while Diamond

Crystal has larger hollow flakes.

So a teaspoon of Morton Kosher salt is nearly twice as salty

as Diamond Crystal Kosher salt.

I use Diamond Crystal.

That's my base salt in the kitchen.

It dissolves really nicely.

I use it in baking and cooking, and I use it as my default salt unless

something else is specified in a recipe.

I like the fact that it is less salty because the one thing I am very

sure of is, so you can always add salt, but you can't take it away.

Beyond Kosher salt as my base salt.

There are just like in olive oils, finishing salts.

They have larger crystals and don't dissolve as readily

as Kosher or fine sea salt.

The size of the salt crystal is determined by how the salt is processed sometimes

and generally by some sort of evaporation.

Taking, for example, Malden Sea salt, Malden sea salt is harvested

and processed in the English town of Malden in Essex, England.

There's a link in the show notes to buy Malden sea salt

and Diamond Crystal Kosher salt.

Malden sea salt is my favorite.

I have it on hand always.

It's my finishing salt and sits on the table every day beyond white sea salt,

like my kosher salt and Malden salt.

There are naturally colored salts.

Their color and taste reflect their distinctive place of origin.

We'll talk more about that in a minute, but right now it's time

for our featured ingredient.

This week's featured ingredient.

No, it's not salt, it's its friendly counterpart.

Pepper.

Pepper corns, along with salt are the most used spice in the world.

Black, white, red and green pepper corns are all fruits of

a climbing green evergreen vine.

There are two main varieties hailing from India's Malibar

Coast, Tellicherry and Malibar.

The variety in color and flavor comes from being harvested at different

times and handled in different ways.

Pink peppercorns are not true peppercorns.

They're the fruit of a Brazilian pepper tree.

Black peppercorns considered a staple in most cooking with a

ary being considered the best.

White peppercorns

Often maligned and considered weak.

Properly processed white pepper corns impart a delicate heat

and earthy quality to dishes.

Red pepper corns, don't confuse them with pink pepper.

Corns.

Red pepper corns are very expensive and rarely included in a pepper corn mix.

They're sweet and light.

Green

peppercorns sometimes sold in brine.

Green peppercorns carry no heat, but in part an herby flavor.

They can be included whole in dishes because they break down easily.

It's best to buy peppercorns whole from a reputable dealer and grind

them yourself as needed because ground peppercorns lose their freshness quickly.

So buy in small quantities, use as needed store in a cool, dry place away from.

In an airtight container.

Getting into finishing salts in an obsessive way is pretty easy to do.

I have a whole drawer dedicated just to salt.

I'll chat through some of my favorites, grey sea salt is so gorgeous.

The one I have in my drawer right now is from French Brittany, Which

is well-known for its grey salt.

It's hand harvested and contain some natural iodine.

Now you're probably familiar with pink Himalayan, sea salt.

It has become very popular and is readily available.

It's mined in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains.

There's also another pink salt from Peru, which is harder to come by.

Himalayan salt is mined in blocks and they even sell the blocks.

You've probably seen them in stores.

For cooking on they're recommended for everything from

meats to vegetables and fish.

The blocks impart the minerals from the salt, as you're cooking

on them, the darker, the color, the salt, the more minerals it contains.

It has this wonderful, sweet quality.

Because of the high mineral content, it's also considered to

be very beneficial for health.

Now another favorite of mine is Hawaiian Alaea sea salt.

Alaea is a volcanic clay filled with 80 kinds of minerals.

It has a high iron content and you can really taste the clay.

It's almost earthy.

Well, it is earthy

in the quality it's wonderful for finishing fish and a

great addition to marinades.

Now other colored salts that I love, um, black rock salt, which is created

through contact with volcanic charcoal and activated carbon underground.

It's just wonderful on vegetables like asparagus, it looks like sparkly pepper.

And blue salt sometimes called Fossil Salt because it was made a million years

ago and endured such intense pressure underground that it fractures light,

making it look like a blue glacier.

It's also called edible Sapphire.

It's very expensive and just beautiful.

This week's tip of the week is salt your eggplant.

I've read a lot about why people salt their eggplant.

Some of the reasons are removing bitterness.

It helps it to cook evenly and really starts the process of cooking, or

even their mother told them to do it.

Now I usually do salt my eggplant and then I let it sit for at

least 20 minutes before I.

Why do I do it?

Well, first of all, let me say that I love eggplant if it's cooked properly,

and that means cooked all the way through.

Salting and then letting the eggplant sit draws out the water and you can see it

on the surface after about 10 minutes.

And that process really does help the eggplant cook evenly and bonus, it absorbs

less oil if you're cooking it in oil.

Eggplant is like a sponge for oil.

Drawing out some of the moisture helps the eggplant cook in the oil instead of

sucking up the oil and asking for more.

Salt your eggplant, and that is your tip of the week

You are listening to Bending the Spoon, the podcast dedicated

to making you a better cook.

I'm Chef Laura Bonicelli, and I want to remind you that if you like recipes, go

to Bonicelli cooking club.com and sign up for my email list and check out all of

the options of participating in the club.

And if you like what you hear today,

hop over to Podchaser.com and leave bending the spoon of positive review.

Also, for the video version of this podcast, subscribe to

Bonicelli Cooking Club on YouTube.

Now back to our episode.

Draws out the moisture.

Well, that comes in handy.

I must say, that technique, by the way, is not just confined to eggplant.

I often make cooked but actually uncooked zucchini noodles by tossing them in

salt for 20 to 30 minutes, and then I rinse them and use them like regular

noodles with a sauce or in salads..

No heat, but let's talk more about using salt.

We are talking about cooking right now, not baking.

The most important thing to remember is that less is more.

You can always add salt, but you can't take it away.

Once you've put the kosher salt in the sauce, it's in the sauce.

I think that seasoning with.

It makes a lot of sense.

So let's say I'm making a basic tomato marara sauce.

I have my mirepoix or in Italian, my sofritto sauteing, and I

may sprinkle a little salt in.

To the mirepoix, just to bring up the flavor a little bit.

Then I'll add my tomatoes, which if they're fresh, I will probably add

a little salt at that point too.

But if there canned tomatoes, , they may have added salt.

So I'll, I'll probably hold off always tasting to see where I'm at.

And at that point, there are other things that are going to go in like herbs and.

, I know that the sauce is going to change dramatically while it's

simmering over the next hour.

So I let it simmer for that hour, and then I taste it again.

Then I may decide to simmer it a little longer and add a little more salt,

or I may think it's perfect and done.

I promise I'll taste it again before I serve it, and it's quite likely that

I'll put a sprinkle, a finishing sea salt on each serving to give it that little

zing of flavor enhancement and a little.

I always take into account the fact that I may add finishing salt when

I'm done, so I take that into account while I'm cooking the sauce so I

don't end up with it over salted.

well, we've talked a lot about salt, and of course there are grinders out there

for salt and for pepper, but I often use very small amounts of salt and.

Some of them like this, Himalayan Sea Salt have very large granules, too

large, even for a finishing salt, so I need to grind them up just a little bit.

Now, for the most part, with all spices, I grind them when I'm going to use them.

And here is what I use.

This is called a ciba.

A soba is a Japanese ceramic mortar and pastel used for grinding.

They come in all sorts of sizes, and even though they're ceramic,

they are very durable and they are.

Inexpensive.

There are grooves on the inside that help with the grinding process.

Now this little one I use for is small amounts of spices and salt and often

grind garlic for dressings and pesto.

You can find a link to learn more on my beneville site.

beneville.com/chef Laura.

Processed food is often off the charts and sodium levels.

And I have to believe Many health issues could be avoided by not

eating processed or fast food at all.

Another reason to cook at home.

I do think that a sprinkle of sea salt on top of a chocolate cookie or brownie

or on berries with balsamic vinegar.

Is always welcome.

But only if your health professional agrees.

As I said earlier, I use Diamond Crystal, Kosher salt for baking and

as my base salt for everything else.

And if I had to pick a finishing salt that I couldn't live without,

it would definitely be Maldon.

I like that.

Poppy crunch that it has, as far as storing salt, salt should

be stored in a cool dry place in a sealed jar or container.

And the good news is it lasts for ever.

And it doesn't denigrate unless of course it gets wet.

So look for links in the show notes to my bendable site, where you can see

my salt in many other recommendations.

In next week's podcast, we're going to continue to talk about

manipulating flavor in food.

We'll be discussing acids used in cooking.

Think.

Lemon juice, vinegars wine.

Till then.

Thank you so very much for listening to this

episode of Bending the Spoon.

If you like this episode or if you think someone else would find it useful, please

leave a review on pod chaser.com, and if you have any questions for me, find me

on Instagram or YouTube or go to bonelli cooking club.com and leave me a message.

Thank you, and go and make some magic in your kitchen.