Dear Eric: Recipes sometimes call for a specific salt — sea salt, kosher salt, just salt, etc. What is the difference and does it affect the finished product? I normally just have plain salt and/or sea salt in the cupboard.
Iris
When growing up in the 1960s, the only salt I remember my mom having in the house was white, fine-grained, in a glass shaker and at the ready on the dining room table to flavour things.
Move ahead to 2015, in my own home, and that has certainly changed.
Before writing this, I checked my cupboards and discovered I currently have 18 types of salt on hand. If I was even more of a salt nut, I could probably fill my cupboards with dozens more.
Salt has gone totally gourmet and there are numerous companies producing specialty salts of all kinds.
I can’t write about them all, so what I’ve decided to do for Iris is to break culinary salt into five categories. They should help her decide what types of salt to sprinkle, shake or mix into the foods she’s preparing.
Fine-grained salt
This product, often referred to as table salt, for decades only seemed to come in boxes with a pouring spout on the side, is produced from mined salt and is iodized.
As I wrote in a previous story on salt, according to the American Thyroid Association (thyroid.org), before the 1920s, iodine deficiency — which can lead to enlargement of the thyroid and other ailments — was common in many parts of North America. The association says treatment of iodine deficiency by the introduction salt with a small amount of iodine added virtually eliminated the problem.
You can, of course, still by boxes of fine-grained, mined salt, such as Windsor brand, but in every supermarket, you can now also buy containers of fine-grained sea salt.
To me, both these types of fine-grained salt are “everyday” kinds of salt —something you could use to season a roast or your morning eggs.
Fine-grained salt is also good for dishes in which you want the salt to completely dissolve, such as soups, stews or doughs and batters for baked goods.
With regard to baked goods such as sweets, I would only use fine-grained sea salt that has a neutral flavour, not one from where the ocean has given the salt a particularly strong taste that might not complement the cake you are making, for example.
Coarse salt
Coarse in this salt’s name is a reference to how the salt, whether from a land or sea source, was ground into jagged crystals.
Types of coarse salt include pickling salt, which is mined salt that has no added preservatives or free-flowing agents that could affect what you’re pickling or brining, such as by discolouring it.
You can buy all sorts of coarse sea salt. These types of salts can be used to season things that will look more appealing with salt visible on the surface. A few examples of that are foccacia bread, pretzels, roasted nuts and roasts.
If a recipe calls for coarse salt and you use the same amount of fine-grained salt instead, you will end up with something way too salty. That’s because jagged, coarse salt doesn’t compact in a measuring spoon the same way fine-grained salt does.
Kosher salt
This is a mined or sea salt composed of irregular-shaped crystals that’s so named because of its use in Jewish food preparations. Authentic kosher salt will have been certified that it meets the guidelines of kosher outlined by Jewish law.
Many cooks, no matter what their faith, also like to use this salt because of its delicate and flaky texture and less-refined taste. For example, in a recent book by celebrity New York chef Marcus Samuelsson, called Marcus Off Duty: The Recipes I Cook at Home, he uses kosher salt in every recipe I saw, even cookies.
If you don’t have kosher salt at home and a recipe calls for it, unless it’s for texture reason, you could use fine-grained salt in its place. If you do, just remember that a teaspoon of kosher salt, because of its texture, is lighter than one teaspoon of fine-grained salt, so you won’t have to add quite as much of the latter.
Seasoned salt
This product, whether sourced from land or sea, fine grained or coarse, is blended with flavourings such as herbs, spices, citrus zest and dried vegetables. I would also put smoked salt into this category because it is salt whose flavour has been seasoned by the type of wood its been smoked with.
Seasoned salts are a handy item to keep in the kitchen because they can be sprinkled on many foods and, often, no other flavourings are required.
The flavour of the seasoned salt will determine how to use it. For example, Cajun-spiced salt is great for foods you want to have a spicy kick, such as prawns, snapper or wings. Smoked salt is nice to sprinkle on salmon fillets, ribs or other food that will benefit by the addition of a smoky taste.
Finishing salt
According to the website of an American sea salt company called Saltworks (saltworks.us), finishing salts are the premier varieties of specialty salts. It says they are harvested generally by hand in specific regions of the world. The latter includes our shores, where companies such as Vancouver Island Salt Company (visaltco.com) are producing some great products, such as Canadian fleur de sel.
Two of the many other types of finishing salts you’ll find are pink-hued Murray River sea salt from Australia, and sel gris, grey sea salt from the Brittany region of France.
Saltworks notes that finishing salts are most admired for their unique textures, which are usually either moist crystals or delicate flakes.
You can use these salts to flavour a range of dishes before cooking, but because they are often expensive, I like to use them in the way their name suggests. That is, for example, to have a dish of this type of salt on my dining table at the ready to sprinkle on and provide a finishing touch to a perfectly cooked steak or ripe slice of tomato. Finishing salts are also great to sprinkle on refined sweets, such as fine chocolates or caramels.
Eric Akis is the author of The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook (Appetite by Random House). His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
