Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Samin Nosrat

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      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-boiled 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 flavour 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 chilli 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 chilli paste, while in Laos, guests are often brought fresh chillies 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 Flavour here.)

      When you do use black pepper, look for Tellicherry peppercorns, which ripen on the vine longer than other varieties, and therefore develop more flavour. 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 flavour exchange: as the spices absorb liquid, they relinquish some of their volatile aromatic compounds, gently flavouring 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. Flavour 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 flavour. 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 savoury. But remember that the primary effect salt has on food is to enhance flavour, and even sweets benefit from this boost. Just as a little sweetness can amplify flavours in a savoury dish—whether in the form of caramelised 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 savoury 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 flavours 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 flavour.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ