Different types of salt. When should you use kosher, sea, iodized or rock salt?
sea salt
I like salt, and I hate bland food, and I fear the day some doctor ever tells me to cut back. Salt is flavor and without a judicious but appropriate amount of salt in our food, we never realize the true potential of even the most inspired combination of ingredients.
I don’t eat much processed food though, so I’ll probably do all right; as it's hard to consume too much salt when you control its addition, and only when you rely on prepackaged and long preserved foods do you risk really exceeding your daily recommended allotment.
Salt is pretty important, but while most of us make do with standard iodized table salt for the majority of seasoning needs, there do exist a number of other varieties of salt well suited to other purposes…and some of this salt can get pretty expensive! The most important step to better food is simply using the right amount of salt; but there may be some occasions when you may want to consider a specialty salt.
Different kinds of salt
Table salt…this is a fine grained salt used by most of us in salt shakers and in our home kitchens. This salt is pretty neutral in flavor and dissolves quickly in warm water. Table salt also contains anti caking additives, which make it flow nicely even in humid weather, and iodine for health reasons.
Kosher salt…Kosher salt is simply salt free from additives. Kosher salt can be finely grained or slightly larger, and is most often used by home cooks in canning or meat brines. The lack of additives makes for clearer brines, and does not impart any unwanted additive flavors over long preservations. When making pickles or curing ham…you'll probably want to reach for the kosher salt.
Sea salt…sea salt is harvested after piping sea water onto a flat field, allowing the sun to evaporate the water, and collecting the salt that remains. Sea salt is often prized by cooks as it offers are more complex taste. Sea salt contains additional fine deposits of other minerals which accounts for its varied and complex taste. The area from where the salt is harvested, and the mineral properties of the water in that location, affect the flavor. Sea salt can come both finely grained or more granular in nature.
Fleur de sell…very expensive sea salt from the northern Atlantic coast of France. The slightly gray salt from this reason is complex and elemental in nature and very prized…the fleur de sell is the very top of the evaporated salt layer, and is comprised of flake like crystals of salt, perfect for sprinkling on a great steak after cooking. The texture and crunch of this pricy sea salt is as prized as the taste.
Industrial or rock salt…salt sold in large crystals, not processed and full of impurities, this salt is normally used as road salt, ice cream machine salt, etc.
Other sea salts…there are salts of varying hues harvested from all of the world's oceans, and they all offer a subtle difference in taste.
Some of the better sea salts are very expensive, and although many chefs swear by them, when used as dissolved within food taste tests have failed to notice any distinction or discernable difference. When sprinkled on food table side though, you can taste and feel the difference.
Would You Pay More for "Fancy" Salt
- The difference between cake flour, all purpose flour...
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that cake flour is good for cake, and bread flour is good for…wait for it…Bread! But why, and why do some all purpose flours seem to... - thinking more about salt
Comments
You are blessing to people like me trying to learn something from people like you . Thank you so much for the effort of research you made .
GOOD INFORMATION!
helped alot thanks.
thanks!!!helped alot for project!!!!
Nice
France is not the only place where fleur de sel is harvested. Cyprus, U.K., Portugal, Spain and others also collect this great salt. Ever tried Portuguese fleur de sel?
what is GAY about talking about salt? I think someone doth protest too much.... LOL
We enjoy grinding salt from our salt grinder, but we would like to replace the specialty rock salt with iodized rock salt. Know how we can get it?
This is an eye opener for me. I did not even know there were several types of salt. From where I come from, I only two types - rock salt and iodized salt. lol. Thanks!
Have a science fair and need to know how does table salt differ from other salts?
is there a difference in the sodium content between the variety of salts (i.e. table, sea, kosher)
Thak you very much for your investigation about the salt it help me with a program that i had in my church about this topic and your website help me a lot. Thaks once again and made the Lord who create the salt bless you.
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There is actually a HUGE difference between cooking salts and road salt!!! Cooking salt is NaCl or sodium chloride and road salts are CaCl or calcium chloride!!
why did u make this page so gay?????
what is the difference between all of these salts and like road salt
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