Ep 1: Feeling Salty: Salt Matters!
We're talking salt today! Don't know the difference between table and kosher, or Morton's or Diamond Crystal? I'm here to help!
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Thank you so much for joining me on the initial episode, the introductory episode, the start of the whole thing with me. In my empty nest kitchen. I am so thrilled to be launching this podcast and I'm even more thrilled to have you joining me. So each week what we're going to do is we're going to bring some fun food into the equation. We're going to try to teach you a little something and be here for your questions.
I'll do a little Q and A at the end. If you have a question, you can send it on it. But let's talk about today because today. Feeling salty. So there's a lot of conversation lately about salt, and the New York times actually had an article last month. Big article on salt, how it's produced, what you're looking for.
All sorts of good stuff. And in this article, they talk about all of these different types of salts. Now when I was younger and more foolish, I would want to have every kind of salt available to me. And let me tell you, if you are looking for something cool, like you really want to up your salt game, your local home goods is a place to do it because you are going to find all sorts of types of salts from the pink Himalayan.
Gosh, I'd love a pink salt. To love a salt to any number of things, if you want to feel fancy, find something different and get a good price on it I recommend shopping your local home goods. Bye. I'm older, I'm wiser. And I've been teaching, cooking for a long time. So I have narrowed it down simply to two salts that I want to have on hand.
And they each have really different functions. So let's talk about the first one. Let's get it all together. Everybody knows that recipes now call for kosher salt. All right. Kosher salt is going to have a little more body to it than table salt. I like it because I like to feel it in my hand. I like to keep kosher salt in I can't even charge. I actually use a jar called a Weck jar. W E C K what jars are awesome.
They look really cool. You can pick them up on Amazon or wherever a million different sizes, but I keep a Weck jar without all of the things to lock it in place. Right beside my stove full of salt, kosher. Now. There are two primary kosher salts that you're going to have available to you readily available to you.
The first common. The Morton's kosher salt. We all know it. It's the blue box. Good stuff, but there's also this salt that chefs love. The one that we Swoon over and that is diamond crystal. Kosher salt. Now my local Wegmans carried Morton's kosher salt forever, forever, and ever, and ever, but I could never find that darn diamond crystal there. Past couple of years though, as it has become more popular, they have started carrying it.
It's always on the bottom shelf because that's where they're going to keep those kosher salts because everybody needs them. So it's not a high ticket item. They're going to be down on the bottom. Morton's in the blue box diamond crystal in a white and red box. If you are into cooking. Salt matters and diamond crystal.
And Morton's, aren't really the same.
Morton salt. Is a little more dense. It's heavier. Which means you're going to get in a tablespoon, a different weight. Then, if you measured out the diamond crystal. The diamond crystal is almost, it's not quite feathery, but it's just a little lighter. So volume wise for the same impact, you're going to need more diamond crystal. Then Morton's now I love Bon Appetit. And I love epicurious.com.
You might want to check those out. I noticed recently that when you read one of their more recent recipes, they are actually specifying Morton's. You want this much diamond crystal? You want that much? Right. This is a big deal to me that they're going to this trouble and you will see if it calls for three quarters of a teaspoon of Mortons.
It may call for a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a quarter of the diamond crystal. That's how different they are in weights. So truly they're not really interchangeable. And I think a lot of us think that they are, you know, what is, it's just a kosher salt who cares. So if you're making a recipe, I like to of course, salt as I go, because that is what any good cook is going to do. But if you're baking really take a look at what salt you're using and what your recipe calls for.
I'm always of the school that you can add more, but you can't take it away. That came from chef Caroline who used to teach with me. She was wonderful. I love that idea that you can always add more, but you can't take it away. So that's just something to be on the lookout for. All right. Now someone is going to say, okay, Chris, that's fine, but I'm using table salt.
I have the table salt. I have a salt shaker. That's fine.
I try not to be snobby, right. Because I grew up in Pennsylvania ferry, homestyle cooking. Loved it. So good. Oh my gosh. Give me pierogies any day of the week. Go PA. Bye. When it comes to this, I do get a little snobby because. Way back in the day, it was 2001. And I had been brought on board by a group that was working with. KitchenAid and Whirlpool. And I got flown out to the Whirlpool headquarters. In Michigan. It was about. A month after nine 11.
So just getting on an airplane for someone who didn't like to fly was, you know, not great at that time. And I remember they took us. The whole idea was that they were doing. Essentially, they were creating a company that was kind of a pampered chef idea, but with cooking classes, so their goal, they reached out to a whole bunch of personal chefs.
Their goal was to sell the cooking classes. Then have us have a. Oh catalog. Of all the stuff that you could buy from the class. So we'd charge $29 a person, and then we'd whip out this catalog at PN and say, oh, did you like this fancy salt? You can get it here. Oh, did you like this really cool tool?
You can get it here. And the idea was great, but it turned out that as chefs, we all really liked the idea of teaching the classes. But not selling the stuff. So that organization, I think it lasted about a year and a half, maybe two years. But one of the things I took away from it, aside from the confidence to really get into teaching. Was we had done a salt tasting. One of the items in this Cadillac at the Cadillac, one of the items in this catalog was a a cell GRI. And it was a gray sea salt. And it was really good stuff.
It was kind of damp and it came in a little jar. It was, you know, very, very cool. And it was affordable to when you would look. I remember they had, I think a Whirlpool. Refrigerator in the cat. I don't know. It's crazy to me. But they had this salt. So one of the things that they taught us to do was to do a salt tasting. And I really recommend this.
This is fun to do. What you're going to do is get some table salt. Morton's whoever I don't care. Just table salt. You're going to get a kosher salt, and then maybe if you're feeling fancy, pick up a fancy salt. Whatever. And you're going to line them up. You're going to think you're going to go from worst to best, but you're not.
You're going to do the kosher salt first. And you're going to taste. You're going to take a cucumber, take a slice cucumber because cucumber is really neutral in flavor. So take a sliced cucumber and you're just going to gently dip it into the kosher salt and you'll knock off the excess and you'll taste it.
And you will say. Well that salty.
Because of course it is. So you'll take a sip of water and then you'll take your fancy salt and you'll dip your little cucumber in the fancy salt. And you'll taste it and you'll go, woo. That salty.
And you may notice some differences in the minerality. That's kind of cool, you know, if you're into that, but that's because you're tasting. Street salt. You may not catch that in a dish. But then this is where this is where it gets really big. You're going to take your cucumber and you're going to dip, dip, dip, and chew just a little bit of table salt. Now it so fine.
You're going to get a lot when that cucumber tap off. Absolutely. As much as you can. Case the cucumber. What's going to happen. Mouth full of chemicals. It's the iodine that they put in. It will make your whole face cave in when you tasted. It's crazy. I tell you, it is a crazy thing. I highly recommend doing it sometime if you're into food, right.
If you're kind of into the vibe of it. Try it. Try it. I never have a salt shaker in the house. I just don't. I have a little salt cellar that I think I got a target a million years ago. It has a little wooden top that says salt. And then on the side, a little ceramic spoon that slips into a little hole on the side to hold it. That's what I put out now.
Do I think everything I make is seasoned perfectly. Yeah, of course I do. But I understand that it's not, I'm not going to yuck. Someone's yum. You like what you, like. I prefer that you taste the food before you Reeses in it, but that's your call. It's not going to ruin my day. Okay. So I always use. My little salt cellar on the table. I've never quite understood the grinder, the salt grinder. Because a grinder for peppercorns.
Yah. All day. That makes perfect sense because peppercorn actually has a team. Bit of oil and ripe. So when you grind that fresh. That is releasing that oil that is releasing and opening up all those flavors in that pepper, corn. That is why freshly ground pepper will always be a hundred times more delicious than already ground. So I will have a pepper grinder around, but never assault grinder because you're not releasing anything.
Cool. When you grind the salt, you're just grinding the salt. It's not the same thing. So I think people feel fancy with it. And again, I won't yuck your yum. But from a practicality standpoint, It doesn't have a purpose. Okay, so just, just my 2 cents there. If you like the vibe of that, do it. That's totally fine. All right.
So that is our basic salt that I think you need to have. I would go diamond crystal any day. I would do it over the Morton. I just like it better. I can't tell you. Anything more than I already have, but let's talk fences. And if you're getting fancy. In my world. There's only one salt that you need, and it is the super fancy salt. I think that every cook should have some Malden. M a L D O N Maldon salt. Maldon salt is produced in, I believe it's England will say great Britain. And you will find it in the British section of your grocery store. It's a white box with some green writing.
It's not a very big box. And it is the best. It is so fancy. I would call this a finishing salt. Okay. Because we don't want to take the five or $6 for spending for this little box and use that to season our pasta water. That's not the purpose here. That's expensive. It's a waste of money. This salt is for when you want to see the salt. You want to have the crunch of the salt? Because it is dry.
That's how the salt forms. It fall forms into little pyramids. I always feel like if I scoop into it and I get a whole little pyramid, it's kind of like, I won the lottery. Day. I don't know why you don't need that at all. It's just like, oh, it's so great. So Malden is a flake salt. So you'll find it almost has these little, teeny tiny sheets of salt. So what's this good for what do we want this for?
How bout. A salted caramel sauce. Caramel sauce now I grew up in PA, like I said, so I typically say Carmel, but I'm trying here. So caramel sauce, you can make that very easily sugar water touch of either lemon juice or corn syrup for some stabilization. Heavy cream. Right. You cook the sugar, the little bit of water, the lemon juice or the corn syrup until it turns a gorgeous brown, but before it starts to smell burnt, you don't need a thermometer. You cook it, then you pull it off the heat.
You add some heavy cream. It will bubble and steam like crazy. So you have got to be careful here. Okay. Very important. You whisk that and then. Put it back on the heat. Cook it for another man or to pull it off. Let it cool. Now you take a spoonful of your Maldon salt, that flake salt. And you stir it in to the cooled sauce. When you have it, you know that everybody now is all about. The salty and the sweet together. So now. You have that silky luscious sauce with a crunch in it. And you get those hits of salt as you go.
And remember, you can always add more, but you can't take it away. Right. So important to us. So think of that, this is, this is actually a gift that I love to give at the holidays. I'll get a cute little jar, a cute little bottle. I'll make it, pop it in little tag. They stored in the fridge. Good for a couple of weeks.
So definitely think of your Maldon salt as you're finishing salt, right? The veggies. If you have, I love tomatoes in the summer. I love to do, you know, just chop tomatoes and Bazell, I don't get too fancy with it. But I always sprinkle it and some mozzarella burrata, because de. But I always sprinkle it with the Maldon salt.
It's a little, you know, less bitter and a little less salty if that makes any sense, but it is such a good salt when you want to show off. And I'm not sure if they still have it, but I will tell you a couple of weeks ago, Costco had a little tub. Of Maldon salt. I couldn't even believe it. A little tub for about $7. Not only is that a great bargain for you, but if you were looking for a sweet little hostess gift, To take, I am hoping to go to many more events.
This.
But I love the idea. Of wrapping up a little salt, just making it cute and giving that as a gift. It's really fun. It's inexpensive. It's something they may not think of, or may not have ever heard of. And that is where you get to be the salt pro you get to be the hero of all salts. So. The two salts. I recommend diamond crystal N Malden, both available in any decent doesn't have to be a fancy grocery store, but any decent grocery store should have both of those on hand. And really, I think that's all you need to be able to show off a little in your own kitchen. Okay. Oh, another use of the Malden. I love to sprinkle it after I make some avocado toast, I love to sprinkle it on top of some butter.
I always buy unsalted butter. So I love to do that and get that little bit of crunch in there too. Anytime you want that little. You know that little crunch that is the place. So there are your salts. Easy. Don't make it complicated. I have to around store them in a cool dry place. That's what we want to do with all of our herbs, all of our spices, make sure they're well wrapped and you are good to go. Now. If you have a question for me about salt. You can go to the website, empty nest, kitchen.com and drop me a message.
Let me know what your question is because every week. My plan is to answer your questions as we go through. I've been teaching, cooking for over 25 years and I am so into it. Let's have some fun with it. Whatever your food questions are, whether it's on salt or anything. Just drop me a line empty nest kitchen.com. And I'm going to go ahead and get your question onto the Q and a part of the podcast. You can always find any recipes on the website as well.
I'm going to put a recipe for that salted caramel sauce up on the website so that you can go in, take a look and give it a try. It is. So easy, so yummy. I think you'll like it. Especially with spring coming. It's a great garnish for something, because my vibe here is that I am working on recipes that are a little healthier. Then usual, I'm not doing deep brine or anything like that here, keeping it a little healthier, but I always believe in a decadent dessert. Okay.
Some fruit is lovely, but that's not dessert. So you'll always find a good recipe for decadent dessert on the website as well. I'm also offering online classes and listen, if you haven't tried one of these. Let me just tell ya. I think you should give one a go. I have had so much fun. I'm not just teaching. But taking classes too.
I'll invite my son over. We'll do something together. Bring a friend, half a body and have some fun. You don't have to have your camera on if you don't want, but I am all about making connection. In the kitchen, I keep my classes small so that I can answer your questions. I'm really your kitchen concierge here to help you learn here to help you have a great meal.
And as always here to help you have some fun. So. Drop me a line empty nest kitchen.com. Stay tuned for some really terrific guests that I'm going to have coming up. And thanks so much for listening. You're the best.
