Salt

Salt - a white crystalline substance which gives seawater it's characteristic taste and is used for seasoning or preserving food.

Above is a definition I found online. It is a limited definition but not a bad starting point. Salt is massively important in the making of good food. Sure there is a lot of negative press on the health problems relating to a diet too high in salt  but that doesn't mean we should be leaving it out of our cooking altogether. That would be disastrous. Anyone who's ever worked up a sweat knows that sweat is salty. I remember reading some time back that a town, I think in eastern Europe which was home to a salt mill and a high consumption of salt had none of the side effects of the medical problems relating to it. The reason given was the working in the salt mill was hard physical labour and as such the workers sweated out the salt they consumed. Makes sense then that the answer to consuming too much salt is simply to work hard and sweat in back out again.

Now onto how to get the most out of salt. Next time you buy meat at the shops for dinner, as soon as you get home season the meat before putting it away for later use. Be generous with you seasoning, you will be rewarded. In the case of, for example, a steak for the barbecue, season both sides either the day before or if you only have a couple of hours that will still have a positive impact on your end product. When dealing with larger cuts of meat season even earlier, maybe 48 hours in advance. I assume you are not a robot and will be blindly following instructions, so why are we doing this? What are the benefits? Can't I just season my meat at the table?

By seasoning early you will get more tender meats. Significantly more tender. The earlier you season the more time you give for the salt to break down the meat and give the meat a juicier more succulent result to your nights cooking. I guess the next thing to think about is what to season with? I would suggest that if you are making an Asian dish, then season with soy sauce and let it works it's magic. If you are looking at a dish which would normally require fish sauce, for example, a Thai curry or stir fry then fish sauce would be my choice of seasoning.

I have only recently happened onto this significant improvement to my cooking via a book called "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" by Samin Nosrat. I grabbed the Audiobook on my Audible account and was immediately impressed by the results after seasoning a Pork medallion for the barbecue at home. Pork as many would already be aware can be quite lean and prone to drying out when cooking, but the results of even a couple of hours salt marinating brought a juicy tender cut where previously that result has always been a battle.

Anyway, time to run. Enjoy your cooking, be in touch soon.

About

Cooking - The practice or skill of preparing food by combining, mixing, and heating ingredients

That is what this blog is intended to be about. Things relating to this topic. Cooking, preserving, eating, and doing all of that in an improved way. 

I am a chef. Approximately 15 years ago I quit my job as an accounts payable clerk with a law firm based in the Sydney CBD, took a 3 week holiday to Vietnam and Laos and then returned to work with food. Initially I worked as a cook at a small bowling club and worked as a catering assistant. I learnt little things along the way. Progress was slow. The club had a smallish turnover but the chef was a great guy and I learnt from him. The job as a catering assistant involved making sandwiches for office meetings and whilst it was good to be in a kitchen, it wasn't what I dreamt of when I quit my job as an accounts payable. After a couple of years of this I realised that there wasn't going to be an easy path to becoming a chef so I decided to study commercial cookery at Tafe to improve my cooking skills and clear the path to becoming a chef. 

I think, looking back that my early dreams were of running a cafe of food business, maybe even a market stall to make my mark in the food world. It seemed though, that the more I learnt, The more I realised that I had so much more to learn before I could get out there and successfully go it alone. In fact, I would say that it is only in the last couple of years that I feel that my cooking is starting to progress to where I want it to be. Maybe that is just the way life is, you work away picking up little incites along the way. Some of those incites are just little day in, day out parts of working in a kitchen, some are more light bulb moments. Some are moving you forward by millimetres and very occasionally you make a leap. The base, the foundations come in millimetres and hopefully they provide the platform to eventually take the leaps. I am beginning to feel, just now that the big steps are just around the corner.

I am hoping that this space will give the reader a look inside the lower, less glamorous end of the food world and give some ideas that can be taken into the home kitchen. I continue to study food and cooking at home these days, in a non classroom environment through reading, watching on both television and the Internet. We live in a technological age which has given all of us access that 30 years ago was previously impossible. An example of this is the Harvard Science and Cooking Lectures that are available on YouTube. I have never even stepped foot in the USA but have access to a lecture series that contains thoughts from some of the world's greatest thinkers on food. Too often we technology to voice negative opinions but there is so much good to come from it as well. I wouldn't describe it as a new year’s resolution but certainly a goal for the year ahead is to build my knowledge of all things food and hopefully give readers some snippets of what I learn. 

Until next time keep eating, cooking and enjoying life!!