There are kitchen hacks, but cooking is not all hacks. Put it this way – too many hacks and you risk turning into one.
There are a few ingredients that will instantly make you a better cook. They not only make food taste better, but just by using them they elevate and hone make your own tasting abilities. Kosher salt is one of them.
Kosher salt has wider, coarser grains compared to table salt, allowing you to salt food in a gentler way and enhance the flavor of ingredients without making them taste overly salty. Additionally, the absence of additives and the presence of naturally occurring minerals in some brands of kosher salt can contribute to a more complex and flavorful taste. Kosher salt is typically unrefined and does not contain anti-caking agents, iodine, or other additives.
There’s a reason the Bon Appetit test kitchen only uses kosher.
No need for salt shakers! Kosher salt’s larger, irregular crystals allow for better control during the seasoning process but it also means that it won’t work in most salt shakers. Use a salt cellar and learn to season by feel, it’s much more precise than shaking indiscriminately all over everything.
And if you want to really act up you could put some kosher in a little tin and keep it in your car or purse to pull out the next time you have fast food or visit a friend’s house. It’s the ultimate show off move! Let your friends and family know you’re just joking, but also, it really is so much better than iodized.
To be a better cook takes time and there are endless lessons to be learned along the way. It is not a one and done kinda thing. In this new series we’ll explored the myriad ways to upping our chef game at home. Keep an eye out for Part 2!