Why add salt to potato water?

Question

I add salt to pasta water in order to reduce the stickiness caused by starch. However, I've never seen potatoes stick together. Why add salt?

Asked by Tim N

Answer

Salting the water in which you cook starches (pasta, rice, potato) is an effective way of enhancing the flavour of the finished product - boiling starches absorb salt well (which is why adding chunks of potato to an overall salty stew will lessen the apparent saltiness of the dish.

But salt does other things. When I am making roasted potatoes, I parboil them for 5 minutes before drying and roasting them in oil. if you divide them into two batches and boil one half in unsalted water and the other half in well salted water (1tbsp/2 quarts water), the salted potatoes will brown and crisp much better than the unsalted ones. I'm not sure why this is, but I would encourage you to try it because it's amazing to see.

Answered by Paul L

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Is there any truth to the idea that you shouldn't multiply seasonings when multiplying a recipe?

Question

I often hear cooks discuss that idea that if you are multiplying, say, a recipe for 4 to be a for 32, that you shouldn't multiply some herbs, spices, or salt. I've never understood any reason why this should be true. Maybe something to do with surface area to volume ratios, or cooking times? Does anyone have a real explanation, or is this nonsense?

Asked by Michael at Herbivoracious

Answer

The notion that salt or spices specifically don't scale linearly sounds like nonsense to me. In any recipe involving salt and water, the salt is dissolved, so all that matters is the concentration, and that concentration is going to be the same with linear scaling.

Scaling in general is problematic when scaling more than 2x or 4x. When you take into account that:

• Recipes targeted at home cooks are imprecise to begin with and often use volumetric measurements that are sensitive to heat, humidity, and other environmental conditions, so the imprecision is magnified at larger scale;

• Larger portions of food may get cooked less evenly and/or at less consistent temperatures due to the volume/surface area ratio; that part is correct, but it has nothing to do with salt, it has to do with your equipment. On the stovetop, most of the heat is coming from the bottom of the pan unless you use induction, and even in an oven you've got one or two heat sources radiating heat in a specific pattern.

• Cooking times are also going to vary due to changes in things like rates of evaporation. The total amount of heat you're able to deliver at any given time generally does not increase as quickly as the amount of heat you need to deliver, so very often you need to increase cooking times.

I'm sure you probably already know all this, but the reason I'm pointing it all out is that I'm pretty sure that this odd-sounding assertion about non-linear salt/spice scaling is due to some mutation or misunderstanding of general scaling issues.

Probably, salt and spices are typically present in very small quantities in most recipes, and those quantities are already wild guesses much of the time, so the effect of compounding all this wild inaccuracy, especially with volumetric measurements, is actually pretty noticeable at large scale. Scaling sucks with these ingredients because the initial quantities and scaling method are both nonsense.

Assuming you have a precise recipe that gives weight measurements, and you scale by weight, then you're not going to have any problems as long as you either cook it in batches or adjust your cooking time/temp accordingly.

I suppose I could be wrong, but I spent 20 minutes digging for some evidence to contradict my claims above and came up dry; you'd think that somebody would have presented some evidence if the claim were true.

Answered by Aaronut

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Will hard boiled eggs absorb salt through the shell?

Question

In this America's Test Kitchen video they add salt to the cold water when hard boiling eggs: http://www.cookscountry.com/videos/Hard-Cooked-Eggs/28960/

Would the salt actually permeate the shell and flavor the egg? That seems unlikely to me and is just a waste of good salt.

(Apart from the salt, that method is not new to me. My old, Mom-gave-it-to-me-when-I-got-my-first-apartment Betty Crocker cookbook has the same instructions.)

Asked by Galapagos Jim

Answer

Salt or acid is often added to the water when boiling eggs to denature egg whites faster should there be a crack and a leak.

I have not read anything that experiments whether this is effective. It also sounds like "don't wash mushrooms" or "pasta must be cooked in a ton of water" kind of old wives tales.

Answered by Sobachatina

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Why is salt sprinkled on top of soft pretzels?

Question

For the sake of this question, I am referring to all lye bread. I want to make this clarification since outside of the US the term "pretzel" is usually referring to the shape one would typically attribute to the American concept of pretzels rather than the style.

As far as I know, pretzels are the only "bread" that I personally am aware of that gets sprinkled with coarse bits of salt on top. When tasting the pretzel, it has a unique "pretzel" flavour yet it is generally very bland. Is the salt sprinkled on top to make up for the "bland" bread?

Is there anything about the pretzel dough that would prevent more salt from being added into the recipe?

Asked by Jay

Answer

IMO the distinctive flavor of a soft pretzel isn't a bland lack of flavor, but rather a slightly bitter, slightly chemical flavor that comes from the lye (or sometimes baking soda) solution in which pretzels are briefly cooked before baking. The lye solution does at least two things for pretzels:

• It raises the pH of the pretzel's skin, which in turn makes the pretzel brown nicely as it bakes.

• Imparts that slightly bitter flavor.

I don't think the salt used on pretzels is there to make up for a lack of salt in the dough. You can make pretzels that have plenty of flavor even without salt. I think the salt is there mainly because people like salt, because it adds a pleasing crunch, and because it's traditional -- it's part of what people (or at least Americans) expect from the pretzel experience.

It's worth mentioning that the proper salt for topping a soft pretzel is not kosher salt or rock salt, but a white, soft salt like Cargill Pretzel M Salt. Kosher salt will work if it's all you've got, but it's not what you'll find on a soft pretzel bought at a ball park or from a street vendor.

Answered by Caleb

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How to make chicken absorb more salt when cooking a soup?

Question

This is a really important question for me, it can actually make the difference between me recovering from a chronic illness or not.

Basically I have been cooking a basic soup : 1kg chicken: 1.5 litre water and 4grams sea salt. Note there is no vegetables for testing purposes. I add the ingredients at the beginning, bring to a boil, simmer and then eat.

The problem is that on some days it seems the chicken absorbs a lot of the salt making the chicken it taste nice and leaving the water seemingly less salty while on other days the chicken doesn't absorb a lot of the salt and this ends up leaving the soup water too salty. I need it the first way as my stomach tolerates it however if the water is too salty my stomach starts giving me problems.

Since ingredients/ solids weight are the same I am convinced the problem is in the way I am cooking. I am doing something which is affecting the absorption of salt by the chicken. I wondered about possible causes and thought about the following:

1.May be slow/quick heating affects absorption 2.Maybe as the chicken gets softer any salt it absorbed starts to come back out, so it’s a question of timing 3.Maybe washing the chicken at the beginning has an effect, 4.Maybe cooking time affects absorption

I tried and tested various scenarios in the above but I cannot figure out what the specific cause is, perhaps you can kindly help me out with an educated/tested opinion.
The one thing I believe I noticed was that on those days it comes out right during the simmer the water seems to go low, perhaps evaporates or gets absorbed. In either case I imagine it may be temperature issue but I am not sure and could even be mistaken about the water being low.

Do you guys have any ideas, please this is a major issue for me and only if I cook the right way will my stomach start to recover. My nutritionist didnt seem to know the answer and she said 'you'll just have to keep cooking and note what you do differently'. Any help will be highly appreciated.

Many thanks

Asked by James Wilson

Answer

Speaking as pure theorist here, because I've never compared the saltiness of cooked chicken.

I think that there are two things you will have to think about. The first one is osmosis (water that gets soaked into the meat through cellular membranes), the second one is transport through porous media - like a sponge, the open ends of muscle fibres of your chicken soak up the liquid you put them in. What you want to do is to prevent osmosis into the chicken (because only pure water will go in through osmosis, concentrating the salt outside) and maximize absorption. I will assume that 0.9% saline is isotonic for a chicken, and I think this is a safe assumption, because veterinary saline isn't marked as species-specific. Seeing that your soup liquid is 0.27% saline, you can expect some osmosis to happen. *

Let's tackle the more interesting part first. You want more absorption to happen. The absorption is described by the Washburn formula, and you want to maximize your L.

• L improves with time. Luckily, a soup is meant to be cooked for a long time anyway. But when you wonder whether to give it some more time on the stove or not, more time is probably better. Keep the temperature lowish for less evaporation, and a lid on which will drip back evaporated water.

• L improves with lesser viscosity. No way to influence it in your basic recipe, but in a real soup, avoid thickening. So don't use starchy ingredients, or at least, wash them before adding.

• Surface tension should be kept high. Again, this is ingredient-specific. No way to influence it in the basic recipe, but it could turn out that some vegetables are reducing your surface tension a lot - I can't think of a soup vegetable or a herb or spice which is famous for a high saponine content, but it could happen. Also, you should give your pots a finishing wash with clean water if possible - detergent and dishwasher finishing liquid reduce surface tension a lot.

• Pore size. My intuition says that this should have the biggest effect in the soup case, as you probably can't influence viscosity and surface tension too much. Obviously, the bigger your holes, the more water comes through. A good way to do that is to thoroughly denature your proteins. The first and most common way for that is prolonged cooking time. Second, brining in concentrated saline (6%) and/or acid before you cook will attack the meat surface, again denaturing proteins. However, I don't know how wise it is to use this option, because some of the brine will get absorbed into the chicken, which will leave less space for broth and will increase salt content as a whole. (This assumes that you salt the broth; Brian's idea of not adding salt to the cooking water after brining has merit). Third, you can use meat from the freezer (this is a very likely reason for the mixed results you saw until now). Freezing produces ice crystals, which rupture cell walls. When you use the thawed meat in a soup, there are more holes for water to flow in.

• The Washburn formula is for a single capillary. But the more capillaries you have, the more absorption you get. So, what you want to do is to cut the chicken meat perpendicularly to the muscle fibres. And cut it into many small pieces instead of a few big ones.

Now we took care of the absorption, let's look into the osmosis. You can't change the salt content of the chicken's cytoplasm. But for osmosis, you have to separate the two solutions by a semipermeable membrane (the cell wall). Poke a hole in the wall, and the osmotic gradient vanishes when the liquids mix. So everything from the third point on absorption helps you reduce osmosis too.

As for your suggestions: 1. I see no reason why slow or quick heating will change absorption. I guess the products of a Maillard reaction could clog some pores, if you sear before cooking, but it won't happen during boiling. As I said, cook slow because of evaporation. 2. The chicken shouldn't absorb salt, but salty water, see the footnote. Although, if there is a hole in my theory, this is a likely place for it. 3. I doubt it, but if you wash it, you could free eventual clogged openings. 4. Certainly, cook longer.

To summarize: Cook meat which has been frozen, cut in small pieces perpendicularly to the grain, and stew it for a long time.

* I don't see a mechanism for the chicken absorbing a higher percentage of salt than what you have in the broth. I assume that in your "normal" cases, you are left with salt content near the initial 0.27%, and in bad cases, this gets concentrated.

Update As requested in the comments, I am providing an explanation about "cutting across the fibers". Short story, meat is made up of muscles, and a muscle is made up of fibers, or bundles of bundles of cells. You can easily see them in raw meat. You want to slice across them, so their ends are open, as opposed to along.

The good, long explanation with pictures can be found on Serious Eats

Answered by rumtscho

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Is there any way to “Salt” unsalted cashew pieces?

Question

I picked up a bag of cashew pieces from the bulk bin last night got home and realized they were of the unsalted variety. Which are good but for a snack not quite what I was looking for.

Is there anyway to "salt" those cashew pieces. I googled and found ways to do it when they are still shelled but none after the fact. I may not be using the correct search paramaters though as I cannot think of any other terminology other than "make salted cashews". I don't need a recipe just a direction and if it is possible.

Asked by Varuuknahl

Answer

sir just roast them in a pan with oil for few secons till the shade is not changed and remove. As soon as you remove the casehews from oil they are sticy, then you need to spray salt on it . dont add much. add slightly and check taste and then mix according to your taste you require.... if you are satisfied with the answer you can join us at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/EAT-CASHEW/117386658291706

Answered by n/a

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What is the point of a salt mill?

Question

Salt mills and pepper mills often come in pairs. I understand the purpose of the pepper mill: It breaks open the pepper corn and releases the aroma. But there is, to my knowledge, no such thing as a salt corn, at least on the macroscopic level. So what do I gain by grinding the salt at the table or at the stove instead of just buying the smaller version to begin with? I understand that there are different kinds of salt, but it seems they ought to be independent of the size of the bits.

Asked by Peter Eisentraut

Answer

Trying to get to the bottom of the issue, I decided to take a few pictures of a few different types of salt. The pictures shown below were taken by me and are all proportional (the camera was the same distance away from each type of salt, so you are getting an accurate size comparison).
The picture illustrates my suspicions, which is the difference is the surface area (ignoring of course mineral content and different types of grinding salt). Standard table salt is a compact little cube, effective when it’s to be dissolved in a liquid, but not so much when it comes to direct contact with the taste buds. Place one cube on your tongue and you get 1/6th of the surface area in contact, meaning, a lot of salt without much saltiness. Sea salt, with a more rectangular shape is closer to 1/4th the surface area touching your tongue. Ground salt is more like shards of glass, so nearly 1/2 of the exposed area could be in contact making things taste that much more salty. Also with a much finer texture, you are left with many more particles in a wider area, meaning, saltier with less salt.
It’s a good way of finishing a dish when the salt is going to be lightly dusted on top or mixed with an oil where it will not dissolve at all. When you are dissolving it in a liquid, it really makes little difference which type you use. When it comes down to it, it’s all about how picky you want to be with it.

Answered by FoodTasted

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How much salt can I safely add to bread dough?

Question

I recently made ciabatta, which turned out very well, with a good crust and nice open crumb. However, I felt it could use more salt to give extra flavour. I'm aware that salt and yeast do not make good bedfellows (or should that be breadfellows?), so how much salt can I safely add to the recipe without compromising it?

FYI, the recipe in question uses 3.25 cups polish, 3 cups of flour, and 0.75 cups of water to 1.75 teaspoons of salt (I use table salt to avoid lumps of undissolved salt in the bread).

Asked by ElendilTheTall

Answer

Based on experience and experimentation alone (I bake bread several times a week), I'd say to be consistently safe you probably want to max out around 3% in baker's percentages. 2-2.5% is much more common, but I've done as much as 3%. After 3%, things got very inconsistent. Sometimes it would work if the structure was just right, but mostly I got loaves that didn't rise well.

If I did my math and conversions to weight right, it looks like you're probably in the 2% range, so you should be able to add about 50% more salt.

Answered by rfusca

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Is white cabbage that has turned rose-colored still safe to eat?

Question

We sliced and grated some white cabbage three days ago and left it salted and completely covered in a plastic container. It has since then turned rose-colored. The top layer was pretty dry when I opened it tonight. We had it on our journey and the weather has been pretty cold these days.

The big question: is it bad now? I mean, it didn't taste differently, there was no fermentation... Anybody have a clue if it's still safe to eat? We like to travel around and want to eat some of the cabbage mixed with salad cream in the next few days... So it's only salted and cut right now and completely airtight covered in a plastic container.

Asked by Johannes Thomas Meyer

Answer

Are you trying to make Sauerkraut?

Either way for the pink colour you have a non-desirable bacteria growing. While most Sauerkraut has some of this, it is not always safe to eat. Time to throw it away?

If you salt cabbage, you need to ensure not too much salt is used (1% to 2% max), and make sure it is packed down very firmly, so only anaerobic bacteria will grow in any numbers

It doesn't need to be in a closed container, but it should have a firm fitting lid, without an air gap on the top

Also, once it goes past 20°C (70°F) you run the risk of getting other undesirable bacteria and yeasts, and general food rot

Answered by TFD

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Soup is too salty!

Question

I made a mistake with my lastest batch of chicken soup, and it's too salty to eat. Is there any way to save it?

Answer

Peter Martin at Chef Talk suggests adding sugar or cider vinegar. He also mentions the old potato trick but says it's not effective for him unless it's only slightly too salty.

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How Many Times Can I Use A Salt Block

Question

I've been reading up on Himalayan pink salt blocks. I am mainly interested in cooking with them, like cast iron. But, I noticed that they are a bit pricey, about $40 to $70. It also seems that they die after some usage.

My question is, how many times one can cook with a salt block before they are unusable?

Answer

I think the cost effective-ness and worth it portion of the question is quite subjective since there isn't a way to directly compare salt with cookware grade salt block. These salt blocks are considered unusable when it becomes cracked and fall apart, not when all the salt has been used up. Thus the price is for the novelty of using these blocks to cook food rather than the actual salt content. And whether the flavor is worth it is complete up to you to decide.

Due the obscurity of Himalayan salt blocks, I will provide a little background information for those who aren't familiar. Due to the Himalayan salt blocks' unique lattice formation, it has very low moisture and porosity. Due to this property it can be heated up to extremely high temperatures (up to 900 degree Fahrenheit). Also because of the lack of porosity the saltiness that comes off of it when cooking on top of it is minimal and will impart only a moderate amount of sodium. On top of that, it has many trace amount of other minerals including but not limited to sulfur, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. These additional trace minerals are what given the Himalayan pink salt its unique flavor.

Now if you want to cook using the block merely to try out its taste, i would recommend you use this instead. It is a bag of Himalayan pink salt that is meant to go into your food as seasoning.

How long a salt block last purely depends on how well you take care of it and luck. This article explains proper heating and washing techniques. Because these blocks are naturally carved out of the earth, fault lines(sometimes not visible from the outside or even with the human eyes) can exist on it. These fault lines will naturally grow bigger as the block is continuously heated to high temperatures. Because of this unpredictability, there isn't a "real" answer. However some can crack after just several uses(on one testimonial, one woman claimed it broke after two uses. But she was able to get it replaces for free) while other can last much much longer(others have report using it for over a year). Usually you can get a replacement if the block cracks in a short period of time. Find out about this warranty period from the supplier before buying.

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Made a ginger carrot soup with coconut milk but accidentally made it too salty, how do i fix it?

Question

I made a ginger carrot soup with coconut milk but accidentally made it too salty, how do i fix it?

From some google searches - one said to put raw potatoes to absorb the salt. I am not sure if that will work for the soup as it is a thick carrot soup. Adding water would make it watery. Does anyone have any other methods that would work for me? I would like to keep the soup thick.

Thank You

Edit - the butternut squash worked for me!

Answer

Steam a head of cauliflower, puree it. Add it to the soup. You might also consider some squash or sweet potato puree.

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Is there anything wrong with keeping oil, salt, and vinegar together

Question

I am curious if there is anything wrong with keeping oil, salt, and vinegar together.

A month ago I made a small mixture of those and brought it to my work, to use it for salad. Do some of them do some unwanted chemical interactions? They are rapeseed oil, sea salt, and ordinary vinegar. I didn't refrigerate them. I suppose I am not the only one curious about this.

Answer

No, as you can keep them separately for a long time, The point is, no chemical reaction accur because they don't have right particles for a chemical reaction, it's just a mixture and no new substances is made. I think they are still healthy like that.

Also, accroding to a very nice article about keeping oil and vinager ( http://oilandvinegar.cruets.com/keeping-oil-and-vinegar ), despite they can be stored for a long period of time , depends on the place and container you keep them in:

Olive oil and vinegar have four deadly enemies. They are:
1. Age
2. Heat
3. Light
4. Air

One of the above or a combination of any of these four can damage olive oil and vinegar beyond measure.

So in a dark and cool place and not a plastic container,they can be stored for 15 months.

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In what way is kosher chicken different from brined chicken in terms of salt absorbtion?

Question

Ideally I want all parts of my chicken to absorb a good amount of salt. I think brining is best but somebody has suggested kosher chicken. How is kosher salted differently and will all parts of kosher chicken be salted to the point where it is plump and juicy as you get when brining?

Thanks

Answer

I explained several of the differences in my answer to Brining a kosher bird and also discussed some issues relating to salt consistency in a much earlier answer to Chicken comes out salty... occasionally.

To make a long story short, kashering is a long process with many steps, but the part you're concerned with is similar to the "dry brining" technique some people are fond of using for Thanksgiving turkeys. The meat is salted directly - no water is used - and it is left to rest for a much shorter period, about 1 hour, before finally being rinsed and packed.

Kosher meat isn't "juicy" like brined meat at all; in fact, all other things being equal, it will come out much drier and tougher than unkosher meat, because in the process of drawing out blood (the reason for salting in kashering), a good deal of moisture is drawn out as well. Brining adds moisture to the tune of about 10%; kashering takes moisture away by a similar amount.

Aside from drying out, the only culinary differences you'll find with kosher birds (or other meat) are (a) less blood, uric acid, and other "undesirable" components, and (b) they are naturally saltier than unkosher birds. However, because the kashering process has nothing to do with flavouring, you can't expect any kind of consistency, and it's not uncommon to find that some parts are much saltier than other parts coming from the same bird.

Kosher birds are going to absorb roughly the same amount of salt and water from a brine. The difference is that because they've already been salted, you run the risk of over-brining to the point of being inedibly salty. That's the whole story.

If you want flavourful and moist then get a regular bird and brine it. If you care more about flavour and want to save some time (at a significant cost premium) then go ahead and use a kosher bird, no brine. You can brine a kosher bird (see first link in this answer) but you're going to have to do a little experimenting to get it right - and if you're going to brine anyway, then why bother spending the extra money on kosher meat?

Don't pay any mind to the oft-repeated claims that kosher birds are "pre-brined" or similar nonsense. The inherent saltiness of a kosher bird is significant but also incidental and thus inherently unreliable.

_{(Please also note: Assuming this is a follow-up to your previous question, none of this is going to make the slightest bit of difference if you're just going to plop the chicken parts into a pot of boiling or poaching water. If you're making broth, then you flavour the broth, not the meat.)}

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What is the difference between kosher salt and unprocessed sea salt?

Question

I have read that the difference between sea salt and kosher salt is that sea salt is generally processed in that it has minerals added to it which were lossed during the evaporation process while kosher does not.
Somebody also told me sea salt is inefficient for brining and it contains impurities I have also read that unprocessed sea salt and kosher salt is the same thing.

I am using saxa sea salt which on the box says is 100% natural and has no ingredients added. This being the case is it the same as kosher salt or not?

**

Thank you for your answer. I would like to add a related question. You said sea salt does not stick very well to meat during brining. Does this point apply to dry brining only or does it apply to brining in a water solution where the salt is dissolved?

Answer

Kosher salt is pure, like table salt, but without any iodine and (usually) without any anti-caking agents.

Kosher salt crystals are also coarse, but flat, which makes them easy to dissolve or season/coat meat.

Unprocessed sea salt is simply coarse; the shape of the crystals (whole or ground) does not stick to meat particularly well and the impurities make it harder to dissolve properly in water. It doesn't usually have minerals added (unless it's a really cheap kind possibly made from pre-iodized table salt), it just doesn't have minerals removed like table salt.

Kosher salt and sea salt are definitely not the same thing. Kosher salt can come from seawater, like sea salt, but the "kosher" part is all about the size and shape of the crystals, not their source.

Sea salt is not a good idea for brining. It's expensive and inefficient, and by the time the meat is cooked, any distinctness of flavour will have completely disappeared. Some of the minerals may even burn, depending on the cooking method.

Instead, use kosher salt or table salt for brining and add sea salt as a seasoning afterward if you want. Using sea salt for cooking, brining, or other preparation is simply wasting it.

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How to fix food that got extra salty?

Question

I imagine this depends on what the food is. Spaghetti you can either throw more water (or change the water) if you detect it on time, afterwards you can wash them, but on a slice of grilled meat?, or a tomato sauce?

Answer

Slice a raw potato and add it to the over-salted sauce. As it cooks it'll draw in the salty liquid.

You may need to add more liquids to keep the sauce from drying out.

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How to counteract excessive saltiness in dried fish?

Question

My wife comes from a culture where preparation and eating of dried fish is very common (as long as one takes the proper measures to deal with the smell). She prepared for me recently a serving of dried mackerel, but it was sooooo salty that I could only bear to eat one or two bites. Can anyone recommend some sort of preparation method to counteract this excessive salty flavor?

Answer

The standard way to cook salt cod for dishes where you want to really remove the saltiness, such as brandade, is to soak it (for hours) in a couple of changes of water, and then simmer it in milk for half an hour to an hour. This might work with the mackerel. Not sure what you'd use it for after that, though.

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Why is it important to add salt during cooking?

Question

This may seem like a silly question, but given that each persons' tastes are different why is it that salt is added during cooking? It seems better to just allow the person eating the food to add their own salt to taste as opposed to forcing the same amount of saltiness on everyone equally.

Answer

A few general reasons:

• As soegaard says, the salt is often better distributed through the food if it's added during cooking. This is especially true for foods which have been carefully assembled; you can't always just stir things up! Some foods also take a while for flavors to soak through; think about potatoes in a chunky soup. If you add salt only at the table, the liquid will benefit, but the potatoes will generally taste bland, like they were unsalted. Then there are things where it really needs to be cooked in - I doubt many people want to sprinkle salt on a chocolate chip cookie.

• Sometimes the quantities need to be pretty small, so mixing a small amount into the whole recipe is doable, while if you tried to add it at the table, even a little sprinkle would be too much. Baked goods are a good example here too.

• Virtually everyone likes at least a little salt, so it's usually quite safe to add at least a little. The food will end up tasting good to many people, and then some can add more. Often the groups of people that we eat with have similar enough tastes that it's a non-issue.

• Sometimes salt actually affects the cooking process, not just the flavor. It can help draw moisture out of sweating vegetables, softening them faster. It's abrasive (before dissolving, of course), and can help denature proteins.

But of course, if you're eating with people who don't like much salt at all, and salt can easily be added at the table (a pureed soup, for example), then there's nothing wrong with waiting until then.

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Why does salt taste different in different dishes?

Question

If I salt tomato, potato and pasta, their tastes change in completely different ways to me. Why is this? Had I put oregano on them, they'd all taste like oregano.

Update: The question is not "is it so?" but "why is it so?"

Answer

Salt is completely water soluble, unlike only trace amount of what is in oregano. That being the case, it will completely saturate anything that is wet, therefore it can completely consume and pair with every bite, whereas oregano remains in chunks and can be distinctly tasted alone.

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Why are salt and pepper the “classic” dinner table seasoning?

Question

Is there a reason we use salt and pepper on so many dishes and can be found in any kitchen table at dinner time? Does it have to do with their flavor synergies or were they just more available "back in the day"?

Answer

Salt is perhaps the most basic and effective flavour enhancer, and so it's fairly obvious why we have it on our dinner tables.

The popularity of pepper is down to the Romans, who were crazy about it. Thanks to the longevity of the Roman Empire, pepper was imported for hundreds of years, helping to establish it as the most popular spice, and keeping the price high.

Bill Bryson reports in At Home that:

When the Goths threatened to sack Rome in 408, the Romans bought them off with three thousand pounds of pepper.

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