Salt: The Most Important Ingredient: Cooking Competence Series: Volume 1

by Matt Maroon

My general advice to home cooks is that if you think you have added enough salt, double it.
-Grant Achatz of Alinea

The biggest difference between professional chefs and amateur home cooks is proper seasoning with salt. Home chefs often cook their food without proper seasoning, then let their guests sprinkle some of that iodized junk on at the table. Professional chefs season their food before it ever even meets the fire, and throughout the cooking process.

In this book, you'll learn how to properly use salt before, during, and after cooking. Topics covered include:

- Which salts to use
- When to use them
- How much to use
- Curing
- Brining (gradient, equilibrium, and injection)
- What to do when you've oversalted

Each chapter has a recipe to illustrate the basics of salt use. They are:

- Pan-Roasted Halibut
- Whole Roasted Chicken
- Sauteed Broccoli Rabe
- Risotto
- Home Made Bacon
- Equilibrium Brined Pork Tenderloin
- Whole Roasted Chicken, Injection Brined.
- Blackened Chicken Alfredo with Bacon
- Roasted Concord Grapes on Yogurt with Maple Syrup, and Sea Salt
- Crunchy Peanut Butter Cups with Sea Salt

All of these recipes are fairly easy, incredibly delicious, and serve to illustrate how to properly use salt.

43 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 16, 2014