Episode 143 Transcript

Welcome to the Future family tonight, podcast, do you dread hearing the question, whats for dinner? Whether you spend your days, keeping up with toddlers, running kids to after-school, activities are juggling, a career and family getting dinner on the table. Can be a struggle for us. All on a reef ebach a business owner wife and mom of four. Im on a mission to build stronger families. One dinner at a time. And Im here with tips, tricks and inspiration. You need to feed your family tonight. Hello, friends, welcome to the feed, your family tonight, podcast episode 143. Im your host Marie fiebach. And today, we are going to talk about salt. Now, if you have been a longtime listener way back in 2019 and episode 13, I did a deep dive into salt and I talked about all of the different kinds of salt and how they are, harvested and processed. And some of the best applications for those different kinds of salt. Its a really fun episode with lots of really, really great information. Todays episode of a kind of going to take in a little bit different direction. I am going to talk about some more of the practical ways to use salt, so that your food taste better. I always want to practice. I am not a medical professional. If you have someone, that is a medical professional. That is told you that you need to use a certain type of Salter. You need to Reduce the amount of salt, please listen to them. I am here to help home Cooks, get dinner on the table and part of that is making dinner taste delicious. So your family will actually eat the food that you make, and thats kind of what were going to focus on today. Salt is a huge part of making food taste good. We all know that people are getting a lot of sodium especially from processed foods, but if you are like me and you are actually cooking a lot at home and not really relied on processes very much, then worrying about the amount of salt that you put into your food. May not be as necessary. As a matter of fact, you need to think about adding enough salt to your food so that it tastes good, we do need sodium in. Our bodies is something that is important. Again, if you want your food to taste good, you need to use salt liberally and at the right time and thats kind of what were going to talk about today. Just know their salt. When you eat food in a restaurant, part of the reason that it tastes really, really good. Is that restaurant cooks or Chef are much more liberal with salt and fat than we are in our own home and we dont want to eat restaurant food. Radiator homes. But adding a little bit more salt at the right time and using it properly can take food from something that is okay to something that is absolutely delicious in my home. I probably have at least a dozen different salt floating around. I know, I really like salt, but there are two salts that I have to have in my house at all times. If I dont have these two salts in my house, then were going to have trouble. The first one is table salt. Did that surprise you? That I actually said, table salt is a very specific reason why I keep table salt in my house, and Ill get to that in a minute. But the second one is Celtic Sea. Salt Celtic Sea. Salt is actually a brand of salt that is harvested from the pools in France. I know it sounds all fancy DNC and might be a little bit but it is absolutely delicious salt that has a lot of trace minerals and because it has all those trace minerals it taste Salty or without having as much sodium? If thats the best way I can describe it, is there something a little bit of the Celtic Sea. Salt can really satisfy that salty taste with using a actually physically less salt. I buy my Celtic Sea salt in a 5 lb bag from Amazon, I will link to that in the show notes. If you think that youre going to get on the bandwagon with me, Ill also look in the show notes to a package that has two one-pound bags too. Its not quite the commitment of a 5lb bag of salt. But using Celtic Sea salt really does make a difference in your cooking and all of my recipes with the exception of my baking recipes on my website are actually tested and written with Celtic Sea salt. Now, baking is why I need to have some table salt around because the Celtic Sea salt that I use has large grains of salt and thats not work really, really well with baking baking is very much a science. It is very much, a precision and table. Salt has nice fine grains that are always the same by wait and buy volume measurements. So a teaspoon of table, salt is always going to be a teaspoon of table. Salt is going to weigh the same amount. When you are baking, you need that Precision, but you also need the fine grains that the table salt provide. You want that salt to be able to dissolve in a minimal amount of liquid and when youre making something like a muffin or a cake or Looky. There really isnt a lot of liquid there and so you want that salt to be able to dissolve and you need table. Salt for that table, salt comes in two main forms. One of them is iodized. The other one is uniodized. I prefer the nid salt, but if you want to know the absolute truth, my husband has this thing where he grew up with the flavor of iodized salt, and he can tell the difference. And so I keep iodized salt and when I bake, thats what I usually use. Even though it isnt my preference. So those are the two salts that I have in my house. I want us to dig into a little bit about how to use salt earlier this year. I did a recipe on Kate TV for blanched and roasted vegetables. I probably should have come up with like a snazzy title like vegetables that are to die for something, because they really are different after. I posted this recipe, a friend of mine, sent me a text and I want to read you a little bit about what she said. She said, life-changing are broccoli and cauliflower didnt even make it to the table. It was devoured straight from the pan friends. That is the magic of salt. When you use this technique of blanching vegetables, before you roast them, you take water and you add a lot of salt, you add veggies to a pan of boiling, salted, water, and you just let them cook in the water for one or two minutes and in those one or two minutes, some magic happens, because the veggies are in a salty. Water bath. The salt actually has a chance to kind of penetrate deep into the veggies rather than just on the service true. Blanching you would take them out and you would put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking. But when I do in this recipe is I just put them straight on to an oil pan and roast them in the oven, but thats salting and blanching steps. First causes that salt to penetrate deep into the veggies, and it makes them so delicious. I will even blanch veggies and chill them and put them in the refrigerator and then just eat them cold. My favorite vegetable to do that with asparagus. Oh my goodness. Blanched asparagus, that has been in that salty water for just one or two minutes is still has that kind of crunched, but it has that salty Savory flavor. And I could eat like, half a pound of blanched asparagus, just straight out of the refrigerator may actually have done that on more than one occasion. It is so delicious. That the key is that you are using that salted water so that the salt has a chance to osmosis to penetrate deep into the vegetable. Timing of salt is really important. If you had just roasted those veggies and sprinkled the salt on top, the salt would not have a chance to penetrate deep into the veggies and youll get the salt on the out side, but you dont get it that flavor all the way through the veggies, and that is how the timing of salt can be really important when you are doing blanched veggies or things like cooking pasta in salted water. Its really hard to have too much salt is possible. You really, you cant have too much salt, but in most cases, its almost impossible to have too much salt. So go ahead and put in a good tablespoon or two of salt into your salty. Water that youre cooking. Your veggies are your salty water that you are cooking your pasta. Most of thats all its going to get washed down the drain but the amount of salt will help more the salt get into the food. Thats Cooking and well make this food tastes delicious. My father actually has had to go low, sodium for some health reasons and my mother cooks her pasta without salt in the water. And the difference between that pasta and the pasta that I cook at home is night and day. Now good, theres really good reasons why my mother no problem with that. But if you want your food to taste extra delicious, use a heavy hand with the salt. When you are making things like sauces, you need to be a little bit more careful with your salt, especially if your sauce is having some type of prepared product in it. So if you have some canned tomatoes in your sauce or you have some chicken broth in your sauce, homemade chicken broth, you kind of have a little bit better control over how much sodium is in there. But if youre using a canned or boxed chicken broth from the grocery store, I always recommend buying low Sodium chicken broth because as it reduces the sodium is going to concentrate and somehow the sodium in the chicken broth. You dont. It doesnt add the flavor that adding salt on your own desk and you can quickly end up with a sauce that is too salty. Back in episode 93, I had Kendra. See the lazy genius on the podcast. And she is, as much of a salt evangelist is, I am and she will tell her listeners to Salt the food until its sings. Not a super, highly technical term. I dont really have a highly technical term for how long and how much do you need to start the food. But for me, I feel like you need to Salt it until youre like, wow, that taste amazing. If you are making a sauce of some sort and you taste me like thats good. Add a little more salt. You like, thats really good. And then add just a little bit more salt and you like, okay, wow, that taste amazing and when youre adding salt you want to add in small increments and taste it as you go because Im doing too much salt is a little bit more challenging. Now if you go back to listen to episode 30, I do have some tips in the episode about what to do. If you have put too much salt in your food, there are some scientific things that you can do to help if you put too much salt in your food so if youre interested in that go listen to episode 13 at it and small little increments and taste as you go. And when you think that its almost there, just a little bit more and when it goes, wow, or is Kendra. She would say when it sings then you know that you have enough salt The next thing I kind of want to talk about is salting meat. When you are salty meat, you basically have two choices. You can salt the meat really early and give the salt time for you consulted immediately before. Cooking most Meats benefit from the magic equation of salt & time. It really is best. If you can salt your meet early, what happens when you salt your meet early, is that the salt sits on the service of the meat? And what it does is it actually starts to draw the moisture out of the meat. And then, as it sits there, overtime, osmosis if you go back to 7th grade science class osmosis that salt will actually start drawing the moisture back into the meat and youre going to get a meat that has better flavor and it usually has a higher moisture content and is going to be much more delicious. Now, when you are saltiness meet over time, you want to do it in the refrigerator and you want to if possible have the meat open to the air of the refrigerator rather than wrapped in plastic wrap or sealed in a container, that is because the air of the refrigerator will actually dehydrate the surface of the meat. And in most meats, you want to get a nice fear or an i Brown crust on the outside of whatever meet your cooking, and water is the enemy of a nice sear. And so you want to get the meat a chance to actually slightly dehydrate on the surface and youre going to end up with meet that Browns easier. And dad is also going to give it more flavor. When you are salty needs, you probably want to know how much salt to use the rule of thumb is to use one teaspoon of coarse salt for kosher salt per pound. If youre using table, saw its down to about 3/4 of a teaspoon per pound. But Id like coarse salt or kosher salt, because the flakes are larger, and they cover the surface area. A little bit better. It works better for salting. Meet rule of thumb is about one teaspoon per pound of meat. When talking about chicken specifically, you want to know, there are all sorts of different kinds of chicken that you can buy. Some of them are, are chilled, some of them are organic, some of them are free-range. Some of them are the least expensive chicken. The one thing that I look for for, with chicken in the grocery store is that I look to see if the chicken package says broth solution added. If the package says broth solution added, there is salt in that chicken and when you go to salted youre going to want to use less salt. My roast chicken recipe which I will link to in the show notes. I have you salt, the chickens the night before and you put them into the refrigerator open are on a roasting pan or a baking sheet. And let the salt work, its magic overtime, and the air will dehydrate the service and you end up with these roast chickens that have juicy meat and Call C crisp skin. That is absolutely irresistible. I have been known to start my chickens up to 3 days ahead before cooking. Now overnight is usually enough but if you have time and you can let those chicken sit in your refrigerator for a couple of days. I discovered this, when I salted my chickens and then life happened in for 2 days, I didnt get a chance to roast them. If that is you you are totally not alone. We all have days when that happens. But I learned that with you, let that sorts of different three days. It takes the chickens from delicious to. Oh my gosh, what is this amazing food? I have made to Salt + time. Equals magic when it comes to meet same as with beef or pork or any other meat that you are making, you usually want to have salt and Thyme, the exception to that rule is when youre using ground, meat things, like ground, turkey and ground hamburger salting ahead of time can kind of affect the texture and sometimes can make him taste a little bit spongy, but you definitely want to be salting them as they are cooking this past January. I was shooting some video for a special project and I was at my friends house and we were cooking beef in a cast iron skillet on her stove and I said, okay, but you need to put some salt on there and she said when Im cooking and I said, oh my goodness, youve got to Salt cure meat while you are cooking because once it is already cooked, that salt is not going to penetrate deep into the fibers of the meat and that youre going to Need more salt to make it taste good. And its not going to penetrate all the way in. So, when you are cooking, things like ground beef and ground turkey or ground chicken, make sure that you are salting them. When you are cooking, I could go on and on about how to cook hamburger and maybe thats a podcast for another day because there are definite things that she should be doing to get the most flavor out of your ground meat. So you cook them, but you definitely want to sell them as they are cooking but maybe not salt them before. I was inspired you to use a little bit more salt, maybe try and unrefined salt, like that Celtic Sea salt, that I Linked In the show notes. It really will make a difference in how your Foods taste. It will even make a difference in the texture if youre using salt properly, but do not be afraid of salt. Be sure, especially if youre doing things like sauces to taste as you go. And I just a little bit at a time and when you think your food tastes good. Just a little bit more, and I bet you your food is going to taste great. Now, friends. I am so glad that you join me today. Sure that catch up with me in the future family tonight. Facebook group will be talking a little bit about salt this week. I would love to hear the kinds of salt that you are using in your house. If you have any questions about salt, please ask them. Ill do my best to answer them for you for now friends. I hope you are doing well, take care.