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My mother used to cook an Austrian-style red cabbage with apples and caraway seeds that I really liked. I'm not sure what cookbook she was using. Anyway, I found a recipe on the Food & Wine website: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/braised-red-cabbage-with-caraway-and-apple My mother didn't use mustard seeds, but I thought I'd try them, along with the caraway seeds. However, I don't have red wine and I'm reluctant to buy any because it would go bad easily if I don't drink it up. I also would rather not use sugar. So I'm thinking that it might make sense for me to instead get a granny smith varietal of hard cider and use that, knowing that the rest will be in cans and won't go bad quickly, and I can drink some with my cabbage. I was also thinking of using a couple of apples instead of just one, to up the sweetness (I have granny smith and McIntosh apples, so not so sweet, but sweeter than vinegar for sure). Do you think this recipe will work well with those changes? (I'm also not going to use any salt, as I'm on a low-salt diet.)

Of course it will! You probably can't get fresh coconuts in Montana, but I hope you can get unsweetened dried shredded coconut somewhere, like maybe a health food store if supermarkets don't carry it.

:-) Doesn't sound like you have a warped mind, just a particular taste and affection for a type of comfort food. Another idea I have would be to make an Italian-style risotto, but with the oats instead of rice. To avoid salt, use no cheese but make a stock from some good-quality dried mushrooms that you soak in water for some time, and use that as a base, along with fresh mushrooms and any kind of herbs you like (parsley, thyme, what have you), plus maybe some other vegetables like carrots.

Another idea: Do you like yogurt? If you do (and you can eat it), you could consider combining your oatmeal with some yogurt and, say, ground cinnamon. When I was on the Zone diet, I used ricotta, but unless you make it yourself, be careful about the salt content. It's not nearly as salty as most other cheeses, but I've been avoiding it.

I haven't eaten oatmeal in a long time, but you could try a masala oatmeal with various spices, perhaps some curry leaves and some fresh cilantro and see how it works out.

Sure, if I make any of these recipes, I'll be sure to report back on my results.

Steve, in the past, I found that things were intermittently oversalted at Lupa, but the last time I was there, it was awful. I agree that Otto is better in that regard. I had a very good meal there last spring. gfron1, if you are now doing low-salt cooking, we have things to talk about in the Cooking thread, as that's exactly what I'm doing now, too, and therefore, I'm not eating out much at all, at least for now (my BP is down nicely, but I'm still on medications and also need to lose more weight). The only places where I eat are places that can actually make things for me that are without salt, and that's mostly not really worth doing except at places that are cheap and convenient. I think tasting menus can be great, but I don't like it when they're only 2 bites of each course. I think the best "tasting menu" I ever had was probably the 10-course kaiseki at Kyo Ya, back in 2012 or so. No wine pairings, just a couple of great sakes with the meal. It was very expensive, but it was worth doing once (and again someday, if I come into more money). I also had a very good tasting menu, also not with wine pairings as such but with several wines (at least 3 pours, but we might have had a dessert wine, too) chosen in consultation with the staff at Degustation the previous year. I remember having wine pairings somewhere, but I don't remember where. I guess I feel like tasting menus are fine when they're a real event. This isn't something I can do regularly, and it also isn't something I'd want to do often, as my experience was that they are very filling (though I've read accounts of tasting menus that somehow are not).

Thanks for all the links. Sodium Girl's recipes, in particular, are really interesting! I think I'll try her "cauliflower chorizo" at some point.

Thanks for the reply, but I almost never add salt to anything, anyway (with the exception of sul long tan that I've gotten in Korean restaurants). In this thread, I'm just asking about cookbooks or websites that either have good recipes that are expressly non-salty or well adaptable to leaving out the salt and salty ingredients.

That sounds good. I'd probably use fresh garlic, though.

Thanks a lot. I'll check 'em out.

Hi, everyone! I'm on a very low-salt (<2g of sodium per day) diet and love very savory, delicious food! I'm also trying to lose weight and not currently really low-carb but likely to increasing go that way, within reason (I don't ever plan to give up the nutrition I need from fruits and vegetables). I've found that Indian recipes often work great without salt, but I'm wondering if any of you have favorite cookbooks or websites that specialize in very savory (i.e., in no way bland) saltless recipes, or that are particularly well adaptable to omitting salt and salty ingredients of all kinds. I did already start a thread in the Cooking forum on Low-salt recipes and have read several other relevant threads in that forum, so this question is specifically about cookbooks and websites.

Thanks a lot for your reply! No, you definitely don't come across as a naysayer. My feeling was that since you showed you have high standards, the places you would recommend would carry more weight from you than from some other people. I really hope your experience at Lupa is better than my last time there. I had a pasta that was so salty I almost sent it back, and I don't plan on returning.

But other than that, you love 'em all! ;-) What restaurants in New York have you liked lately?

I'm glad that worked for you! I never drink sugary soda at all and drink lots of water, which is advisable for a wind player. I'm sure W.C. Fields had something very funny to say about water. Something about whiskey being better, perhaps? Be careful about lemon pepper. The type my mother used to use has loads of salt in it.

I did check on Indian tamarind, It's fine. It has 28mg of sodium per 100g, and is very high in potassium, which as far as I know is not a problem for me. I looked up asam gelugor (Malaysian "tamarind"), and there's a lot of information about it being used as a weight loss aid. Strange. But seems to be safe, too.

I use that site. Yeah, I like butternut squash a lot. I also like calabaza. There's a delicious pumpkin curry recipe in one of Madhur Jaffrey's books that I used to cook with calabaza every fall for my parents until my father had to go on a diet that didn't allow him to eat calabaza (I think a low-potassium diet for kidney failure). I really can't use salt-pickled items like capers. I also wouldn't dare using dried shrimp. I'm really not looking to find ways to cheat. I'm scared straight (well, OK, not actually scared right now, but I sure was) and don't want to start adding salt back into my diet in any form until I've lost more weight and been able to go off some of these medications.

Lisa, first, about using liquid with fried eggs: When I was in graduate school, if I only had time to fry eggs, rather than to make a scrambled egg dish or do something more complicated, I had what I thought of as a little gourmet trick: After frying the eggs in extra virgin olive oil, I added just a bit of decent wine and cooked it just long enough (if I got it just right) so that just a touch of alcohol was still tastable. I would then eat the eggs on oatmeal bread toast. As for using a masala or tarka with eggs, this is one improvised dish I made a week ago that was tasty, from the Low-salt cooking thread I started on the Hungry Onion website:

Good idea, Thanks for the Crepes. Maybe that was the problem: It cooked at a higher that boiling temperature, whereas I always try to brew my tea before the kettle whistles. I'll try adding just a bit of really strong tea at the end, maybe along with yogurt (which I was out of tonight).

I drink hibiscus tea a lot, and enjoy the bracingly sour taste. Tonight, I tried using it with my fried eggs. The short version is that the results from using hibiscus tea (that is, hibiscus petals steeped in hot water) were not successful. What I did was to pan-fry some "raw" cashews in extra virgin olive oil, with some garam masala, ginger powder and cinnamon powder. When the nuts were darkened on both sides, I started frying 3 eggs and then added about 1/2 cup of strong hibiscus tea (I drank the other half cup later, and it tasted good). I also added a bit of water to the cup where I was keeping my stirring spoon - probably a mistake, but not, in my opinion, the problem. When I tasted the liquid after some reduction, it didn't taste strongly of hibiscus - or anything much else - so I added some amchoor powder and more garam masala. When the eggs were done (whites solid, yolks still not fully cooked), I added some torn up cilantro that's a few days old, past its peak but still edible, cooked just a little longer, mixed it with everything and served myself the meal. The cashews tasted great, but there was an off taste to the sauce. I really don't like having meals that are not tasty. This one was a bit spicy, but there was something wrong with the effect of the hibiscus - or I guess it's possible that when I pan-fried on pretty low heat, some of the spices burned a bit, but I kind of doubt that was the problem, as I cook my eggs with spices without a problem all the time (just adding a bit of vinegar). Given that the tea itself was fine, what do you suppose I did wrong? I'm reluctant to try using hibiscus in my cooking again.

Good to know about MSG, but I feel like that's still too much sodium for me to want to deal with.

I think if I made this recipe, I'd make my own tahini without salt 1/2 cup is 8 tbsp, which - well, actually, 200 mg of salt isn't terrible. I'll see whether some store like Trader Joe's sells low-salt tahini. I'll have a look at the Winter Squash topic. I'm not going really low-calorie, as I'm eating things like full-fat yogurt; instead, I'm just eating less (and, when healthy, exercising more). But I see you were talking about low-carb in relation to squash, so I think this requires a longer explanation. I think that on my diet, it's important to have fruits and vegetables for good nutrition, so while I may seek out lower-glycemic fruits and vegetables and have less really high-glycemic ones, I don't see a good reason to avoid things like zucchini, cauliflower, even pineapple.

Thanks, Smithy. That chicken looks good and I think it would be good without soy sauce, too (yes, I'm avoiding soy sauce completely). I have some good Indian cauliflower recipes, but I'd always like another good one. I'm not being strictly low-carb right now, but I will tend that way and may need to become strict to lose all the weight I want to lose, so though I'll consider pasta recipes now and then, I'd rather cook other kinds of Italian dishes (more in the nature of secondi and contorni - for example, I can make a good simple dish of sliced zucchini and yellow squash with fresh tomatoes, garlic, onions, fresh basil and oregano and pepper, plus possibly a splash of wine if I get some good wine and have a good way to keep it fresh-tasting).

Thanks, Katie. Good thoughts all-round. I hope to get off some of my meds, but for that, I believe I will have to lose more weight (I lost about 15 pounds pretty quickly just by mostly not eating in restaurants, as I tend to be undisciplined and eat the whole portion of whatever I order for myself, whereas when I cook, I am more restrained). One of my goals for the year is to get my weight under 190 for the first time since my senior year of high school. I started out weighing about 220-221.5, and the last time I checked, I was down to 206, but it was fluctuating between 204 and 208.5. I might have gained a bit of weight back in the last few days since I've had a respiratory ailment, so I haven't been exercising and have been getting some delivery of the couple of dishes Grand Sichuan St Marks can do saltlessly for me (Sauteed Spicy Chinese Broccoli and Braised Pumpkin with Ginger and Scallion). By the way, one of my problems right now is that my refrigerator is too small, and my freezer can freeze water but little else, so in the medium term, I need to create enough additional space in my apartment for a regular-sized refrigerator and buy one.

I'll check on tamarind, but I was assuming it was OK. If I only need a half a piece of kombu for a rather large amount of dashi, then yeah, that's no problem at all. Thanks a lot for the Nyonya ideas! Do you have a favorite website for Nyonya recipes?