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Kosher Salt?


Mr Wozencroft

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Its a coarse-grain salt that is used for a wide number of cooking applications, its used very frequently when seasoning any kinds of meat, along with coarse black pepper.

You can buy it in virtually any supermarket, the major brand in the United States is Morton. If you're going to have one kind of salt in your home kitchen, it should probably be Kosher salt because it is extremely versatile.

Kosher Salt

This salt was developed for the preparation of kosher meats, but many cooks prefer it over table salt.  It has coarser grains, so it's easier to use if you, like professional chefs, toss salt into pots with your fingers, measuring by touch.  Most kosher salt is also flaked, giving each grain a larger surface area.  This helps the salt adhere better, so it's great for lining margarita glasses, and for making a salt crust on meats or fish. Kosher salt also is preferred over table salt for canning and pickling.  Like pickling salt, kosher salt is free of iodine, which can react adversely with certain foods

As you live in the UK, it might be difficult to find what we call in the US Kosher Salt. In which case, any other kind of coarse-grain salt such as Sea Salt is a good approximation.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

Twittter: @jperlow | Mastodon @jperlow@journa.host

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Anyone help me with a Korean salt, called Roasted Salt. It is very fine, cakes easily, and slightly beige. I has a good, long lasting taste. I don't know the origin, the processing, or best use.

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Anyone help me with a Korean salt, called Roasted Salt.  It is very fine, cakes easily, and slightly beige. I has a good, long lasting taste. I don't know the origin, the processing, or best use.

I can tell you a little about Korean roasted salt. I'm not sure of it's history. The first time I had it was about 15-20 years ago. My mom brough it from Korea. It was supposedly an artisanal product and it was very slowly roasted in a pan. It was very expensive back then, so we used it sort like fleur de sel or fleur de gris. We didn't make kimchi with it. More recently I've seen commercial brands such as this one.

If you have a question about Korean food I'll try to answer it, if I can't I'll even call the Korean cooking school or the Korean cultural center in LA. But it's easier for me to find it if you post in the elsewhere in Asia forum.

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I actually prefer Diamond Crystal kosher, if you can find it. I like their flakes better than Morton's. My lame-ass supermarkets only carry small canisters of Diamond Crystal, but do carry the large boxes of Morton's.

I keep a container of it on the stove at all times. Great for quick seasoning.

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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Anyone help me with a Korean salt, called Roasted Salt.  It is very fine, cakes easily, and slightly beige. I has a good, long lasting taste. I don't know the origin, the processing, or best use.

If you have a question about Korean food I'll try to answer it, if I can't I'll even call the Korean cooking school or the Korean cultural center in LA. But it's easier for me to find it if you post in the elsewhere in Asia forum.

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping you might read my request.

The salt is probably commercial, as it was only $3. for a small shaker, perhaps 8 ounces, in a Korean market in Toronto. I have a few more Q's about Korean foods, but I'll put them in the Asian section.

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Kosher salt is also essential for salting the rims of margarita glasses. Also, because it's not iodized, it doesn't taste like iodine -- there are some dishes in which I think (maybe) I can perceive this difference. If you want to put a salt crust on something, or pickle something . . . there are a lot of uses. But the thing I like most about kosher salt is that the coarse grains are easier to handle. I don't use a salt shaker when cooking -- I use my fingers to add pinches of salt from a bowl or jar. You just have better control over quantity with kosher salt, and it's easier to sprinkle it very evenly over a surface. Other coarse salts, like sea salt, work for this, but kosher salt tends to be more uniformly workable in my experience.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Be aware that Morton's kosher is nearly twice as dense as Diamond Crystal, as it is made in a very different way. In other words, there's as much salt in a tablespoon (or a gallon) of Morton's as in nearly two tablespoons (or gallons) of Diamond Crystal.

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Anyone help me with a Korean salt, called Roasted Salt.  It is very fine, cakes easily, and slightly beige. I has a good, long lasting taste. I don't know the origin, the processing, or best use.

I saw large huge bags of it at Han Ah Reum Asian Mart in NJ, today.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

Twittter: @jperlow | Mastodon @jperlow@journa.host

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Smart & Final carries Diamond Crystal kosher salt in boxes at a very good price.

The only place I buy it.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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For buying different salts in larger quantities, I can recommend Saltworks. I've never ordered their culinary salts but, after my first trip to a spa, I did buy a big-ass bag of Dead Sea salts from them.

WOW!

For the best deal, order your salt in 4,260 pound lots! (minimum order of 4)

SB (looking for an 8.5 ton salt shaker)

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Be aware that Morton's kosher is nearly twice as dense as Diamond Crystal, as it is made in a very different way. In other words, there's as much salt in a tablespoon (or a gallon) of Morton's as in nearly two tablespoons (or gallons) of Diamond Crystal.

Typical fine-crystal table salt, in turn, is substantially denser (i.e., packs tighter) than kosher salt. I'm eyeing a new scale that's very precise and accurate, and if I get it I'll be sure to weigh a fixed volume each of several different salts and report the results here.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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[ I'm eyeing a new scale that's very precise and accurate, and if I get it I'll be sure to weigh a fixed volume each of several different salts and report the results here.

Law enforcement agency confiscated property auctions are a good source for highly precise and accurate scales.

SB (it's best to use a fake name though)

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Be aware that Morton's kosher is nearly twice as dense as Diamond Crystal, as it is made in a very different way. In other words, there's as much salt in a tablespoon (or a gallon) of Morton's as in nearly two tablespoons (or gallons) of Diamond Crystal.

Typical fine-crystal table salt, in turn, is substantially denser (i.e., packs tighter) than kosher salt. I'm eyeing a new scale that's very precise and accurate, and if I get it I'll be sure to weigh a fixed volume each of several different salts and report the results here.

Just be aware that salt is notoriously tricky to weigh accurately because it is extremely hygroscopic (the same volume of salt will weigh a different amount depending on relative humidity).

Without getting too complicated (I can't help myself...), since these three salts all have different densities they might absorb water differently, such that the relative weight ratios would be different depending on humidity. It might be fun to weigh the three salts multiple times over different days and see how much of an effect humidity has (I'd do it myself but my digital balance only measures to the nearest gram).

Martin Mallet

<i>Poor but not starving student</i>

www.malletoyster.com

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Typical fine-crystal table salt, in turn, is substantially denser (i.e., packs tighter) than kosher salt. I'm eyeing a new scale that's very precise and accurate, and if I get it I'll be sure to weigh a fixed volume each of several different salts and report the results here.

Surprisingly, Steven, Morton's kosher is damn near as dense as table salt. I have the figures somewhere, but not on this computer.

I've now switched computers, so here are some figures for a 1-cup measure of various salts, rounded off to the nearest 5g:

Morton’s kosher: 250g

Diamond Crystal kosher: 135g

Table salt: 300g

Coarse sea salt: 210g

Malden sea salt: 120g

Edited by Jason Perlow (log)
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Anyone help me with a Korean salt, called Roasted Salt.  It is very fine, cakes easily, and slightly beige. I has a good, long lasting taste. I don't know the origin, the processing, or best use.

I saw large huge bags of it at Han Ah Reum Asian Mart in NJ, today.

I wonder if those huge bags are for the restaurant trade. I think a typical Korean household it would take 30 years to use it up. But then again if anything Korean-Americans love to buy in bulk.

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I like David's Kosher salt - the taste is fine, but the big attraction is that it comes in a 40 oz plastic bottle that's a lot easier to store, and keeps the contents a lot drier, than the boxes that Morton's and other brands come in.

I have found it in New Jersey at Wegman's and Foodtown.

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What are the processing requirements for Kosher salt? Does it have to be from a mine? No additions like iodine or calcium? Can it be similar to the pickling salt I buy, apparently from a Detroit mine, one mile under the city?

Were the origins of Kosher salt from the dead sea?

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IIRC, Morton's had an anti-caking ingedient the last time I looked. Diamond Crystal is pure salt.

-- Jeff

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." -- Groucho Marx

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Here in the uk I use Maldons Sea salt and a course grain rock salt.

Which of these would I want to use to preserve, say, Lemons and how much do you think I would have to use in comparison with Kosher Salt?

Thanks for your posts.

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Here in the uk I use Maldons Sea salt and a course grain rock salt.

Which of these would I want to use to preserve, say, Lemons and how much do you think I would have to use in comparison with Kosher Salt?

Thanks for your posts.

I can't answer your questions, but I would be amazed if Maldon's got the nod. It is quite expensive here in North America, and used for final seasoning or appearance.

I can't find Maldon's flaked salt locally, but I do have a 3 oz. pouch of Celtic salt from Britanny. That set me back $8.

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  • 3 years later...

For a long time Diamond Crystal has been my kosher salt of choice. What other kosher or similar salts are people using? I'm looking for better, fresher and cleaner tasting salt. Any suggestions?

Recently I read (perhaps in these forums) that kosher salt, per se, isn't available in some parts of the world, specifically Europe. What is used in those places instead of kosher salt?

Edited by Shel_B (log)

 ... Shel


 

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