Salt is the single most important item in all cooking. It is used for seasoning curing, taking out bitterness from items such as coffee and chocolate and in water used to cook vegetables so they retain their color.
What is salt? Salt is used as a condiment or ingredient. It brightens food flavors and facilitates a balance between sweetness and acidity by decreasing the sourness of acid and increasing the sweetness of sugar.
Salt is also commonly used as a food preservative before modern times. It inhibits bacterial growth by limiting the amount of ‘free water’ in the cells that bacteria need to grow.
In traditional Chinese cooking, free running salt was almost never used but it still came in fermented products such as soy sauce.
Salt used in baking and cooking, and then used again at the dining table. In addition, most foods contain some sodium before any processing or cooking takes place.
During meat brining, high level of salt penetrate to the centre. Then the meat is cured, and it can be smoked, air-dried or cooked and eaten as is. The curing process helps to preserve meat because some of the water is replaced by salt, making conditions unsuitable for bacterial growth.
Salt can also help out bitter liquids on foods like cucumbers and eggplant if sprinkled on the food before cooking.
The importance of salt
