On salt

A long rambling on life recently + salt, *the* powerhouse ingredient

Hello, LONG TIME! I am hoping to finish writing this before my third shower of the day, and it is only 1pm. Will I make it? !This weather and hectic humidity is certainly no friend of ours. FYI I’ve been writing this post for 1.5 weeks now.

Firstly, I apologise for the lack of posts! I’ve been cowering behind a wall in the digital sphere (behind my screen irl), semi-afraid of writing anything. If you can relate, it goes like this… you know you’re supposed to do something but you put it off because the actual task of doing it is daunting and the next minute you’re questioning your capabilities. AKA procrastination. The other semi-thing is, uh, I’ve been trying to recalibrate for a more sustainable future and life.

It’s no surprise that we get older by the second and will never get the time that we’ve spent (or lost) back. This hasn’t hit me hard enough in my previous 29 years of existence (lol) but I’ve gained some clarity in recent weeks. (I’ve always been a late bloomer, have I told you?) I don’t know the percentage that sleepwalks through life, but I’m willing to bet that at least 10% of us do. I’ve attached a lot of my “purpose” in life to my work and the past 2-3 years have been WHACK, so it’s almost felt like I’ve been suspended in a sort of foggy limbo, not really knowing what I’m *actually* doing and where I’m going.

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Skip this entirely if you’re not into sob stories.

A little backstory:

Right about the time when covid got proper serious, I was writing up a packing list as I had a flight booked back to Australia for the second half of my working visa. I was ready to quarantine for two weeks in a friend’s house before starting work in another bakery. Funny story: I applied to said bakery a few months prior, while I was finishing up another job in melbourne. But because the owner gave me his number incorrectly, it never worked out while I was still there, so I had to come back. I suppose it was a life-affecting mistake because if he hadn’t, I would be in a different place altogether now. Anyway, I never made it because Australia implemented a ban two days before my flight and ya know.

Ever since then.. life has thrown several curveballs at me and I wasn’t / haven’t been where I wanted / want to be, career-wise. The perennial “what am I doing?” has overstayed its welcome.

Wheathead was born out of a feeling that there was no other option for work. (I am very picky with committing to working for someone — it is crucial to me that both parties’ values align.) At the same time I was also really tired of creating for someone else. While I can say I’ve been mostly happy (? relieved? glad?) doing my own thing…

… it’s very draining to work with yourself and yourself only. All you ever hear are your thoughts and questions and ideas with no other surface in the form of another human being to bounce them off of. Day in, day out. It’s just you. And what do we say? “You are your own worst enemy.” Figuring things out and willing yourself to carry on can get hella tough when you’re wearing a million hats. I know it’s easier for some people because they have this sort of purpose that drives them, like making money money money and maybe having a brick-and-mortar and conquering the universe. Even though it was GO GO GO for me for a year or so, I couldn’t exactly figure out why I was going because I wasn’t sure what I was going towards.

It was extraordinarily difficult for me earlier this year because I really was working on the perfect recipe for a cocktail of existential dread and burnout and I aaalmost got it down to a tee. Endless hours of physical work to wear your body out, two dashes of anxiety and stress to keep you up all night, a generous pour of self-doubt, all stirred with your stupid perfectionist self till just the right dilution so it all goes down easy and you’re drunk on mental instability before you even know it. And then you’re in this fog that you don’t know how to get out of even though you know you must.

The “purpose” that has propelled me all this time has been self-centered; it was ambition and the desire to be remarkable at what I do. There was so much sacrificed, so much time and energy invested and inevitably, the lines between my value/identity/self-worth and my career/job blurred so much that I felt like.. If I wasn’t nailing everything I was putting out, what’s the point? This mindset is highly unsustainable for anyone, really — to even try achieving perfection in this line of work. It costs so much and I think the worst part is that you end up not being able to find the joy in what you do. There is no “good”, because you’re always focused on that margin between “good” and “great”. And in that margin, misery thrives.

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What I’ve realised is this: at the end of the day, I’m making food and it shouldn’t be about me trying to achieve some sick standard but it should be about whether or not the food I’m making brings joy to people. For bakeries, especially, I think that the appeal of baked goods is the feeling of comfort and simple pleasure they elicit. Bakers can often get caught up in the “perfect honeycomb” of a croissant or how open the crumb is in a baguette, etc. While those aren’t bad ideals to work towards, it’s a slippery slope if you’re fixated on it. Learning to accept that I’m human and that there can and should be room for failure, and that every day brings about different challenges and being okay with that is the most difficult part of this for me to grasp. I suppose there is vulnerability in that.

As a kind-of-creative, I’ve struggled with the battle between making what I want (personal gratification) vs what people want (what sells). While there will be people ready to label you a sell out, I think this is a big part of the puzzle for lots of creatives-turned-business owners. How to achieve sustainability in terms of sanity and staying profitable, among many things, even if marginally.

TLDR

Recalibrating for me recently has looked like removing myself from my “purpose”, which has helped so much. Not finding your life’s purpose in your work and comparing yourself to others in the same field is SUCH a breath of air; it frees up mental and emotional space for not just living but thriving and I’m looking forward to all that.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, but maybe if anything resonates with you, know that even if we are sailing through different rocky waters, we are both in the same build of boat — a rickety one, with maybe a bit of a crack, weirdly equipped with a toolkit that somehow contains what we need to patch that crack up with, if only we stop panicking and breathe and let ourselves figure things out. (Hopefully you’re not in rapids where time could run out.)

MOVING ON TO SALT

I think a lot about salt. I think about how I passed up several opportunities throughout the years, laughing at pocket tins of Maldon in epicurean stores, wondering why anyone would need to carry salt around and how dramatic that is. When in actual fact, I’m the dramatic one. OF COURSE I haven’t stumbled across those pocket tins in ages, which also means that I’ve found myself muttering under my breath while eating under-salted food quite a few times.

From here on it reads quite randomly because the applications of salt are myriad and I am not that well-read, and it would be nice if you didn’t click the unsubscribe butto out of sheer boredom.

Always fun to peruse the selection of salt in markets — I’m ALL about fancy salt!! In recent times, I’ve had to stop myself from buying salt because there IS such a thing as too much salt. Or too many types of salt.

* Peak seasoning *

While I have been told that I like things salty, the fact is that the very same people who tell me that just don’t know how to live life. I don’t ask for much, really. All I want is for all the food that enters my cakehole to be seasoned properly. And I hate it when my food isn’t?

Salt, as tiny as it seems, is mighty and does a lot of heavy-lifting. It is often the ingredient you put the least of in any dish — a little goes a LONG way. You’ve probably heard that salt makes things taste more like themselves. And truer words have never been said. Salt is essential in SALADS (leafy salads that people, more often than not, don’t season with salt but douse in dressing?); TOMATOES oh my god tomatoes, it’s criminal not to salt them; some vegetables that go into a sandwich (unless logistically it compromises the lifespan of a sandwich); CARAMEL (if someone doesn’t put salt in their caramel, never trust them); the list goes on. But I have not found a liking for coffee with salt — can someone enlighten me? Am I doing it wrong?

Cooks and bakers all strive for peak seasoning. It is no small matter. This, to me, is when something is PERFECTLY SEASONED for its application. Not too salty, not under-salty. If you think about it, it is what makes or breaks a dish. Just a pinch of salt could send something from “mm, okay, not bad” to “OMGTRANSCENDENTAL”. I know this because it’s happened so! many! times! Recently I had a taco at Oldies in Seoul and the braising liquid for the beef was undersalted which was quite a shame. It ended up tasting like an “okay” taco when I know that it could have been SO MUCH MORE because the flavour of the beef was gooood. If you’re spending hours braising meat only to end up with something that is underseasoned… *cue “woe is me!”*. BUT Oldies Taco is good vibes all ‘round and I totally dig what they’re doing.

still good enough, still would go again!

Seasoning is SO important. Just last week I was having some zichar that was really lacking in salt/seasoning. It was particularly prominent in the omelette. I detest when eggs aren’t properly seasoned. What’s up with that? And then I found myself thinking “This is what sets Sin Hoi Sai apart.” Sin Hoi Sai is one of my favourite places to have zichar at that has been around for a long time, and I can only allude it to their excellent seasoning in food, amongst other factors like reasonable prices and efficient operations which are important as well but less important.

Thinking about peak seasoning in cooking

I don’t consider myself a cook, but I’ve done quite a bit of cooking. Here’s what I think about when it comes to seasoning in cooking.

(Sidenote: My absolute favourite taste is umami, not salty. Because savouriness in food is EVERYTHING. It makes you want to keep eating more. And it’s more complex than just salt, it’s almost like there is some inherent sweetness in umami to balance the salt. Umami needs salt to boost its flavour, but if you were to compare just salty and umami, umami definitely takes the cake. Ergo, I want umami in everything. But this is a whole other subject I can write about.)

I often cook without recipes, so seasoning is a big thing to think about before going about. I find it important to balance sugar and salt in cooking. And sugar and salt both come in many forms. Sugar in the form of onions, carrots, oyster sauce. Salt in the form of that bouillon powder and oyster sauce you might add to stir-fried asian greens, or in that bacon or chorizo you’re sauteeing briefly before adding your vegetables for soffrito. Things like that.

When cooking, you’ll know when you hit peak seasoning as you taste your dish throughout the entire process of cooking. It’s the “DAMN that’s good” stage. When you reach that stage, don’t fuck around with it anymore. This, however, varies from dish to dish.

An example: In saucy dishes to be eaten with a blank canvas like rice, noodles or bread, peak seasoning is a little more intense. For thick sauces that you are meant to have less of, you want to season strongly. Think about mapo tofu — the gravy is intense, but only because it is meant to lightly coat glistening grains of rice. You probably couldn’t stomach much on its own if you tried. On the other hand, if you were having a braised chicken dish with a thinner sauce, like an olive and preserved lemon chicken tagine, you wouldn’t season it so far, because the braising liquid will permeate the chicken and an overly salty braising liquid renders the dish inedible.

Salting at all stages

I’m a firm believer and adopter of salting at all stages, including when sweating/cooking down vegetables for bases like mirepoix and soffrito. It makes a difference vs salting only at the end. As salt draws out moisture from vegetables which then cooks off, you get a more concentrated flavour. It sounds contradictory, but the right amount of salt makes onions and carrots taste sweeter. Salt also seasons the vegetables from within and brings out their flavour, and we always want to maximise flavour, so it’s safe to say that salting throughout is superior to only salting at the end. It’s a subtle difference but noticeable if you cook enough.

Salt/sodium comes in different forms

Nevertheless, there are exceptions. If I’m rendering fat from bacon or another cured/processed meat like chorizo, then the salt from that seasons the vegetables and I don’t add extra salt.

If I’m building a sandwich and there is a particularly salty component like prosciutto, for example, and if there were (thin!!) slices of fresh tomato in contact with the prosciutto, it would be a bit much to salt your tomatoes. But if I was making, say, a turkey sandwich and there’s alfafa in there, definitely season alfafa with salt, evoo, some acid or a nice dressing. I hope you’re getting my drift?

Salt in baking

We all know that salt is vital in cooking. But many people downplay its importance in baking, because baked goods are “supposed” to be sweet. This couldn’t be more wrong, and I wish I could be more emphatic about this. I’ve eaten so many cookies that lack salt to balance the sweetness and bring out the flavours in it. Some people sprinkle salt on top to “balance the sweetness”, but you can’t fix an inherently underseasoned cookie dough with a few specks of salt, because cookie dough needs to be seasoned from within!! When you sprinkle sea salt on top (flaky, please), you are balancing the pools of chocolate (good quality, please) that run throughout the cookie.

Also, you can’t just reduce sugar to cut back on the sweetness, because sugar is vital to hydration in the baked good. Reduce the amount of sugar in a recipe past a certain point and you may get a baking disaster. In cakes, sugar holds on to moisture to keep your cakes MOIST. In cookies, the moisture in sugar aids in browning, and also affects the texture of the cookie. We don’t like sad, dry cookies. Instead of reducing sugar too much, try increasing the amount of salt. Just 1 gram of salt could do the trick.

Okay so, seasoning with salt in baking is a little more finicky and technical than it is in cooking. You can’t really season “to taste”, because you can’t mix a cake batter or cookie dough to completion then taste and adjust for salt. The extra mixing effects your cake batter/cookie dough quite a bit and you never want to mix more than necessary for fear of gluten formation or deflation of batter etc.

I’ve also come across SO MANY recipes that call for less salt than a level that is actually peak amount. I know this because I have tested dozens of cookie recipes, and just from lots of baking. You know how, when you ask the older generation how much of each condiment to season the dish with, their reply is “agak agak” (dialect for estimating/going by eye)”? After enough time spent in the kitchen, you’ll have a feel for seasoning — salt amounts, but also sugar. A good amount of salt in cookies is 1.2-2% of flour weight. This depends on how much add-ins you’re putting in your cookie. If you’re adding lots of things like rolled oats, nuts or lots of chocolate, you’ll want to be at the higher end of the range. If you’re also adding wholegrain or heritage flours that are more flavourful (they are usually sweeter), you’ll need to think about increasing salt to season those flours too.

I can’t stress how important the % amount of salt in bread is. There is a very fine line between eating bread that is salty (not shio pan) and bread that is perfectly seasoned. Because a plain old hearth loaf is just flour, water and salt, with sourdough culture that contains organic acids that give rise to unique flavour, underseasoning sourdough is a shame. I find that this is especially so when you use stronger tasting flours like rye and heritage flours. Because salt makes things taste like themselves, in the same vein, a proper amount of salt is required to bring those flavours out. Bread that is underseasoned tastes flat and bland; it doesn’t register as “moreish” when you chew on the crumb. The best way that I can describe eating underseasoned bread, as I picture it in my head, is like driving a car and then falling off a cliff unexpectedly. Whereas eating properly seasoned bread is like cruising on a road with the windows down, breeze in your hair, sun on your skin. And no, eating underseasoned bread with vegemite makes it only marginally better, it doesn’t fix it.

Of course, this is my practice/belief. There are bakers who stick to a 1.5% salt amount — I use 2-2.3% — as their palates find that 1.5% salt lets the flour and flavour of bread shine. I beg to differ and agree to disagree.

Types of salt

I cannot help but judge any kitchen that uses iodised salt for cost purposes. I’m sorry, but the least anyone could use is sea salt. Iodised sea salt leaves a bitter, metallic taste on your tongue. Yuck. Very good salt, on the other hand, like fleur de sel del Guerande leaves a sweet, clean finish and doesn’t hit like “F***, that’s salty!”, like a lesser sea salt does. While you shouldn’t be seasoning your liquids with quality flaky sea salt unless money isn’t a worry — even then, you’re being silly, I find that a good flaky sea salt in salads (leafy or chopped), or on top of halved jammy eggs, or on smashed avocado, makes a world of difference.

Terroir, of course, affects the flavour of sea salt, as it does every other ingredient. I had some prawns recently that reminded me of gasoline? Maybe the prawns were fished from very polluted waters. I don’t know. I’m just apprehensive now. Cornish sea salt isn’t going to taste exactly like Brittany sea salt, etc.

While I am not yet sold on flavoured salts other than smoked salt, I do hope to try some pinot noir? shiraz? salt and to find a flavoured salt I am ready to bend my rules for. This is mostly because flavoured salts have a fixed ratio of spice/herb to salt, and is not ideal for seasoning. Maybe celery salt is a thing, but I like celery seeds and salt separate. Don’t get me started on sea salt/black pepper blends. Pepper isn’t seasoning; it’s additional flavour.

Size matters

The size of the salt grain changes how “salty” hits your tongue. Plus, it would be remiss not to pay attention to the texture that salt adds. Little crystals of crunch serve to add contrast that you didn’t know you were missing.

On German pretzels, huge grains of salt are not just welcome but necessary to serve as a salty contrast to the mildly sweet dough coated with the bitterness of a lye bath, but it also adds to the experience of eating one. This is where I defer from my usual practice of salted butter with bread. Unsalted butter here provides creamy sweetness to complement.

One thing I ate that reminded me very much of a German pretzel was a local specialty in Jeju, cutlass fish. The delicate skin of the cutlass fish when grilled turns delightfully crisp and toasty. While I am unsure if it is typically finished with salt that coarse, the local joint we had it at did so and as I dug in, I got reminded of the flavour of pretzels — toasty, salty, sweet — and was pleasantly surprised. A happy moment.

Okay there ya have it. Glad to say I have managed this before my third shower of the day and the weather has gotten much cooler now.

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a good weekend!

Bisous!
M.