The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

because its large grains efficiently draw blood out
from flesh during the koshering process (which, by
the way, makes it an extremely efficient salt for dry-
brining—more on that later).
Why use kosher salt over regular table salt? One
word: sprinkling. Table salt is fine if you use it out of
a saltshaker, but you get a much better idea of how
much salt you’re actually putting into or on your
food if you add the salt with your fingers, and kosher
salt is simply easier to pick up and apply that way.
To apply an even layer of salt to your food, pick up
a pinch of kosher salt, then hold your hand high
above the food before sprinkling it. Because of
turbulence in the air, your salt will rain down upon
your food in a pattern that shows a normal (bell
curve) distribution from where you drop it. The
higher you drop it from, the more even the
distribution.
All of the recipes in this book were tested with
Diamond Crystal kosher salt. If you must use table
salt, you should use only two-thirds as much as is
called for, as table salt packs more tightly into a
measuring spoon (most of the time it’s called for in
amounts too small to effectively measure with a
scale). In most savory recipes, you’ll be able to taste
the salt level as you cook, adjusting it to suit your
own palate. Whenever appropriate (for baking
projects, brines, etc.), I’ve given salt measurements
in weight.
And what about all the fancy “designer” salts?