"The Old Bear" wrote in message
news
"Vox Humana" writes:

From: "Vox Humana"
Newsgroups: rec.food.baking
Subject: Request - Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 16:10:34 GMT

"Darrell Grainger" wrote:

. . . I saw that his recipe calls for kosher salt. Why does he
always want kosher salt? Is it because it is pure salt?

I was surprised to find out that some salt has other ingredients. I've
even seen a salt in the US that has sugar in it. I'm assuming that
kosher
salt is just his way of ensuring it is pure sodium chloride (NaCl). Am
I
right? Or is there some other reason?

. . . I use regular salt when I bake because it has a smaller
particle
size than Kosher salt and distributes better and doesn't get left behind
in
a sieve like Kosher salt. Most recipes are formulated for regular table
salt. If you want the same amount of Kosher salt by weight you would
have
to use 1.5 times more Morton's Kosher salt and 2 times more Diamond
Kosher
salt than specified in the recipe. This is because the different crystal
sizes in each kind of salt pack together with different densities.

Kosher salt doesn't have iodine or anti-caking agents added. I really
doubt
that either of these things would be critical to a recipe in the amounts
used. Of course you can always get non-iodized table salt.

One of the other attributes of "kosher" salt is that the crystals are
irregularly shaped with lots of nooks and crannies. This provides a
larger surface area for water and other liquids to be absorbed.

See the excellent electron microscope photo on the Boston Museum of
Science
web page at http://www.mos.org/sln/sem/ksalt.html

Keep in mind that this salt is called "kosher" salt because it is used in
the preparation of kosher meat. One of the religious requirements of meat
being kosher is that the blood is removed. This is done by using salt to
absorb the blood from the meat -- and kosher salt's granuals are optimized
for this purpose.

These irregular shaped crystals are useful for recipes which use salt on
the surface -- sprinkled on, stuck on, etc. If the salt is to be desolved
into the recipe, the shape of the grains makes no difference except in
its effect on measurement as noted by Vox Humana above.

Cheers,
The Old Bear



But really, even though not all salt is certified by an agency as kosher,
there is nothing to make salt - no matter the size of the grain "un-kosher".
I feel chefs refer to the larger grain of the salt when they call for kosher
salt. I mean, why else would one call for kosher salt in a pork or
shellfish recipe?

Jewish cook in Oregon,
tgt