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J. Clarke

Arri London wrote:
> "J. Clarke" wrote:
>>
>> Arri London wrote:
>>> "J. Clarke" wrote:
>>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Is there anyway to make the coarse sea salt into a finer grind
>>>>> without using a grinder, which I don't have. I just tried making
>>>>> fried rice with sea salt but it does not seem to dissolve well.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you in advance ...
>>>>
>>>> If you want to make something finer there are many ways to do
>>>> it--my Dad, who learned to cook in the Pacific during WWII, used
>>>> to wrap whatever it was in a towel and pound on it with a hammer.
>>>> A coffee grinder (the little whirlygig kind) does fine as a spice
>>>> grinder. A mortar and pestle will do the job. Or a food
>>>> processor or a blender (glass jar only--spices will do a number on
>>>> a plastic jar as I found out the hard way).
>>>>
>>>> That said, why would you want to make fried rice with sea salt?
>>>> Soy sauce is a standard component and it is generally adequately
>>>> salty.
>>>
>>> The main complaint my Chinese friends have about Westerners
>>> attempting Chinese cooking is the *overuse* of soy sauce. Fried
>>> rice (or noodles) shouldn't be brown. Use a *little* soy and finish
>>> the salting with salt. The OP is trying to do the correct thing.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Fried rice isn't rocket science you know--throw some leftover rice
>>>> and more or less pea-sized chunks of anything else that you like
>>>> that's fryable in a hot skillet with some oil and stir until it's
>>>> all hot and anything that needs to be cooked through is cooked,
>>>> stir in an egg or two at the end if you like, and you're done.
>>>> Forget the fancy recipes and learn to do it by the seat of your
>>>> pants and you'll enjoy it more. Ordinary table salt works fine if
>>>> you need it, but soy sauce generally puts as much salt into it as
>>>> I want.
>>>
>>> Then you might be using too much soy sauce
>>
>> You're putting far too much effort into some theoretical
>> "correctness". Fried rice is a bunch of leftovers thrown into a wok.
>
> I'm not putting any effort into this at all. But the overuse of soy
> sauce by Westerners does tend to ruin a lot of otherwise good
> Chinese-type dishes.

For certain values of "ruin".

In any case, the rice should start out properly salted.