Text 16838, 92 rader
Skriven 2008-11-25 11:55:22 av Glen Jamieson
     Kommentar till en text av Jim Weller
Ärende: SALTING STEAKS 81125
============================
 -=> Quoting Jim Weller to Glen Jamieson <=-

 GJ> kosher salt [...] Flakes, eh?  Not cubical crystals
 GJ> like other coarse salt?

 JW> Apparently so. As the brine is evaporated it is raked frequently to
 JW> prevent the ordinary cubic crystals from forming normally.

Intersting.  On our local salt pans large, rusty bulldozers scrape up
the salt into piles.  Then it is washed.
 
 GJ> have seen it called for quite frequently in American recipes, and there
 GJ> are no Jewish markets here that I know of, and I haven't seen it in the
 GJ> secular s/markets.

 JW> I can't get it here in my part of Canada either.

So what so you use?  Just ordinary non-iodised?
 
 GJ> I can get cheap, coarse-grained
 GJ> salt here which is used for re-activating water softeners.
 
 JW> I wonder if its pure enough?
 
 GJ> It is cubically crystalline, and light brown.  As pure as the sea I swim
 GJ> in and occasionally inadvertently swallow mouthfuls of.  It comes from
 GJ> the salt pans a few km up the road.

 JW> I am sure it is labelled "not for human consumption" but I'd take a
 JW> chance on it. The brown is probably just a bit of clay that would be
 JW> refined out if the salt was dissolved and re-precipitated. Some
 JW> pink, grey and sulfurous salts are unrefined on purpose and command
 JW> premium prices.

Dried sea contains quite a few other salts besides NaCl; mainly
potassium and magnesium, I think.  Also lots of micro- and macro-scopic
plant and animal life and decaying organic material, all of which would
contribute to its flavour.

 JW> The cheapest salt here is "rock salt" which is used for melting ice
 JW> on sidewalks. That only works down to 0 F (-18 C) which is the
 JW> freezing point of a saturated solution of salt and that fact is the
 JW> basis of the Fahrenheit system.

I knew that, as I learnt it at school when we still used that system,
but I don't know how the rest of that peculiar scale was determined.
My favourite scale is Kelvin, which has water freezing at 273.15 deg.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05
 
      Title: Damper (Bill Harney's Cook Book)
 Categories: Bread
      Yield: 1 Servings
 
      3 lb Flour
           Salt
      1 oz Cream of tartar
    1/2 oz Bicarbonate of soda
           Water
 
  "Take 3 lb of flour and chuck it into a dish, put a bit of salt to it
  and some rising in the proportion of 2 cream of tartar to 1
  bicarbonate of soda. Pour some water into the dish and mix it well
  into a light dough.
  
  "Now sprinkle a little flour in the bottom of the camp oven to
  prevent the dough from sticking, put in the dough, and put the lid on
  top. To cook, you must have ready a shallow hole in the ground, into
  which hot ashes are placed with a shovel *. Put the camp oven over
  the hot ashes, then cover it completely with more hot ashes. It must
  be completely covered, otherwise it will burn. After about half an
  hour, lift the lid with a pair of wire hooks, scrape off the ashes,
  and tap the camp oven with a stick.
   If it gives off a hollow sound, the damper is cooked.
  
  "If you wish to keep damper for some time, and the weather is dry,
  rub it with a little fat from corned beef. This will keep it soft.
  
  "A plain damper is sometimes broken into small pieces and fried in
  fat; the resulting scones are called Puftaloons."
  
  "* A shovel is an absolute necessity for a bush cook."
  
  Bill Harney's Cook Book, (c) 1972
 
MMMMM
 

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 * Origin: Braintap BBS Adelaide Australia (3:800/449)