Seasoning with Salt

When a recipe instructs you to "salt to taste", and you're facing a piece of raw meat, that may sound a little daunting. But we don't mean that you should taste the meat at that moment—just that you should salt to your own preference. (What may be too salty to some is not salty enough for others.) Another thing we don't specify: the type of salt. We use kosher salt in our test kitchen—it's inexpensive, dissolves quickly, and has no additives. (Fine-grain table salt usually contains deflaking agents.) Coarse sea salt is also additive-free, but it costs more. Beware of differences, though, when preparing recipes that call for large quantities of salt. A tablespoon of table salt contains about 25 percent more salt than a tablespoon of coarse sea salt and 50 percent more than one of kosher salt.