[Sca-cooks] Black salt Re: Cheese fat? - LOOONNGG!

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 4, 2007, at 5:05 PM, ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:

>> What I can attest to first-hand is that one should never use Indian
>> black salt in sausages ;-).
>
> Black salt needs to be used sparingly, and is not generally a good  
> replacement for regular salt.  I've usually heard of it used in  
> fruit salads and raitas (yogurt salads).  If you replaced regular  
> salt with black salt, was it too much?  Or did the flavor not work  
> with the other spices?  Or was it just not good on meat?
>
> Ranvaig

It seemed much "saltier" than an equal mass of, say, sea salt or  
kosher salt, and I suspect what made it really bad for sausages was  
the compact nature of the meat and the casings. I repeatedly  
corrected the seasoning with all the other ingredients _except_ salt  
(including meat), and even after this it seemed to grow saltier- 
tasting over time (no, these were not big crystals slowly dissolving  
or anything like that). But in addition there were sulfurous fumes,  
which, in an open dish or pan of something well-ventilated, would not  
have been a long-term problem, but these were like stink-bombs when  
cut into.

It just wasn't a good match, and there's probably a good reason why  
India is not known for charcuterie and Germany for colored salts in  
cooking. I don't ordinarily believe in letting the inanimate objects  
win -- it keeps me awake at night -- but this was one case where the  
simplest and best solution just seemed to be to not do that again.

A.