Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
![Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)](https://d1c8xu194km6ge.cloudfront.net/course_images/6744/square_thumbnail_image0.jpeg)
Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
This event was on
Tuesday, July 02, 2024 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.
Question:
![Maura E](/assets/users/default_thumbnail-c14152f0fe89cae1cce32e15cdc92f426d801796f87b61f4bb21b89f4b1704ab.jpg)
I used to use plain table salt, before I took this course. But now I am loving sea salt, even though I salt very sparingly. Can you please tell me if there is any advantage in using a salt grinder and if there are any unique salts worth trying.?
— Maura Ema
Answer:
Yeah, so I actually included a link here to be able to kind of dive a little bit farther, um, into salts. Um, you know, table salt is fine. It's kind of what most people use most of the time. I particularly like a diamond salt, and that's like something I'll, um, use as kind of like my salt, uh, you know, kind of carrier next to the stove. Um, and I too don't salt very much. I use salt very sparingly. So when I do it, I do it, you know, with kind of purpose for it. I use it. I think the most that I use salt is probably, um, in cooking pasta when I make pasta water. Um, you know, to be able to salt the water beforehand before making the pasta really helps bring out the flavor of pasta is pretty fantastic. But beside that, I'm pretty sparing on, uh, salt usage now. Uh, I'll typically use that diamond salt for that as well. Um, now there are, are some pretty big differences between the types of salts that are out there. Table salt is typically very granule. It's very, very tiny. Um, and when you like, you know, out, out of a salt shaker, you can just kind of see it kind of pours out of it. Like if you're using something like a sea salt, that's, um, typically gonna be a little bit more crystallized, a little bit bigger pieces on that. Um, and you'll kind of get pops of flavor instead of having it kind of blend into it. It's one of the reasons I like diamond salt as well. It kind of helps blend into it a little bit more. Um, but sea salt is great. Um, you know, you can also get some of the, the thicker, like flaked salt as well, which is fantastic for like the tops of pastries or something you want, just like a little pop of salt on the top of it for, but it might not be through the whole thing. You would use the granulated, um, salts for that as well. Now as far as unique salts, there are definitely a lot out there. Um, pink kimm olean has become, you know, very popular and as well, well, um, I actually do like using that as well. Uh, it kind of gets its hue from the iron that's actually in, uh, the ground as well. So you get a little bit more iron, um, using that salt as well. But, you know, not enough to be able to be like an iron supplement unless you're using quite a bit of it. Um, but that also typically comes in, uh, kind of a, a thicker crystal. So that, and, um, something like the sea salt actually are, you can take great advantages by using a salt grinder because you can get it down to a smaller granule instead of the big ones that they typically come into. So using that grinder, uh, you can usually put it on different settings on grinders from really coarse to really fine. And so I'll typically use the fine setting on those when using the, um, a grinder just to be able to get the advantage of what I'm looking for. Adding it to a dish, being able to incorporate it really easily. Otherwise, using sea salt or Himalayan pink salt, uh, typically will come in a little bit bigger, um, you know, granule. So, uh, I'll just add it to the tops of things like that if I'm looking for that kind of pop of flavor to this top. Um, some other, uh, you know, ones that are definitely worth trying, um, I would say probably the one that I use that's more unique is black salt, which, um, is, it's an Indian salt and it has kind of a sulfur, uh, taste to it. I'll actually add that to my tofu scramble. Um, pretty often. I actually have a grinder of that that I got from Amazon or somewhere like that, that, um, you know, I'll add it to the top of a tofu scramble to add a little bit of that sulfur flavor to make it taste a little bit more like eggs. Um, for my tofu scrambles, uh, another one that I use quite often is smoked salt. So you can get these at specialty stores. I typically get like a hickory smoked salt or something like that, and I'll use that for making things taste like bacon, right? So either a Tempe bacon or a Shiitake bacon. Um, you know, a bunch of different things you can make, make to taste like that. But the smoked salt is actually a great additive to it, 'cause it gives you the smokiness flavor, but also the saltiness that you would get from a bacon product. Um, now I'll usually use a bunch of other things in it as well, but that's one of my uses for smoked salt that I use pretty often to be able to make like BLTs or a carbonara or something like that as well too. So those are probably the, the salts that I would say kind of on the out, you know, like if you wanna go into specialty salts, those are probably some of the ones that I would look at. But on everyday use, I typically use, um, you know, a mixture between sea salt and a diamond salt.
Links:
![Dan Marek](https://d1c8xu194km6ge.cloudfront.net/avatars/1257737/1602952335-image0_profile.jpeg)