When it comes to cooking, there are five main tastes: salt, sweet, bitter, sour and umami – but the great thing about salt is, it also can alter the flavours of other foods. “Salt has a huge variety of effects on food,” says Nuno Goncalves, Executive Head Chef at Quaglino's. “It’s mainly used as a seasoning to enhance natural flavours, bringing out the sweetness of certain foods if used in small amounts or used to correct bitterness, it also releases certain molecules making foods more aromatic. Salt also plays a big role in preservation, colour enhancement and texture.”
We asked our favourite chefs to give us a lesson in using salt, in moderation…
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of potatoes (boiled, peeled and chopped) optional
1/2 cup of tomatoes (chopped)
1/4 cup of red onion (chopped)
1 green chilli (chopped)
5g of coriander, chopped
1/2 tsp of ground turmeric
1/4 cup of green chutney
1/4 cup of tamarind chutney
1/4 pomegranate seeds
2 cups of puffed rice
1 cup of sev (crunchy noodles)
1 cup of Bombay mix
Indian black kiln-fired rock salt (to taste)
1. Toss the potatoes, tomatoes, red onion, chilli, turmeric, green chutney and tamarind chutney together.
2. Add the puffed rice, black salt and sev and toss to coat. Serve immediately with extra black salt over the top.
The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, an enterprise of Bharat Hotels Limited is India’s largest and the fastest growing privately owned Hotel Company. The company offers Seventeen luxury hotels, with 3600 rooms in the five-star deluxe segment with eleven operational hotels and six under development/restoration (including three overseas). The operational hotels include The Lalit New Delhi, The Lalit Mumbai, The Lalit Grand Palace Srinagar, The Lalit Golf & Spa Resort Goa, The Lalit Ashok Bangalore, The Lalit Laxmi Vilas Palace Udaipur, The Lalit Temple View Khajuraho, The Lalit Resort & Spa Bekal (Kerala), The Lalit Jaipur, The Lalit Chandigarh & The Lalit Great Eastern Kolkata. The Group has also forayed into mid-segment hotels under the brand – ‘The Lalit Traveller’. The first two hotels under this brand opened in Jaipur and Khajuraho with 25 more hotels planned in the next five years.
