What does Alton have against non-Kosher salt?
He even said to use kosher salt to help clean out a grill grate!
Kosher salt is more pure than plain table salt, it tastes better, and it's more versatile if you can clean a grill with it...sometimes he'll call for pickling salt, which is basically a finer grind of kosher salt. Sea salt is really good too, I believe he had an episode dedicated to it.
shareIts easier to handle since its large flakes.. You can be more precise without a shaker.. And its large flake size prevents it from dissolving to quickly allowing you to separate flavours.. And since its koshering salt it tends to adhere better to where ever you apply it.. Pickling salt on the other hand is designed to fully dissolve quickly.. Both of those and table salt are primarily sodium chloride, iodine addition being the only real chemical difference.. Sea salt on the otherhand is a combination of alot of different salts, not just NaCl by a long shot..
As far as cleaning with salt goes, only adherence to the grill or abrasivity needs to be considered.. Any salt has the ionic potential to break up hydrogen bonding etc..
doesn't like cordless blenders for some reason either.
“Can't go wrong with taupe."- Wynn Duffy
all salt is "kosher" by definition. However, the specific appellation, KOSHER salt is used in the koshering process for meat and poultry because the grains are very large, don't soak into the meat as readily, and thus, don't make the food taste salty. (the process of koshering is to rid the flesh of excess blood. Meat it put on a tilted drain board, salted, and allowed to drain for a few hours.) Using table salt would soak into the flesh.
and yes, he uses kosher salt because it has no other ingredients to mess with the taste -- no dissolved minerals as would fleur de sel (sea salt) or others.