There’s something magical about watching an ingredient go into a deep fryer. Hearing the oil sizzle and seeing dough puff or batter turn golden brown in a matter of seconds is a reminder of how enchanting cooking can be. If the fast-acting process of frying food in oil is mesmerizing to you, there’s an even more visually intriguing cooking method that will immediately capture your attention: frying in salt. When deep frying in oil, the fat surrounding the food is what transfers heat, cooking the submerged ingredients. In the process of hot salt frying, you’re simply replacing oil with salt, which can evenly distribute heat on all sides of the food. Just like you would test the temperature of oil before frying, you use a thermometer to gauge if the salt in the pan is at a high enough temperature for cooking. Be careful, though, you can only hot salt fry in the same types of vessels used for deep frying in oil. For example, you can hot salt fry in a cast-iron skillet or carbon steel wok, but not in a Teflon-coated nonstick skillet. The salt gets so hot that it can damage an artificial nonstick surface or burn you if you touch it. For hot salt frying, a food-grade coarse salt is best. Finer seasonings like table salt will be difficult to sift off the ingredients you cook. Also, coarse salt granules are less likely to absorb moisture. Most importantly, only completely dry items should be fried in salt. Any damp ingredient, like chicken or steak, will cause the salt to stick, resulting in a dish that’s too salty, and the salt will not effectively make wet ingredients, such as batter, become crispy. Just let the salt heat for 15 minutes to let the volatile compounds like iodine evaporate. The bonus is that hot salt frying is more budget-friendly than frying in oil. You can reuse the salt many more times than you can reuse cooking oil, and cleaning up after cooking with salt is much simpler.
