• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Sauce is another reason to salt lightly while cooking. A good use for roast meat juices is to serve them with the meal in the form of a pan sauce. However, because salt never evaporates, every bit of salt that dissolves in the juices as they emerge from the roast and trickle down the surface of the meat toward the pan remains in the juices. If you think about just how easily 2 or 3 tablespoons of salt can be spread over the surface of a large piece of meat such as a turkey or a leg of lamb, and consider how the food’s juices are often concentrated into as little as half a cup of liquid, it is easy to imagine just how salty your sauce could end up.

I love to cook chicken and similar fowl like guinea hens at relatively high temperatures, at least to start. High heat helps the birds’ skin form a wonderful crispy-golden crust. I am of two minds regarding the salting of chicken for roasting. On one hand, unsalted chicken skin develops a lovely golden crust, and then you have the pleasure of sprinkling the moist crystals of a good sel gris over the top to finish. This approach gives you the fullest experience of the luscious mineral qualities of the salt. On the other hand, salting chicken before roasting does nothing to diminish its juiciness, since the fatty skin protects the meat within. Rather, salted chicken skin constricts during cooking, creating a crisper and deeper brown crust. When you salt poultry skin before roasting, it essentially becomes a seasoned condiment to serve with the bird: chicken seasoned with crispy bits of salty chicken skin. Try it both ways and decide for yourself.

Salt cooked meat only after it has had a chance to rest. I prefer to sprinkle a little bit of salt on the cuts of a roast after carving, for a flavorful and textural jolt, and then have salt at the table so diners can season as desired.

Vegetables and fruits are roasted to concentrate their flavors and brown their surfaces. Unlike meats, roasted produce does not need to reach a specific temperature; as soon as the ingredient is tender and browned, it is done. As always, salting roasted fruits and vegetables just before eating yields maximum flavor and aroma and adds texture, all with a minimum of seasoning.

ROASTED CHICKEN WITH WINTER VEGETABLES AND SUGPO ASIN

SERVES 4

The chicken is in the oven—heat forming a golden crust that seals in the juices, salt working its silent alchemy within, denaturing some of the proteins in tough muscles making those parts more tender and flavorful. Roasting is the easiest way to cook chicken and the tastiest. All that is required to reach perfection is time and the perfect salt. Sugpo Asin, a king among salts, glowing rose-cloud white, lush and firmly crunchy, with dulcet brine notes that play lavishly (but with discipline) against the sweet tamed gaminess of poultry, honors this basic meat and vegetable meal as all basic meals should be honored—asserting the preeminence of simple home cooking as the cornerstone of eating well.

3 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch slices

1 yellow onion, cut into 1-inch wedges

2 golden potatoes, cut into 1-inch wedges

2 golden beets, 2 turnips, or 1 rutabaga, trimmed of greens, peeled, and cut into 1-inch wedges

2 carrots or 3 parsnips, trimmed of greens, peeled, and cut into 1-inch chunks

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 rosemary twigs, cut in half

2 three-finger pinches Sugpo Asin or Ilocano Asin (or substitute sel gris)

1 chicken (about 4 pounds), visible fat removed, washed and dried

2 tablespoons dry vermouth

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Toss the vegetables with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large roasting pan. Stick 4 rosemary pieces into the vegetables and scatter with a three-finger pinch of sel gris and a two-finger pinch of pepper.

Sprinkle the interior cavity of the chicken with a three-finger pinch of salt and a two-finger pinch of pepper. Coat the outside of the chicken with the remaining olive oil and place the chicken, breast side down,