Chips without salt? Low sodium ham? We need it and I for one love it and I don’t care if it sends me to the grave a day and a half early. (Oops, not supposed to say that on CNY) So let’s talk about salting. A very strange fashion for under-salting has been creeping into the profession in Malaysia and the excuse for it is and always has been: They can add salt if they want more. Better not to have the three people complain who love bread to taste metallic (yes, that’s where that taste comes from: Lack of salt), steak to be dull and fish to be bland and to leave the rest of us true eaters desperately over-salting the outer layers of our food in a vain attempt to impart any notion of flavour.

For here’s the rub: If you haven’t salted before (and during) cooking, it just won’t taste the same. Trust me, I’m a cook. Salt on top of fried meat is just that: Salt on top. It does NOT penetrate into the meat and you will most probably be eating more of it, because of that. So advice: A nice, even sprinkling of salt on both sides of the steak a minute or two before it goes into the pan, oven, grill… And what about the claims that salting too long before cooking will dry out the meat?? Nonsense, I’m afraid. And for once, you don’t have to take it from me, check Harold McGee’s most eminent, empirically reliable book.

There is one exception to my early salting advice and that concerns the skin side of fish. Salt the meat side first, then turn your fish skin side up and let it wait until the oil in your pan starts to smoke. Now blot the skin dry and then salt about twice as much as you salted the meat (careful here, consider the thickness of the fish, don’t overdo it). Skin side down into the pan until you can see the sides turn brown. Might be a good idea to lift the fish up about halfway through, to let more oil under the thing. Result: Crisp, very tasty skin. Turn fish around and just lightly brown the meat side. It’s the residual heat that should finish the cooking, if you want the fish to be moist. So undercook and then rest a minute or two before serving.

Next up: Vegetables! Even just saying: “Boiled Vegetables” might send you fleeing from the kitchen, but that does not have to be so. Here’s the secret to great looking, great tasting vegetables (sounds a bit like an American ad). Your boiling water needs to be as salty as the sea. Unless you’ve recently swallow a gulp of seawater you will probably get this wrong: The sea is VERY salty. Every litre has on average 35g of salt in it. That, my friends, is a hell of a lot. Go try mix up a batch and you’ll see. And this exactly is what I want you to cook your vegetables in. BUT…and this is a great big mid-western but: Only if you intend to ice water bathe them after cooking (and you really, truly, absolutely should).

Recipe: Prepare a very large batch of seawater and bring it to the boil. Have your veg ready to take the plunge and drop them in when the boil is roiling. Have an ice bath with lots of ice ready on the side. Your veg should be freely flying around in the water. Don’t crowd them in a tiny pot. As soon as they are at the doneness you want them to be, fish them out of the brine and drop them into the ice. Stir them around in there until they are cold to the core. Take out and reserve. When needed toss in butter or oil or whatever else you may fancy, or serve them cold. In fact if you cook asparagus in this way, your friends will ask you why theirs never taste  as nice as these. And the secret was: SALT.