Salt and spice
How salt works with spice, and the spiced and mineral salts of the world.
Also: spiced salt, kala namak, black salt, seasoned salt
Salt and spice are partners: salt amplifies aroma, dulls bitterness and carries flavour, and a spice dish with too little salt tastes dull. Cooks salt in stages, adding some early so it penetrates and the rest to finish. Spiced salts are a category of their own: celery salt, garlic salt, Japanese gomashio of sesame and salt, Mexican chilli-lime tajin, Himalayan black salt kala namak, which smells of sulphur and is key to chaat masala, and Sichuan pepper salt. Because bought blends can be half salt, adjust what you add. Different salts, flaky, fine or coarse, measure differently by spoon, so weigh them.