Besides salt, many other seasonings also contain salt and are frequently used in cooking. Therefore, when adding salt to a dish, you must carefully consider the overall saltiness of all ingredients to avoid making the dish too salty.
What are salty ingredients
Step 1: Sauce types: sweet bean sauce, broad bean paste, and yellow bean paste. Used in dishes like dry-braised fish.
Step 2: Soy sauce types: dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and soybean soy sauce (referred to as "soy sauce" in this book's ingredients). Used for cooking dishes like braised pork belly.
Step 3: Salty ingredients: fermented black beans, dried shrimp, and dried small shrimp. Used in dishes like salt-fried pork.
How to avoid making your dish too salty
Step 1: The trick is to add other salty seasonings first, then adjust the salt to taste at the end.
Step 2: Always taste the dish before adding salt—if the seasoning is already balanced, there's no need to add extra salt.
Note: The amount of salt added should be adjusted based on the saltiness of the preserved mustard greens to ensure the final dish is perfectly seasoned—not too salty and not too bland.
Note: The amount of salt added should be adjusted based on the saltiness of the preserved mustard greens to ensure the final dish is perfectly seasoned—not too salty and not too bland.
There is a cooking method that is particularly prone to making dishes too salty: braising. Most braised dishes require reducing the sauce, and at the start there is plenty of liquid. If you taste the sauce after adding salt and think the seasoning is just right, the dish will end up too salty after reduction, because the salt does not evaporate with the liquid. Therefore, when cooking dishes that start with a generous amount of liquid that is later reduced, you can either add no salt at first or use less salt.
Example Practice
Crispy Garlic Braised Pork Belly
Because the pork belly was stir-fried with soy sauce before braising, be careful when adding salt at this stage. The braising liquid should taste only slightly salty before you begin simmering the meat.