Too much salt

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I was about to post something very similar Charlie. Adding salt after the fact is (in many cases) not the same as adding it during the cooking process. It just does not work that way.
 
I've had numerous arguments in restaurants whith the staff. I would specificaly ask to make sure to salt my stake before grilling and they would bring me cooced stake with out any salt. And recomend that i add salt my self. I've send stakes back, I've walked out of places like that, I would refuse to pay. To me to salt stake aftrwards is like eating piese of meat with chunk of salt. I hate that.
 
Not sure I believe the "debunking" of this OWT.

This is an old wives tale that does not work. For a great explanation, see

Really, the only way to make something less salty without changing the dish is to make a second batch without salt (or less salt) and combine the two.

I'm not entirely convinced that the article you cited by Mr. Wolke is correct.

First of all, he didn't mention having done a taste test of the water (he taste tested the potatoes).

Second, his theory is that the potato absorbs salted water which won't reduce the concentration of salt in the water. However, potatoes already have some water and I'm not sure they absorb any extra water. So, in fact, the salted water could exchange places with the unsalted water in the potato which would reduce the concentration of salt in the water.

Third, he measured the salt concentration via electrical conductivity and, as he himself mentioned, potatoes contain potassium, which probably leeched into the water, which could have increased the electrical conductivity enough to account for the missing salt. Of course I don't know if the potassium in potatoes is in the form of potassium chloride which is, itself a salt, though I find it not nearly as salty tasting as sodium chloride.

Has anybody actually ever tried a taste test? My guess though is that, at best, it would take a lot of potatoes to make a significant impact.
 
I have tried a taste test and the results on my test were that the potato did not do a single thing.

For those that think this trick works, what is it about the potato that you think attracts only the salt from the solution? How is the potato a salt magnet only?

For me, I am not wasting my potatoes. All the food experts will tell you that the only way to fix something that is too salty, without changing the desired taste is to make a second batch with less salt and combine the two. That is good enough for me.
 
I have tried a taste test and the results on my test were that the potato did not do a single thing.

For those that think this trick works, what is it about the potato that you think attracts only the salt from the solution? How is the potato a salt magnet only?

For me, I am not wasting my potatoes. All the food experts will tell you that the only way to fix something that is too salty, without changing the desired taste is to make a second batch with less salt and combine the two. That is good enough for me.

If there's anything to the theory (and I readily admit there probably isn't), my guess would be that most spices have a larger molecular structure that can't penetrate the potatoes (or at least, not as well)....though I have no idea how to verify or repudiate that.

Personally, I'm with you though. I'd rather make a second batch with less salt and combine them or pour out some of the water, add more and re-spice it. Depends on how long it's been cooking and exactly what it is. Or I just dump it and start over again! In theory though, I'm not convinced it couldn't work.

Of course there's also a theoretical possibility that there's something in the potatoes that reduces the taste of saltiness without actually reducing the salt content and it's possible that different people's taste buds respond to it differently (which would make it a bad way to solve the problem since some of your diners would probably still find it too salty). Yeah, I know, I'm throwing out some fairly wild hypothesis here, but I wouldn't be convinced by a "scientific test" until those issues (and others that I haven't thought of yet) were addressed.

I don't know what to make of the conflicting opinions of people who have actually tried it though. I've never tried it.
 
Well if it is true that the potatoes do nothing then the placebo effect would explain it perfectly.

Very true though the placebo effect can work both ways. I'm always reluctant to ascribe things to the placebo affect without convincing evidence though because a lot of people get insulted by it.

BTW: Just thought I'd mention that I believe almost all (if not all) spices, other than salt, are organic in nature and I thought I'd remembered learning that organic molecules tend to be very large so I went and did a little research and, sure enough, almost all carbohydrates, fatty acids and amino acids have much larger molecular structures than sodium chloride.

I think somebody needs to do a double blind taste test :)
 
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