Unveiling the Roles and Clever Uses of Three Condiments

Salt, sugar, and white vinegar are common seasonings used in cooking. Many people believe that their only function is to add flavor, but they are unaware of their many other uses and applications beyond seasoning.
The Uses of Salt
1. Sterilization and Disinfection
When washing fruits and vegetables, adding salt (2%-3% concentration) to the water can remove pesticide residue, kill parasite eggs and small insects, and has a certain sterilizing effect.
2. Enhances Flavor and Texture
Adding salt when pickling vegetables can enhance their flavor and texture. For example, adding salt to pickled cucumbers and radishes increases crispness through dehydration, and in pickling other vegetables, it enhances flavor through osmosis (such as pickled mustard greens).
3. Preservative Effect
Salt has high osmotic pressure and inhibits the growth and reproduction of microorganisms and bacteria, providing a short-term preservation effect, such as in the pickling of fish and ham.
4. Enhances Freshness
The umami compounds in most fish, meat, and fungi are mainly amino acids. Neutralizing them with salt eliminates sourness and highlights the fresh taste. For example, when cooking Fish and Lamb Delicacy, MSG is not needed, but it should be added before serving. Adding it too early will cause protein coagulation, making it difficult for the umami flavor to dissolve.
5. Removes Fishy Smell and Other Odors
When cleaning animal offal with strong odors, such as pig stomachs and intestines, adding an appropriate amount of salt and rubbing repeatedly not only cleans them thoroughly but also removes odors. Tofu contains a beany smell; soaking it in salt water removes the smell and whitens it. Putting live fish in a 10% salt solution for 1-2 days can remove the muddy smell.
6. Anti-oxidation, Anti-fragmentation, and Coagulation Effects
Putting salt in potatoes prevents oxidation and discoloration, preserves freshness, and makes fruits crisper and sweeter. Soaking tender tofu in light salt water for half an hour before cooking prevents it from breaking. Soaking sliced lotus root in salt water and then rinsing it with clean water prevents discoloration when stir-fried. When slaughtering poultry, letting the blood flow into water with a small amount of salt accelerates coagulation, making the blood easier to cook without breaking apart.
7. Makes Ingredients Tender and Smooth
When making animal-based ingredients, adding an appropriate amount of salt and stirring in one direction for 2 hours makes the ingredients firm and tender, such as pork and fish fillets. When making fish balls, add salt and water to the fish paste (ratio: 250g fish paste, 250g water, 6g salt) and stir in one direction until firm. This results in tender, smooth, and delicious fish balls.
8. Water Absorption
Adding an appropriate amount of salt when marinating beef absorbs a lot of water, resulting in a more tender texture.
9. Removes Bitterness and Dampness, Increases Sweetness
After peeling and slicing pineapples, soaking them in light salt water before eating not only reduces and prevents the intake of bromelain, which can cause allergies, but also removes the bitterness, making them sweeter and more palatable. For vegetables with bitterness and astringency, such as bitter melon and radish, adding salt after slicing, draining the juice, and then stir-frying reduces the bitterness.
10. Enhances Effects
Adding a small amount of salt when cooking sweet and sour pork ribs, along with sugar and vinegar, makes the dish richer and sweeter. Adding a little salt to glutinous rice balls enhances the sweetness.
11. Reduces Water Loss in Vegetables
Adding an appropriate amount of salt when blanching vegetables in boiling water speeds up softening and reduces the loss of water-soluble nutrients.
Clever Uses of Salt
1. Shortens Cooking Time
The temperature of salt and boiling water is above 100 degrees Celsius, making vegetables cook more easily than in boiling water alone.
2. Removes Mud and Debris
Soaking mushrooms or black fungus in light salt water before rinsing with clean water easily removes mud and sand. Soaking fresh peaches in salt water for 1 minute and gently rubbing them removes the fuzz quickly.
3. Accelerates Food Thawing
Thawing frozen fish, chicken, and meat in salt water is faster and preserves their tenderness.
4. Making Pasta
Adding a little salt water when making bread shortens fermentation time, increases dough strength and elasticity, and improves taste. When making noodles or dumpling wrappers, adding 2%-3% fine salt to the flour improves elasticity, increases stickiness, and improves taste. Adding a little salt when boiling noodles prevents sticking and keeps them smooth.
5. Cleaning Oily Rags
Adding some salt to water, stirring until dissolved, and soaking the rag for several minutes makes it look like new.
6. Cleaning White Porcelain Dishes
Stains on white porcelain dishes can be cleaned with a mixture of salt and vinegar.
7. Makes Eggshells Easier to Peel
Adding 2 tablespoons of salt to the water when boiling eggs makes the shells easier to peel.
8. Prevents Sticking
Adding a little salt to the oil before frying fish prevents the fish skin from sticking to the pan.
9. Removes Mucus
Rub the fish with salt, then scrub it with your hands to remove the slime.
10. Reduce slippage
When cutting fish, dab a little salt on your palm to reduce the difficulty of sticking and slipping.
11. Extend shelf life
Tofu is difficult to preserve in summer, but dissolving salt in boiling water, cooling it, and then soaking the tofu in the saltwater can extend its shelf life.
The role of sugar
It has the effect of mitigating sourness:
When making sour dishes, adding a small amount of sugar can alleviate the sourness and make the taste more harmonious. For example, in vinegar-braised dishes and sour and spicy dishes, adding a small amount of white sugar will make the finished product particularly delicious; otherwise, the finished dish will be unpleasantly sour.
Make ingredients brighter:
Applying some malt sugar to the roasted dishes can make them sweeter and brighter.
It has a coloring effect:
Sugar color is widely used in coloring braised dishes and red-braised dishes.
It has a preservative effect:
When the sugar solution reaches saturation, it has a high osmotic pressure, which can dehydrate microorganisms, causing plasmolysis, thus inhibiting the growth of microorganisms in the product. The more sugar added, the longer the shelf life of the product.
It has an adhesive effect:
When sugar is added to water or oil and boiled to a spun-sugar state, pour it into the fried ingredients, stir well, and after taking it out of the pan, use various molds to shape it, which can make the food stick together. For example, Sachima and rice candy.
It has the effect of caramelization and crispness:
Before baking the product, sprinkle a layer of powdered sugar on its surface. After baking, the surface of the baked goods will be golden yellow, with an attractive color and aroma, and a crisp surface.
The wonderful uses of sugar
1. Adding a large amount of white sugar to fatty pork can keep it from spoiling for a long time; osmanthus, chrysanthemum, rose, etc., mixed with a large amount of white sugar, can also be kept fresh for a long time; adding a small amount of sugar to milk and boiling it can prolong the shelf life of milk.
2. Before boiling chestnuts, soak them in sugar water overnight, and it will be easier to remove the inner skin after boiling.
3. When rendering lard, if you want it to solidify immediately, add 50 grams of white sugar to every 750 grams of hot lard, put it in a porcelain jar, and immerse it in a basin of cold water. It will solidify immediately and will not spoil for a longer time.
4. Fried sugar put into a paper bag can be used as a desiccant and odor absorbent.
5. Add 25 grams of sugar to 1000 grams of warm water, put the cleaned and sliced mushrooms in, and soak them for 12 hours. This will make the mushrooms absorb water quickly.
The wonderful uses of white vinegar
▲If work clothes are stained with colors or fruit juice, a few drops of white vinegar can remove them by gently rubbing.
▲Add white vinegar to boiling water when boiling chicken or duck. After a few minutes, remove them, and the feathers will come off easily.
▲Steaming steamed buns with a certain proportion of vinegar makes them especially white.
▲Adding a little white vinegar to fish and mutton dishes can remove the fishy smell.
▲Adding a little white vinegar when cooking noodles can make the noodles whiter and remove the alkaline taste.
▲Adding vinegar when cooking beef, kelp, and potatoes makes them easier to cook.
▲If too much alkali is added when fermenting dough, white vinegar can be added to neutralize the alkali.
▲Cutting boards used to process meat are prone to bacterial growth. They can be cleaned and sterilized with vinegar.
▲Injecting an old hen with vinegar before killing it makes the meat easier to cook.
▲When cooking aquatic products such as crabs and jellyfish, soaking them in a 1% vinegar solution for an hour can prevent food poisoning caused by halophilic bacteria.
▲Mixing ginger and vinegar with preserved eggs can remove their peculiar smell.
▲If rice has been stored for a long time, adding a little vinegar when steaming it will make the rice white, sticky, and fragrant.
▲When cleaning vegetables, adding a little vinegar to the water can remove small insects attached to the leaves.
▲Adding a little vinegar when cooking vegetables can reduce the loss of vitamin C.
▲Adding a little vinegar when frying eggplant prevents it from turning black.
▲Heat a new iron pot, pour in a few ounces of vinegar, brush the pot, and wash it clean. When stir-frying dishes later, there will be no black color or iron rust taste.