Thoughts on "supersalt," MSG, disodium ribonucleotides

[Bryan Simmons]

I use the stuff pretty often. The other day I marinated some chicken in water, salt, hot chili pepper, paprika, thyme, MSG, onion powder, garlic powder and ING (disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate). Even with no added sodium phosphate, after a 2-1/2 day marinade, the drumsticks were superb, as were the drummies on the wings. The middle sections were great too, but they starts out that way.

Sure, you can overdo umami, just like you can overdo salty, sweet, bitter or sour, and I've certainly done that. I don't use supersalt on fish or lamb, or on steaks that are seared, either over flame, or pan seared, but fried chicken and pork chops that are floured and fried are improved.

What's your opinion?

--Bryan

[dsi1]

I have a bag of Korean seasoned salt. It's like supercharged salt. It's just salt and MSG but that's a pretty potent combination - the best salt ever.

I also have a bag of salt that a guy sent to me from Molokai. It's real Hawaiian salt i.e., sea water that's been dried and harvested from a family salt pond. My granddaughter loves the stuff. She likes to eat the flakes. Perhaps she has a sodium deficiency.

[Bryan Simmons]

Luckily, salt doesn't do a number on my blood pressure. I could eat salt by itself too, and did when I was younger. Your post inspired me to boil up a little broken jasmine rice as an excuse to have some tamari. I put some I&G in the water for boiling the rice. http://store.theingredientstore.com/disodiuminosinateanddisodiumguanylatepowder16oz.aspx Lots of tamari, and a little cayenne.

--Bryan

[dsi1]

I like to use Hawaiian salt for seasoning steaks. I have a couple of bags of Hawaiian salt and a bag of red clay Hawaiian salt. The dirty little secret is that Hawaiian salt is a scam. As far as I know there are no salt mines in Hawaii. My guess is that most of the salt probably comes from China or the mainland and is repackaged as coarse Hawaiian salt. Of course, you didn't hear it from me.

Salt is the most important of seasonings although Asians won't add it to their daily rice. White rice is what allows them to eat the most salty of foods. With white rice, no dish is "too salty." I think it's the reason Asians can get away with eating very little meat. Mostly, they're eating rice.

Unfortunately, my family is not eating rice at the moment. We're substituting greens for the rice. That's so funny! Tonight I made teriyaki ono.

https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/A_RSY5D5RjK7jRXSaxBFDA.bITc4QjRFPB846YGzi2Gel

[cshenk]

MSG in reasonable quantities is perfectly safe. All scientific studies
have debunked the myths. Folks reacting to it have universally failed
to react to it if not told it was there and used in 'non-asian looking'
recipes such as fried chicken. Deeper studies when done show people
were reacting to shellfish and uncommon seafoods that are marketed with
msg in them such as seaweeds.

[Sqwertz]

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 17:17:55 -0700 (PDT), Bryan Simmons wrote:

> Sure, you can overdo umami, just like you can overdo salty,
> sweet, bitter or sour, and I've certainly done that. I don't use
> supersalt on fish or lamb, or on steaks that are seared, either
> over flame, or pan seared, but fried chicken and pork chops that
> are floured and fried are improved.

lately when I do a chicken marinade, I leave out most of the table
salt and just use a MSG blend (Uncle Chris's Steak Seasoning) and
buffer it with de-acidified lemon and lime juice (add a pinch of
baking soda to neutralize the acid before adding it to marinade).

Combing salt and MSG (and it's other sodium based enhancers) are
overkill. Leave out the table salt and use a citrus to enhance it.