Salt at the wrong teim

No recipe this week — just a tip that'll make almost everything. You cook slightly better, starting tonight.

## Salt early, not at the end

Most people season food right before eating, at the table or the
last minute in the pan. But salt needs time to actually get into
whatever you're cooking, not just sit on the surface of it.

A few places it makes a real difference:

- **Vegetables before roasting:** salt them and let them sit 10
minutes before they go in the oven. The salt starts pulling
moisture to the surface, which is exactly what helps them
brown instead of steam.
- **Pasta water:** it should taste like the sea, not a faint
hint of salt. This is the only chance the pasta itself gets
seasoned — sauce on top can't make up for it later.
- **Beans and lentils while they cook:** the old advice to salt
only at the end is backwards. Salting the cooking water from
the start seasons them all the way through and doesn't toughen
them, whatever you may have heard.
- **A salad, a few minutes ahead:** salt the vegetables before
dressing them. It draws out a little water, which the dressing
then clings to instead of sliding off.

The pattern is the same everywhere: salt needs time to dissolve
and travel inward. Salt at the end only seasons what your tongue
touches first.

Try it on whatever you're cooking tonight — even just salting
your vegetables 10 minutes before they hit the pan.

Next week: the cabbage recipe I promised — the one that gets
people asking how you made it.