Cookthink

How much salt should I add to a pot of boiling water?

The wisdom about how much salt to add to a boiling pot of water is vast and varied. Cooks will recommend anything from 10 to 50 grams per liter. Traditionally, it is thought that salty water helps green vegetables hold their color and makes pasta water boil more quickly, although both theories have their naysayers. French culinary guru Joël Robuchon always adds two giant pinches of gros sel to a pot of boiling water for pasta or green beans with his pudgy and knowing fingers. He tells us that salting the water is our only chance to flavor pasta and help the vegetables stay bright. And while both pasta and vegetables will need additional salting after they're cooked, they will need less than if you neglect to salt them during the cooking process.

Which fish are considered low in mercury?

In general, smaller fish have less mercury than larger fish. The older and larger the fish, the greater the potential for high mercury levels in their bodies. Commercially available fish lower in mercury include the folllowing: Catfish, Cod, Cran, Flounder/Sole, Haddock, Herring, Lobster, Ocean Perch, Oysters, Rainbow Trout, Farmed Salmon, Wild Salmon, Sardines, Scallops, Shrimp, Spiny Lobster, Tilapia, Trout (farmed).

What are the pros and cons of farmed fish?

The fishing industry has tried to control some of the variables by farming the most popular varieties of fish, like salmon, trout and catfish. Aquacultured fish grow faster than their counterparts in the wild, and they are often more tender and richer tasting. They are harvested without suffering the stress and damage of being hooked or netted, and they are processed closer to the time and nearer to where they are caught. Currently aquaculture provides about one-third of the world seafood supply (including shellfish), and this amount is bound to increase to meet the growing global demand for fish that can not be met by wild fishing alone. Although some popular farmed fish -- like trout, tuna and salmon -- are also caught in the wild, others, such as tilapia and catfish, are almost all farm-raised. Fish farming can be done responsibly, but not all fish farms are the same. Raising salmon and tuna in ocean pens has contaminated nearby water with waste products, food and antibiotics. There have been cases of genetically modified aquacultured fish escaping into the environment where they compete with the surrounding wild population, and there are studies showing that fish meal, which is the primary component of aquaculture feed for carnivorous species, like salmon and tuna, has elevated levels of environmental toxins, particularly dioxins, like PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl), which accumulate in the flesh of farmed fish. Omnivorous fish, like tilapia and catfish, are fed vegetarian pellets, and don’t have dioxin problems. Raising fish in inland ponds, lakes and tanks is less environmentally invasive than farming in the ocean (although there is some concern about untreated wastewater discharged from poorly run fish farms contaminating ground water), so the most benign aquaculture products tend to be freshwater fish and the few saltwater varieties farmed on land (sturgeon and turbot). Farmed Fish Freshwater: Carp Catfish Eel Rainbow Trout Tilapia Saltwater: Char Mahi mahi Salmon Sea Bass Sturgeon Steelhead Trout Tuna Turbot Yellowtail (amberjack, himachi)