Salt – Type of Salt to Use for Indian Recipes

As Kosher salt goes there is also a difference in the types. Many chefs (myself included) recommend and prefer Diamond Crystal brand Kosher salt. Diamond Crystal (owned by Cargill) uses a patented process of producing salt known as the Alberger Process. In in the interest of keeping the explanation simple, essentially it creates flat salt crystals with a hollow diamond shape and jagged edges. The hollow shape provides for quicker dissolution and the jagged edges help it stick to food better rather than bouncing off as is the nature of the cubic structure of basic table salt. For this reason many seasoning and food manufacturers use Alberger salt as a "dry emulsifier". I was on a tour with Paul Prudhomme at his seasoning plant near New Orleans and he explained that the jagged edges help to keep it suspended and blended with other seasonings and dry ingredients.

Morton's kosher salt is composed of large crystals that are rolled to flatten them. They are flat but not hollow so take a bit longer than Diamond Crystal to dissolve.

Morton's Kosher salt also has Yellow Prussiate of Soda added to it as an anti-caking agent ("when it rains it pours") which tends to leave a slight bitter (not as bad as iodine) taste in the back of the throat. Diamond Crystal brand is simply salt.

Alberger salt has a lighter bulk weight than granulated salt so 1 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal salt is going to be less salt than either table or Morton's kosher salt. Look at the two packages side by side in the store sometime. They are both 3# boxes but the Diamond Crystal box is much taller due to the increased volume of the hollow crystals. Looking at the nutritional information panels you'll also notice the serving size for each is 1/4 teaspoon but the Morton's has 418 gr. sodium per serving vs. about 200 for Diamond crystal (again, due to hollow crystals). Some people recommend increasing salt by 25% when using Diamond Crystal in recipes. In cooking you can easily salt to taste and know that since it dissolves more readily you should be able to determine seasoning by taste without oversalting. In baking I typically use it measure for measure and haven't had any major issues yet. In yeast doughs however you must be cautious to make sure that the crystals do dissolve in the liquid so as not to cut through the gluten strands during the kneading process (as well as to evenly disperse).

A simple way to get "more" out of your salt, is to start with BIG crystals, and coat them gently in oil before sprinkling them over the food. That way they do not melt on contact with the food as they are protected from the water by the film of oil , and add a awesome crunchy texture to the serving.

Technically I think that your question is more chemistry related and not directly cooking related.

I can give you a few hints no what you can do to get crystals, but a chemist should be able to give you a lot better advice.

First, making the salt water solution:

1. Get distilled or at least demineralized water. You do not want to add random minerals that are dissolved in water to your salt :)
2. Make a saturated solution of salt-water at a high temperature ... something like 90-95C (~194-203F). The idea is that at higher temperatures you get more of the salt dissolved in the water more easily.
3. Keep the salt solution at that high temperature (well covered to reduce evaporation) for some time to make sure that any undissolved salt has settled to the bottom. You are interested only in the salt in the solution.
4. Take only the saltwater without any undissolved salt. Until and including this step, the solution should be best keep at the same temperature. If you have to move the solution, at least make sure that the thing that you are moving it into is not cold.

OK, now it is time to make the crystals:

1. Crystals grow. If they grow too fast or are disturbed (thermally or mechanically) they fall apart and end up being smaller. This is why when you make ice cream you churn the ice constantly (mechanical disturbing the formation of possibly ice crystals) or chill it with liquid nitrogen (thermally shocking the crystals and make them break apart). What you get are very small crystals if you disturb them.
2. Crystals grow when they are "forced out of solution" - that is, when the concentration of the salt in water is higher than the solubility of salt in water at that specific conditions. Pressure is one of the factors, but we will just ignore it completely. The factors that you can work with are Temperature and concentration (just remove water from the solution by evaporation)
3. To get BIG crystals, you have to let them grow slowly.
4. So, what you need to do is to cool the solution very slowly AND/OR
5. Evaporate the water out of solution very slowly (take care not to get dust in the solution during this procedure :) )

Unfortunately this is all the advice that I can give you now. Be aware that crystals are delicate and you might need a few attempts until you get the desired result. As a fun fact, there exist conditions where you will actually get a BIG salt Cube aka, a single salt Crystal by doing this :) . Cool indeed , but not very useful for cooking :)