Hot salt frying and hot sand frying are

cooking Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...

techniques used by street-side food vendors in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Hot salt frying is an old cooking technique, and is used in villages throughout Asia and other parts of the world. Many foods are fried with hot salt or sand, even in common households.

Hot salt frying

, hot salt frying is mostly used by street vendors to cook corn.

Rock salt Halite (), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...

is preheated in a

wok A wok (; Pinyin: ; Cantonese ) is a deep round-bottomed cooking pan from China. It is believed to be derived from the South Asian karahi. It is common in China and similar pans are found in parts of East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as ...

. Either the whole corn or individual kernels are buried in the salt and occasionally turned. Coarse

sea salt Sea salt is salt that is produced by the evaporation of seawater. It is used as a seasoning in foods, cooking, cosmetics and for preserving food. It is also called bay salt, solar salt, or simply salt. Like mined rock salt, production of sea sa ...

is placed in a large

and heated to a high temperature. Dry food items, such as

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s in shell, are buried in the hot salt and occasionally turned with a

spatula A spatula is a broad, flat, flexible blade used to mix, spread and lift material including foods, drugs, plaster and paints. In medical applications, "spatula" may also be used synonymously with tongue depressor. The word ''spatula'' derives f ...

. In

, this technique is used by street vendors selling shelled

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

s or

popcorn Popcorn (also called popped corn, popcorns or pop-corn) is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated; the same names also refer to the foodstuff produced by the expansion. A popcorn kernel's strong hull contains the se ...

cooked in salt heated in an

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

wok. Muri, or puffed rice, is also a common snack in the Indian subcontinent and is one of their oldest foods. The puffed rice is made by heating salt or sand in a karahi (in

), a patil (in

bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

), or a wok over a fire in a traditional Indian stove, then pouring parboiled or dried pre-cooked rice into it and stirring. The puffed rice is then quickly removed with a metal sieve and set to cool.

Hot sand frying

Hot sand frying is a common cooking technique for street-side food vendors in China and India to cook

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

s and peanuts. A large wok is filled with sand, which turns black from accumulating carbonized particles from the food items being fried, and heated to high temperature. Nuts are buried in the hot sand and occasionally turned with a spatula, then the sand and nuts are separated through a wire-mesh screen. Hot sand frying is also used in many villages throughout Asia. A common cooking technique in villages is to wrap fish or other meat in a banana leaf, tie it off, and then place the banana leaf in the heated sand one side at a time.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hot Salt Frying Cooking techniques Fried foods Salt industry in Pakistan

Hot salt frying

Hot sand frying

See also

References