Pete > wrote:
>When sauteing onions and peppers for Italian beef or sausage
>sandwiches or for fajitas, when to salt them? before, during, or
>after. . . or any combination of the above.
>Pete

Sausage typically contains more than enough salt for the dish so it
depends on how you cook the dish. I would pan fry the sausage, remove
them and then saute the veggies in the fat from the sausage, and there
would also be salt in the fat from the sausage. Salt is a dessicant,
it helps to remove water from the veggies. But if I was going to
saute the veggies all on their own I would add a small amount of salt
at the onset to aid in breaking the plant cells so moisture can more
quickly escape. Then when combined later with the sausage I would
taste for reseasoning but it's rare that sausage would need more salt.
In any event there is no reason to ever add salt during the cooking of
a dish containing sausge, or as the veggies cook down and water
evaporates the veggies would be over salted because salt does not
evaporate.

As an aside, I usually simmer sausage and discard the water before
proceding with a dish, this removes a substantial amount of the
preservative salts.