I grew up always eliminating the salt from cookie recipes. It's mostly a flavour thing, not a leavening thing I believe, so cook's choice. However, now that I'm (more) grown-up, I've come to understand that, like with any cooking, salt really helps to bring out the other flavours, so especially in a recipe like this I think you ought to add a bit!

Here's the link to the recipe from a Cookie Madness/Schell Cafe/Four Seasons route. http://www.cookiemadness.net/2008/12/four-seasons-chocolate-ginger-cookies/ I think that I am selective in what I choose to make. I have a fairly good sense of how something will turn out, perhaps not exactly how it will taste, but whether or not it will be something that we will like. I think that as we evolve as cooks, dare I say chefs, we develop pretty good instintcts.

Sorry--hit the "send" button too soon.

Where did the recipe come from? I trust very few on-line recipe sites, and will not use a recipe from them unless I'm sure it has been professionally tested. Even though I no longer have to pinch pennies the way I did when my six sons were here, I don't like to spend even $5 on a batch of homemade cookies that are just "okay." I hate when that happens. food52 is the only site with user-generated recipes that I trust--usually, if there's a reason for something, it'll be spelled out by the thoughtful cooks here.

Two of my shortbread recipes don't call for salt and specify unsalted butter--they're just flour, butter, sugar (granulated or brown) and sometimes nuts. I never noticed it missing in those recipes.

Some people use salted butter and reduce or eliminate salt in the recipe, but if you do that, you don't have control over how much salt there is. I would use unsalted butter and 1/2 tsp of salt in a standard recipe that uses 2 cups of flour and makes about 36 cookies.

I like salt in all my cookies. I think you'd be fine adding about a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

all the recipes for Chocolate Ginger Cookies I have call for 1/2 tsp of salt.