Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [101]
SHINKAI AND OYSTERS ON THE HALF-SHELL
SERVES 2 TO 4
Whether in food or in adventure, our great life-affirming moments often come when nature and sentience find themselves suddenly on intimate terms. Gulping a fresh oyster from the half-shell can be as exhilarating as sailing headlong into white-capped seas with only the song of steel-cold air in the rigging to keep you company. This is why I never tire of the fall season’s promise for new discoveries in oysters. I recently discovered the Totten Inlet Virginicas from the southern Puget Sound: minerally, fresh, and clean with a consistently firm meaty texture. Introducing Shinkai deep sea salt to the Totten was an opportunity for a culinary adventure I could not pass up. The mineral flavors of the oysters amplify the abundant steely flavors already apparent in the salt, and bring to light glints of sweetness and kelp that you might never find on your own. A drop of mignonette and a pinch of Shinkai deep sea salt; the sea god Neptune never had better.
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
½ shallot, minced
1 dozen briny oysters, such as Totten Inlets, Kumamoto, or Olympia, shells scrubbed
1 teaspoon cracked black peppercorns
2 teaspoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley Shinkai deep sea salt
Combine the vinegar and shallot in a small bowl suitable for serving and set aside.
Put the oysters on a rimmed sheet pan and freeze for about 10 minutes to numb their adductor muscles; this will make them easier to open. To open, hold the oyster firmly, either in your hand or pressed down on a work surface, and work the point of an oyster knife between the tips of the shells to pop the shells apart. Run the knife along the inside of the top shell to cut the meat from the shell, and then remove the top shell. Run the knife under the oyster to detach it from the bottom shell, but leave the oyster nestled in the shell. The oyster’s liquor should be clear; cloudiness indicates that the oyster is not completely fresh and should be discarded, or at least regarded with suspicion. Pick out any shards of shell that might have broken loose during shucking.
Add the pepper and parsley to the vinegar-shallot mixture. This is the mignonette.
Arrange the oysters over crushed ice on a platter large enough to hold them in a single layer. Make a pile of the salt to one side of the oysters or in a separate dish and serve the bowl of mignonette alongside with a small spoon.
To eat, spoon a drop or two of mignonette into an oyster shell and season with a pinch of salt. Immediately slide the oyster, salt, and sauce from the shell into your mouth.
NOTE: Instead of a regular platter of crushed ice, chill a large block of Himalayan salt in the freezer for 6 hours and use it as a beautiful, dramatic serving platter that also keeps the oysters cool. See Cooking on Salt Blocks for more about using Himalayan salt blocks.
CHÈVRE WITH CYPRUS BLACK FLAKE SEA SALT AND CACAO NIBS
SERVES 8 AS AN APPETIZER
Sometimes ingredients make strange bedfellows. Chocolate and cheese are not the most natural mates, but when the cheese is a heady, acidic, barnyard-fresh goat’s milk cheese and the chocolate is bits of roasted cocoa bean, unsweetened and compact as an espresso bean, unexpected things happen. You get something more. But you can’t quite tell what. The flavors square off, then shift, then subvert one another. Then they take a pause. The air is thick with tension, but nothing stirs. Suddenly, like a gunshot comes the massive crunch of Cyprus black flake sea salt and everything is movement. It all becomes clear in an instant: a dish that’s as comforting as grandma’s chicken potpie and yet uncivilly decadent.… A secret pleasure of serving this dish is watching even the most well-bred guest slyly supplement each bite with an added pinch of black salt crystals.
1 cup unsweetened cacao nibs
1 (8-ounce) log fresh goat cheese
2 three-finger pinches of Cyprus black flake sea salt