Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [124]
Sprinkle the tops of the pretzels with the smoked salt, and bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack and let cool for at least 20 minutes, to allow the pretzels to firm up and get a little chewy. Eat within 24 hours.
CHERRY PIE WITH PAPOHAKU
SERVES 8
Imagine running through the tessellated shadows of the forest with a mustard jar of just-caught pollywogs and a sharpened stick for a spear, scrambling up the levee and lunging into culverts, your dog baying ahead in the distance. You slip on a wet log, stumble, catch yourself on the mossy shoulder of a boulder, oblivious to the mud and moist lichen flecking your arms. You are lean, quick, alert, leaping streams and plunging through dense brush. Lungs filled with the crisp air, perspiration on your back, eyes wild with happiness—you are free, alive, home. The old hound nuzzles up to your hand as you mount the porch steps, your mother’s greeting at the screen door, the aroma of cherry pie on the windowsill, your life a storybook distilled in the sweet mirth of salt.
2 three-finger pinches Papohaku white or Kona salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into teaspoon-size pieces
6 tablespoons very cold shortening, cut into pieces
8 to 10 tablespoons ice water
2 pints sour cherries (about 3 pounds), stemmed and pitted
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
1 tablespoons currant jelly mixed with 1 tablespoon water
To make the crust, crush 1 pinch of salt between your fingers and combine with the flour. Using two knives or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour until the pieces are the size of large grains of rice. Cut in the shortening in the same way. Sprinkle with the ice water and continue mixing the dough with a pastry cutter or fork just until all visible dryness disappears and the dough is still slightly crumbly. Form the dough into 2 disks. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
When the dough is chilled, unwrap and flour one of the pastry disks and roll it on a floured board with a floured pin until between ¼ and ⅛ inch thick. Line a 9-inch pie pan with the pastry round, gently easing the crust into the pan, trimming as needed to leave a ½-inch overhang all around. Poke holes over the bottom of the crust with the tines of a fork and refrigerate while you make the filling.
To make the filling, toss the cherries in a large bowl with the confectioners’ sugar and cornstarch. Set aside.
Roll out the other disk of dough in the same way, and cut into ½-inch-wide strips. Remove the pastry-lined pan from the refrigerator. Weave the strips of pastry on top of the filling to make a lattice top. Trim the edges of the lattice top crust so that it extends about an inch past the rim of the pan all the way around. Fold this overhang under the rim of the bottom crust and crimp the edges with your fingers, sealing the top crust to the bottom.
Bake until the pastry is browned and the filling can be seen bubbling through the openings in the crust, about 50 minutes.
Just before the pie comes out of the oven, melt the jelly mixture in a small saucepan. As soon as the pie comes out of the oven, brush the lattice with melted jelly and sprinkle the remaining pinch of salt over the top, aiming for the crust lattice. Let cool for at least an hour before serving.
BALI RAMA OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
MAKES 18 MEDIUM COOKIES
In the physical universe, there is precious little closer to perfection than an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Unlike standard cookies, they are never cakey or disappointingly hard, not too sweet, with the butter and oats finding common cause in each other’s virtues. So how do you improve upon perfection?
Topping these cookies with a beautiful flaky salt brings out the cow in the butter, the hills in the oats, and the jungle in the chocolate. Topping them with the salt rather than just adding it to the batter sets the salt free to work its