Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [135]
HIMALAYAN SALT BRITTLE
MAKES ABOUT ¼ POUND
Clear the decks. Salt brittle brings salt and sugar together as an edible mosaic. Eat it on its own, or serve a shard of salt brittle alongside paprika pork chops. Serve with fruit salad or endive salad with walnuts and Roquefort cheese. Crumble over unsweetened yogurt, oatmeal, or chili con carne. Himalayan salt is hard to use because—well, because it’s hard—but its rocky texture and gemstone beauty contribute brilliantly to brittle.
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons agave syrup
1 two-finger pinch of baking soda
1 tablespoon coarse rock salt, such as Himalayan pink
Grease a sheet pan and a metal spatula liberally with butter and set aside.
Put the sugar in a large nonstick skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until the sugar begins to melt and lump up, about 5 minutes.
Add the agave syrup. The mixture will start to foam. Stir constantly as the mixture thins and turns a deep amber, and the lumps start to melt. When almost all the lumps are gone and the sugar is the color of George Hamilton’s tan, turn off the heat.
Immediately stir in the tablespoon of butter and the baking soda. The liquid will become very foamy for a second. Stir until the foam is no longer streaky, about 10 seconds, and immediately pour onto the prepared pan, scraping as much of the melted sugar from the pan as possible with your stirring spoon.
Sprinkle the salt over the top of the sugar and count to twenty-four. The edges of the sugar pool should now be firm. Slide your spatula under the sugar all the way around to loosen from the pan, and flip it over.
Working quickly, stretch the sheet of sugar to about -inch thickness before it becomes too brittle to move. The easiest way is to carefully push it with your hands into a larger, thinner sheet. If some parts are thinner than others, don’t worry. If your hands are very sensitive to heat, you can wear latex gloves, but it’s harder to work the sugar that way, so I advise you to suck it up and use your hands. It won’t be that hot. When the sugar is too brittle to move, stop pushing and let it cool.
Break into shards and serve. The drier the environment, the longer the brittle can be stored. Kept in an airtight glass jar or resealable plastic bag, it will retain its snappy texture for at least one week.
CHILE CHOCOLATE ALMOND BARK WITH SALT CRYSTALS
MAKES ABOUT ¾ POUND
Remember the peanut butter cup commercials? Man and woman, so happy in their busy day, walking around with snacks in their hands, the sky above the color of a blue slushie the houses plastered in marzipan pastels, a happy-sounding tune of endless comic surprise piped through the air, the world a perfect place. Then—whoopsie, so clumsy of me—they smack into each other, exchanging flavors, and a wonderful new treat is born. Introducing nuts to chocolate is all well and fine and, sure, millions have been made on the combination. But if only the candymakers had the temerity to take the next step, something truly delicious could have come of it: chocolate, nuts, and a faint wave of chile heat all strummed like harp strings by the dexterous fingers of a luscious salt. Use this recipe to explore new dimensions of your favorite chocolate by trying it with a variety of salts. Choose the type and quantity of chile depending on your desire for heat.
1 cup whole almonds, skins on
6 ounces dark chocolate (about 70 percent cacao), broken into pieces
1 or 2 dried Thai bird chiles or piquín chiles
3 two-finger pinches flake salt, fleur de sel, or sel gris, or a combination
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Place the almonds on a sheet pan big enough to hold them in a single layer and toast in the