Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [45]
SHIO
Shios are usually fire evaporated salts with near microscopic crystals that resemble miniaturized fleur de sel or flake salt. They are generally high in trace minerals—magnesium in particular—in keeping with the Japanese taste for a full-blown yet refined bitter-sweet flavor balance.
The superfine crystal structure of shios is both the constraint and the imperative for their use. When shio is sprinkled on dry foods like popcorn or food with low surface moisture like edamame, the palate experiences something akin to dream-walking through snow—a quietly falling softness on bare skin—as the minute crystals alight and vanish with every bite. On moist foods, shios dissolve instantly and completely, consummate collaborators lending perfect mineral balance to the subtlest facets of a food’s personality. Shios are all about subtlety—except when they’re not. On fatty or firm foods such as avocado, crab, raw fish, and fried foods, the crystal merges with the food and then shines forth miraculously from within.
ROCK SALT
Rock salts are extracted from deposits in the earth rather than evaporated from the sea. Rock salt deposits are the remnants of ancient evaporated seas, but because they have been buried for anywhere from a few million to hundreds of millions of years, usually very deep in the earth, they are densely compacted into monolithic crystals. These solid, hard crystals contain no moisture, and they must be ground or dissolved to make them edible. They contain anywhere from a small to a moderate amount of trace minerals, depending on the source, and the resulting flavors range from spicy-hot to floral-sweet. Beyond these subtle distinctions of flavor, the primary allure of rock salts is their otherworldly beauty. They are the only gemstones we eat.
Rock salts make very good grinder salts. They don’t contain moisture to gum up the works of a salt mill, and they don’t have nooks or cavities where moisture can collect from the air. Rock salt can also be grated into a superfine powder with a rock salt shaver. However, mechanically ground rock salt can rarely rival a naturally formed sea salt. Exceptions are when a hard, tooth-defying experience might be desirable, such as on a loaf of crusty bread. Among the best uses for rock salts is to cut them into blocks and use them as a cooking surface or a natural platter for serving food (see Cooking on salt blocks).
UNCONVENTIONAL SALT
Some salts are not easily categorized. The salt might be visibly or structurally odd, or the methods used to make the salt are mysterious (every manufacturer keeps secrets), or the flavor or texture of a salt may resist fitting in with the characteristics of other salt types. Varieties include man-made spherical salts, powdered salts, high-mineral salts, and liquid salts, also known as brine products.
MODIFIED SALT
A salt from any class can be modified after it has been crystallized or mined to add totally new qualities not naturally present in the salt when it emerged from the sea or earth. Techniques for modifying salt include: cold or hot smoking with hardwoods or other botanicals; baking in an oven or firing in a kiln to impregnate with flavors and/or develop texture; melting salt into a liquid form to crystallize anew as it solidifies; saturating salt with a flavorful liquid such as wine or essential oils; and blending salt with flavorful and aromatic ingredients.
Smoking is the most ancient method of modifying salt. It probably started as an accident when salts evaporated over an open fire and took on flavors from their smoky surroundings. Some doubtless found this smoked salt—perhaps sprinkled on raw fish or bland vegetables—to