Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [46]
Baking and melting salt are quintessentially Asian techniques. The Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and others in the region heat sea salt to temperatures approaching or exceeding its melting point, 1,474°F, in the presence of clays or botanicals that catalyze reactions between the salt and its surroundings, resulting in new flavors and textures.
Salt blends are the most common modified salts. In fact, salt blends threaten to overwhelm us. I follow a simple rule when looking at any salt blend: the blend must deliver something more than the sum of its parts, achieving something that cannot be achieved by using the flavoring ingredients and salt separately. This rule is valuable because any salt can be combined with virtually any ingredient. Dried fish eggs and salt? Sure. Chocolate and salt? Yes! Herbs and salt? Absolutely. Salt and salt? Why not? Even by the most stringent criteria, there are a good many excellent salt blends out there. The handful of blended salts included in this guide are either culinarily valuable, strategically important, conceptually interesting, or all three—as are the other modified salts here.
SALT REFERENCE GUIDE
These stones alone will whisper in the midst of general silence —Carl Linnaeus
The right salt adds beauty, improved texture, and better taste to your food. It also gives you a deeper connection to your ingredients and to the people who made them. This Salt Reference Guide tracks more than 150 salts. Some of the classifications in this chart, such as the type and origin in the description column, are empirical. Others, like application, flavor, and use, are more subjective.
The flavor of a salt on food is highly interactive, contingent on a host of external considerations like the appearance, aroma, texture, and flavor of the food being seasoned, and how this plays into a salt’s unique identity. I’ve done my best to parse these variables in my flavor analyses, but recognize that my conclusions are necessarily personal. Use, likewise, is a matter of personal taste and whim, and should be considered inspirationally as a leaping off point.
The names of salts are often changed by the company that imports or repackages them. I’ve tried to note a few of the commonly used names for some of these salts, but it may be necessary to refer to my comments on color, crystal, moisture, and flavor to make a proper identification of a specific salt. Salts in shaded rows have full profiles in this book; follow the cross-references to learn more about them. Still can’t find a salt? Try the Index. If you are looking for a substitute for any salt, reference other salts of the same type first, then go on to match crystal structure, moisture, flavor, and color, in that order.
FLEUR DE SEL
Bali Fleur de Sel
ALTERNATE NAME(S): Bali Reef fleur de sel MAKER(S): n/a TYPE: fleur de sel CRYSTAL: medium-to large-grained; soft; fluffy; irregular COLOR: slightly antiqued white FLAVOR: balanced; mild warmth of melon without sweetness MOISTURE: light ORIGINS: Bali, Indonesia SUBSTITUTE(S): ilocano asin; fleur de sel de Guérande; fleur de sel de Camargue BEST WITH: sauced food, because the dry, fluffy crystals stay afloat
The cleanness of a Brittany fleur de sel, the sharpness of a Trapani, the warmth of an Ilocano Asin, or the fruitiness of a Cervia is lacking here. Bali fleur de sel instead presents a pleasantly professional persona. Think of it as a maitre d’ for your mouth: “Welcome, may I help you? Yes, please, would you like a glass of Champagne while you wait—oh, I do insist, and perhaps something to nibble? Oh, never mind, your table is ready; right this way.” Bali fleur de sel offers service with a smile.
Bali fleur de sel is made during the dry summer months, when artisan salt makers wade into calm blue waters in the early morning, gathering seawater in buckets made from native lontar palm. The water is carried by hand and poured into salt pans dug in black coastal sands. After an elaborate process of solar evaporation, the concentrated brine is transferred into troughs made