Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [87]
Maine salts are also smoked with maple, hickory, mesquite, and alder. Each variety is smoked the same way, so they share the same campfire qualities and evince only subtle differences in aroma and flavor.
Roasted
ALTERNATE NAME(S): parched salt MAKER(S): various TYPE: sel gris or traditional; roasted CRYSTAL: crumbled pumice sand COLOR: whitish beige to grayish white FLAVOR: freeze-dried ocean MOISTURE: none ORIGIN: Korea SUBSTITUTE(S): none BEST WITH: pan-fried fish; spicy-sauced short ribs; sautéed vegetables
If you ask a Korean grocer for a salt that will go with everything, she will blink at you uncomprehendingly and say nothing. If you ask her for her favorite salt, however, you will get a detached gesture toward shelves piled high with bags of several varieties of roasted salt. If you actually buy the salt, go home and use it to make dinner, and race back to the store and give your grocer a hug, she will smile and blush and twirl the toe of her shoe on the ground like a little girl. Then she’ll share with you the recipes her grandmother used to make.
The odd fuzzy-crunchy texture of roasted salt is thrilling but safe, like decaf espresso. Its flavor is earthy, faintly tannic, and mild—think beach sand that dissolves on contact with your tongue. In Korean cooking, roasted salt is commonplace—a staple salt used in finishing and in cooking—but for the rest of us, roasted salt introduces a highly palatable exotic sojourn into our daily cooking.
Roasted salt is made by baking Korean sel gris in a furnace at temperatures ranging from 900° to 1400°F. Roasted salts are similar to bamboo salts, except they are generally baked in clay ovens rather than bamboo cylinders. Makers offer grinds ranging from fine sand to coarse gravel.
Saffron Salt
ALTERNATE NAME(S): none MAKER(S): various TYPE: traditional; infused/blended CRYSTAL: pulverized sand COLOR: corn yellow FLAVOR: eau de saffron MOISTURE: none ORIGINS: Italy; elsewhere SUBSTITUTE(S): none BEST WITH: Mediterranean sea bass baked in salt crust (or parchment) with fennel; Bloody Mary rims; chocolate ice cream
You’re feasting in the candle glow of a cozy restaurant in Greenwich Village. There’s a succulent chunk of branzino steaming at the end of your fork, and you inhale—saffron. You take a bite—more saffron. You are eating saffron. The valiant predator that gave up his sleek body for you has died in vain. Not even the gulp of crisp, fruit-splashing Riesling you swish around in your mouth can give integrity back to the beast. Now that you are attuned to it, saffron has inveigled its way into your senses and taken over. The vase of gardenias on the table smells of saffron; you smell saffron from the passing waitress; the movie star sitting in the adjacent booth has saffron on his breath. It’s stuck in your head like an ABBA loop. This is a sad state of affairs, because you love saffron.
Saffron is potent. One overstep in the kitchen with whole threads of quality saffron and you are done for. Saffron salt is an invaluable tool because it allows saffron to be meted out with laser precision. Most good saffron salts are made with hand-harvested salt from Trapani, which provides a bright and neutral foundation for the saffron and at the same time honors your food with natural, unprocessed salt. Just loosen a few grains, evaluate, and add more. Saffron salt is effective in steamed recipes where ingredients are enclosed and the vapors contained, but often it does its best work when added at the end, just before or after the dish is served. Stir a few pinches into rice routinely before serving.
Sal de Gusano
ALTERNATE NAME(S): worm salt MAKER(S): various TYPE: traditional; blended CRYSTAL: ground crust with variously perceptible vegetal and insectile bits COLOR: orange-ochre FLAVOR: savory broth of fire, earth, and smoke MOISTURE: none ORIGIN: Mexico SUBSTITUTE(S): grasshopper salt (dried