Salt News

Coarse, crunchy salts like sel gris (coarse sea salt) should be a legally required addition to roast chicken.  The real question is, should the salt go on before you tuck the bird into the oven, or after you have carved it and set it on the table?  Before you don your finest wrestling gear to settle the matter with violence, consider the possibility that both are great.  The former delivers extra-crackling skin bristling with popping brittle bits of salt.  The latter lets subtler flavors of whatever seasonings you put on the skin shine forth, and then complements them with a more unctuous crystalline crunch.

Lemon chicken shows very nicely with a touch of The Meadow’s house sel gris rubbed in the poultry’s cavity, and a more generous amount of this warm, supple salt sprinkled at the end, lending a lush mineral crunch to balance the dish’s aromatic citrus zestiness and juicy sweet-sour acidity.  The Meadow’s sel gris is coarser than French sea salt’s such as sel gris de Guérande or sel gris de l’Ile de Noirmoutier, but it is also milder and somewhat silkier,making it a delicious alternative to these briny-minerally French classics. Free salt for anyone who sends me a photo of themselves in full wrestling attire.

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Mark Bitterman :: Apr.30.2010 :: Gourmet Salt, Recipes :: 2 Comments »

When our firstborn came onto the scene he was a terror.  Not the misbehaving kind of terror, which usually does little more than wreck your sense of personal dignity and bury your life’s dreams under a three-year blanket of hard domestic labor.  For one, he rarely slept.  Entire nights might be passed watching the moonbeams glide across the deep space blue of his staring eyes, which seemed preternaturally aware of his surroundings, calling every move we made into question.

But most insidiously — he ate.  He ate early and he ate often, with unflappable abandon.  One night, not more than a few handfuls of months into life, sitting in a baby chair clipped onto the side of the table, he watched as I put the finishing touches on a romantic meal for my honeybunny and me.  Wine chilled, candles lit, salad tossed, baby staring with evil innocence from his edge of the table, I served up filet of sole with herb butter, scattered with a luscious French fleur de sel. Honeybunny and I clinked glasses.  Her eyes twinkled.  The aroma of fish, herbs, and butter filled the air.  Then the baby lunged for the closest plate, and devoured the fish before our eyes.

Fleur de sel has no higher purpose than to grace the buttery-moist flesh of sole.  The excellent fleur de sel from Ile de Ré, France, with its mineral sheen of a full moon, underscores the perfection of each of the other elements in the dish, defining their features in the most loving light.  Sole is so delicate that the grassy pungency of fresh herbs must be suffused in butter to preserve the balance of the fish.  The fundamental soleness of the sole is truly a wonder to taste—full to bursting but hard to grasp—like insomnia that set you dreaming as you stare at a child’s moonlit face.

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Mark Bitterman :: Apr.15.2010 :: Recipes :: 1 Comment »

Ever set eyes on a plume of dogwood blossoms blowing in a gust through rain-swept skies?  Me neither.  Petals on a wet black bough–indeed.  More often than not, around here, spring is a slow escalating drone of mist, drizzle, sleet, rain, hail, and deluge. Yes, there are cherry trees dropping pink petals like so many tears; yes, you see goofy maple pods helicoptering out of an cerulean sky; yes it’s fun to watch dogs and kids skidding through mud on the baseball field.  But for the most part, my yearning for spring (something warmer and a touch less… humid) goes unrequited.  The woodpile is depleted and the promise of loose clothing and bare feet stokes a new form of appetite.  I think of salad.  The tenderness of baby greens in my mouth, the citrus pop of a crescent of clementine, the bitter nip of an edible flower, all whipped into a moment of suspended perfection by a snowflake glint of Marlborough Flakey sea salt on the tongue. The spring salad clears the mind, refreshes the skies, and says through flavor what my winter weary heart yearns for.

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Mark Bitterman :: Apr.09.2010 :: Gourmet Salt, Recipes :: No Comments »