The vegetables of summer are steadily dropping off their vines and sliding back into the sun-soaked recesses of memory. Much as I look forward to fall–rain, endive, leaves, rain, a hiatus from mowing the lawn, endive, rain–I still crave the crisp, succulent, almost arrogant freshness of a veggie sandwich: all that is vegetal between the savory bookends of bread and cheese. And nothing loves a great salt like a veggie sandwich. My favorite: Amabito no Moshio (藻塩) is an ancient type of Japanese salt, called shio.

Shios are identifiable by their fine, snow-like texture.  Their firm, intensely mineral backbone lends a delicacy and brightness to food, much as acidity supports definition and complexity in wine.  Amabito no Moshio is the granddaddy of shios, created some 2,500 years ago in what was then more or less a neolithic Japan.  Seaweed was hauled out of the water by fishermen and dried on the rocks, then sprayed with water, then dried some more, then sprayed some more, etc. etc. until a now salt-encrusted seaweed could be rinsed to make a saturated brine.  The brine, along with bits of the kelp, would then be boiled off over a wood fire, resulting in a delicately seaweed-infused salt.  Today, The Meadow’s Amabito no Moshio, made with the hondawara variety of seaweed (Sargassum fulvellum) is inspired by that tradition.  If today is your day to celebrate the veggie sandwich–perhaps your last true fresh veggie sandwich of the year–do it with the proper reverence, and with a last backwards glimpse of summer’s sunny sanctity.

Vegetable Sandwich with Amabito no Moshio

Makes 4 servings

8 slices black bread or pumpernickel
1 teaspoon horseradish (optional)
4 ounces (8 tablespoons) cream cheese
½ bunch watercress, large stems trimmed
8 thin slices ripe tomato
2 thin slices red onion, halved
1 cup mung bean sprouts
24 thin slices cucumber
½ avocado, cut in 8 thin wedges
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Small grind of black peppercorns
4 three-finger pinches Amabito no Moshio sea salt

Spread the (optional) horseradish very sparingly over each slice of bread. Spread the cream cheese on one side of each slice of bread. Top four of the slices with a small fistful of watercress, two slices tomato, a half-slice red onion, ¼ cup sprouts, six cucumber slices, and two slices avocado.

Mix the olive oil and vinegar and spoon a small amount over the vegetables. Season each sandwich with a grinding of pepper and a three-finger pinch of Amabito no Moshio sea salt. Top with remaining cream cheese and bread and serve immediately.

If you have good eggs, consider the following deviled eggs recipe. The chile in this recipe will give them a little kick, while the Black Diamond sea salt (a Cypriot flake salt infused with activated charcoal) provides jaunty contrast with the yolks as well as an incredibly satisfying, potato chip-like crunch of pungent salt.

Deviled Eggs with Red Pepper and Black Diamond Salt

Makes 4 servings

4 eggs
Sel gris to taste
3 tablespoons mayonnaise (see recipe)
1/2 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
1 small chile, pequin or piri piri, seeds removed, finely chopped
2 pinches Black Diamond flake salt

Put eggs in small pot. Cover with cold water. Add a handful of sel gris, cover and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook the eggs for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and rest for 12 minutes. By “cooking” the eggs off the heat you insure that the protein in the yolk and white will set up gradually. The results will be creamy and pristine, without a trace of sulfur-green surrounding the yolks, a common problem when hard-cooked eggs are overcooked. Drain and cool the eggs under cold running water, and refrigerate.

Cut the eggs in half lengthwise, dipping the knife into a bowl of water before every cut. Remove the yolks to a small mixing bowl. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, and chile and mix until fluffy. Fill the hollow of each egg half with the yolk mixture and sprinkle with black diamond salt. Serve within 30 minutes.

Homemade Mayonnaise

Makes about 1/2 cup

1 egg yolk, large or extra-large
1/2 teaspoon fine Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon lemon juice or white wine vinegar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 two-finger pinch fleur de sel
2 twists finely ground black pepper

Combine egg yolks, mustard, and lemon juice in a small bowl. Beat with a whisk and slowly drizzle in the oil, about 2 teaspoons at a time, waiting until each drizzle is incorporated before adding the next. Continue until all the oil is incorporated. Season with fleur de sel and ground pepper. Store in a tightly closed container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

A salmon caught high in the freshwater streams of the mountains bears within its pink flesh the flavors of faraway places in the Pacific Ocean, a rosy imprint of the long voyage back to its birthplace. These fish see a lot of things below the ocean depths. And then they eat them. Salmon deserve a suitably thoughtful and voracious treatment in the kitchen.

Iburi-Jio Cherry, a smoked sea salt from Japan, has endured a journey comparable to that of the salmon. Artisan salt makers plumb seawater off the coast of the Oga Peninsula, drawing a pristine brine up from the pure, deepwater currents. After concentrating the brine, they heat it over a wood fire over three days, stirring constantly to produce a salt that is the texture of powder snow. This salt is then gently cold smoked over cherry wood for a sweet, smoky, bacony aroma that is unrivaled in the culinary world.

The combination of deep sea minerals, cherry wood smoke, and buttery salmon takes your taste buds on peregrinations through flavor’s most unfathomed depths.

Makes 6 servings

1 side of salmon, preferably wild, about 2 pounds, bones removed
¼ cup black sesame seeds
¼ cup white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Finely grated zest and juice of a lime
1 teaspoon dark toasted sesame oil
½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper, or ¼ teaspoon crushed chilies
3 big pinches Iburi-Jio Cherry smoked salt

Coat the flesh-side of the salmon with the sesame seeds and pat gently into the surface.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until smoking. Carefully put the salmon in the pan flesh-side down and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Turn carefully and cook until the fish is firm but still translucent in the center, 4 to 5 minutes more.

While the salmon is cooking, combine the lime zest, lime juice, sesame oil and Aleppo pepper in a small bowl.

Using a wide spatula or two spatulas, transfer the fish to a serving platter. Drizzle with the lime mixture and scatter the salt over all. Serve immediately. If you need to delay serving, wait until the last second to salt. You want the delicate crystals of the Iburi-Jio to barely dissolve at first bite.

Can’t find Iburi-Jio Cherry? You can purchase it from the Meadow by clicking here.

Salted has three parts:
1: The Life of Salt explores the history of salt from mankind’s first salted bite to the industrialization of salt with the advent of the modern chemical industry, concluding with the explosive revival of gourmet salt in the culinary world.  A science section investigates the vast complexity of salt, from its origins in primordial oceans to the myriad roles salt plays in human physiology.  Then a look at the craft of salt making describes the key principles and technologies behind saltmaking, from rock salts hauled from the depths of the earth to sea salts evaporated under an open sky.

2: Salt Guide provides a first of its kind taxonomy of culinary salt, delineating the basic families of salts and summarizing the merits of each in the kitchen.  A field guide to salt provides full color macro images of more than 150 salts, with tasting notes and suggested uses for food.  Profiles of more than 80 of the most important salts revel in the charms (and occasional horrors) of the most important varieties.

3: Salting is the hands-on part of the book. This section provides key strategies for salting, with basic techniques for the novice cook and advanced concepts for professional chefs and bartenders. Fifty recipes organized by cooking technique cover everything from seasoning fresh foods to grilling to curing to cocktail mixing, with plenty of helpful charts and tips. There’s even a section on cooking with Himalayan salt blocks!

$35 hardcover • 320 pages • Full Color • 8″ x 10″ • ISBN: 978-1-58008-262-4 • Ten Speed Press

• Order Salted from the The Meadow’s website for a signed Edition of the book.  Shipping is free! Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes from atthemeadow.com
• Prefer to buy through Amazon? Just follow the link here and the Amazonians will know we sent you to them: Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes from amazon.com.

Reviews

Named in “6 Best Food Books” of the Fall by Christian Science Monitor!
If you care about food, cooking, and taste, then you care about salt. And if you care about salt you will be over the moon about Salted by Mark Bitterman (Ten Speed Press). …. His book is a veritable encyclopedia of the world’s most well-loved mineral and will teach cooks how to take their dishes to the next level by learning to master the principles and techniques of salting. “Salted” is transformative; it will change the way you cook. Full article>>

More reviews

Bitterman explains that his love of salt began after eating a sublime steak at a relais on a trip to France. After learning about the cooking method and cut of meat, Bitterman concluded it was the “hefty nuggets of opalescent salt” that were responsible for his unforgettable meal, and he set out to meet the family of salt makers responsible. After opening an artisanal-product boutique with his wife, which includes a showcase of salts, Bitterman takes on the role of official “selmelier.” In this entertaining and well-researched volume, he profiles 80 varieties of artisan salts, along with a quick reference guide to more than 150 salts for an easy-to-understand crash course on salt. The text-heavy though beautifully photographed title covers the history of salt and all things related. Recipes round out the work, and although pedestrian dishes such as hamburgers, potato chips, and sauerkraut are included, beginners may be intimidated by sophisticated selections like roasted marrowbones with sel gris; salt crust–roasted partridge with figs and chocolate-balsamic syrup; and jal jeer (an Indian lemonade). An informative and easy-to-follow “Cooking on Salt” chapter just may have the more adventurous home cooks and the DIY crowd running out for their very own Himalayan salt block. (Oct.)
—Publishers Weekly, 9/20/10

“Salted is a remarkable work. Written with uncommon energy and style and packed with excellent information and recipes, this book should be considered a must-have for any chef worth their salt and anyone who cares about food and cooking. I love this book.”
—Michael Ruhlman, author of Ratio, The Making of a Chef, Charcuterie, and co-author of The French Laundry Cookbook

“Salted has a transformative effect. Mark embraces not only those magical crystals but also captures you with his passion for people and exploring the diversity of food and salt. His irrepressible will to learn and share is expressed in his writing.”
—Michael Recchiuti, chocolatier, author of Chocolate Obsession

“In this day and age it is imperative to not only know where our food comes from but also to learn about the very thing that brings out all of the flavors we tirelessly source—salt. In Salted, Mark Bitterman takes us on an epic journey, distilling everything from salt’s early formation in the primordial ocean to thoughtful recipes and detailed tasting notes on many of the world’s finest artisanal salts. A virtual encyclopedia of salt, Salted is a wonderful resource for cooks and lovers of great food everywhere.”
—Naomi Pomeroy, chef-owner of Beast Restaurant, James Beard nominee, Food & Wine Best New Chef

Once in a while salting is not about harmony.  Instead it’s about a gentle but jangling discord.  Haleakala Ruby is a luscious, warm Hawaiian sea salt that takes its color from the Haleakala volcano’s sacred alaea clay.  This is a salt that excels on fish and pork, where it seeks out and then embellishes the opulent undercurrents of flavors lurking in these subtler foods.  But it’s also good on fruit.  The salt shifts unexpectedly from meadows of sunny butter to coral reefs of revitalizing brine.  The less acidic the fruit, the more pronounced the oceanic freshness, as if the salt knows precisely how to respond to the needs of the food.  Start with a cantaloupe sweet as honeysuckle, trickle a little balsamic acidity for added complexity, stir in a pinch of fleur de sel to bring the flavors into crystal clarity, then serve with a sprinkle of Haleakala Ruby…  This is what it tastes like to have your heart skip a beat.

Makes 1 quart

1 pound peeled and seeded cantaloupe chunks, about 3 cups<
1 cup simple syrup (see recipe)
4 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar
1 two-finger pinch fleur de sel
4 two-finger pinched Haleakala Ruby sea salt

To make simple syrup, combine 1 cup sugar into 1 cup water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar is completely dissolved. (This will make a little more than 1 cup simple syrup, so measure the called-for amount.)  Allow to cool before using. Puree the melon, simple syrup, and vinegar in a blender on high speed until completely smooth.  Stir in the fleur de sel and freeze in an ice cream freezer according to manufacturer’s directions, or pour into a shallow baking dish and freeze until solid.  Cut into cubes and puree in batches in a food processor until smooth and thick.  Freeze to finish firming, about 30 minutes.

Serve scoops in chilled glasses, topping each with a thrifty pinch of Haleakala sea salt.

It is impossible to transform a cube into a sphere by cutting off corners.  Every time you cut a corner off, you reduce the degrees of the angles, but no matter how many times you do this, you will still have sides.   A perfect sphere has no sides.  This is the classical version of the problem.  The same impossibility holds true going in the opposite direction.  You can start with one cube, and then attach six cubes to it, one for each side.  Then add more cubes to those sides, and more cubes to those, etc. etc., until you form something that approaches the shape of a sphere–but again there will always be sides. Math has its limitations.  Happily, salt does not.

The viscous waters of Lake Assal in Djibouti (a small-ish country on the horn of Africa nestled between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia) are the second most saline in the world, and it’s shores have long been the shimmering destination of the salt trade.  Most Assal salt is scraped or dug from the shore, loaded on camels, and transported inland. But virtually unknown to the outside world, a very different, very rare salt can be found.  Wade into the waters, bend over, scoop the salt that has accumulated there, and behold.  Spheres.

Salt crystals, in strict and inevitable accordance with the fundamentals of chemistry, form with “face-centered cubic symmetry” as sodium ions and chloride ions bond.  This results in a perfect cube.  But combine the continuous action of wind-blown waves, currents, heat, and perhaps a touch of pressure in through a super saturated brine that contains ample amounts of magnesium chloride and other minerals, and something altogether different happens.  Crystals form, clump on to other crystals, get glued together with magnesium and other salts, roll around, and slowly snowball and whittle and polish themselves into spheres. Nature does this all by itself, with no consultation or assistance from humans.

Crystals range in size from the finest caviar to the most daunting softball.   Locals then harvest the salt crystals in the traditional manner.  Families work together, with the men wading deep into the lake to collect the pearls in baskets. The women then hand sort the salt spheres by size, with the largest crystals comprising rarest finds.  After drying, the salt is bagged and delivered to the port.

We’ve sorted our Djibouti salts into four different sizes: the ridiculously large Djibouti Boule, the amusing marble-sized  Djibouti Cutie, the aptly named and inviting Djibouti Pearl, and the fine and practical Djibouti Dew.  What to do with this strange, physics-defying salt?  It’s sort of like the problem of rounding the cube.  Whittle down your ideas until you get close to the perfect recipe—but recognize that you are really just tinkering with the unsolvable.

Serve Djibouti Boule in a gimlet, using gin from the freezer and adding the salt ball at the last minute.  You then drink in a race against the dissolving salt.  Or wrap a Djibouti Boule with ground lamb, egg, breadcrumbs, and herbs and do meat-encrusted salt balls, meating your salt instead of salting your meat is not just witty, it’s delicious, and plays with the cooking time and texture of the food in interesting ways.  Or just enjoy the tactile pleasure they offer.  I keep a bowl of the on desk and roll them around between my fingers when I’m trying to figure something resistant to figuring, like what to do with Djibouti Boule.

Roll some Djibouti Cutie around a plate with more angular geometries of sashimi, or melon, or what have you.  Perch some atop a beet and goat cheese salad for visual drama and textural intimidation (the crystals are actually somewhat soft, but seem hard as marbles).

Scatter grilled or broiled seafood with Djibouti Pearl. Let some intermingle with the juices of a steak, a lobster salad, or what the heck, an oyster.

Djibouti Dew is effectively a sprinkling salt.  It has an elusive, but ultimately hard and in your face intensity that makes it suitable for spicy foods found anywhere from Thailand to Madagascar to Peru to Mexico.

Hi,

I have a couple questions about salt production and I’m hoping you can answer them.  I’ve had an interest in salt for a while and how it is made. I’m curious about two things.

1. How can you tell where sea salt is made?  Coastal water pollution is a problem all over the world.  Why should I assume that “French sea salt” (or any sea salt) is made from clean waters?  Is there a way to find out and/or verify?

2. Solar evaporation is a very old and common practice for making salt.  But how do they keep stuff out of the ponds?  Bird poop?  Bugs?  Dirt? Whatever else?  It seems like creating something with that much exposed surface area is bound to get contaminants. I am hoping you can shed some light on these things for me.  I haven’t been able to find any answers anywhere else on how salt production is kept clean.  Michael Pollan writes about making brown salt from polluted water.  Everyone writes about gathering crystals by hand, etc., but no one says anything about how salt is made clean.
–

Hi Jason,

1.  Regarding the purity of salt:

The first thing you have to do define “pure” as it relates to salt.  Consumers should consider impurities as either: a) contamination from environmental sources such as pollution, run-off etc.; or b) from chemicals deliberately added in to salt as part of its processing for industrial and consumer markets.  In my opinion, the former is inexcusable.  The latter is, at best, a necessary evil (e.g. salt iodization as part of strategic global health initiatives in impoverished countries), and at worst yet another example of the unnecessary industrialization of our food supply.

The “French sea salt” you refer to above could come from either of two seas: the North Atlantic on the west coast, and the Mediterranean to the south. The Atlantic waters are very clean, and the French sea salts made there are in turn filtered through exquisite marine wetlands that are among cleanest and closely protected in the world.  The French sea salt from the  Mediterranean comes from far less pristine waters, and the vast majority of it is harvested using heavy industrial equipment, though there are important exceptions (such as fleur de sel de Camargue).

The term “sea salt” itself reveals little about the purity of the salt. The vast majority of salts around the world sold as sea salt are in fact manufactured using industrial processes and standards. Industrially made sea salts can come from polluted waters such as the San Francisco Bay, and may be further contaminated during the harvesting process, which employs heavy, diesel-powered equipment. After going through a refining process to eliminate the industrial pollution that gets in them during evaporation and harvesting, industrial salt companies may add chemicals back in to the refined salt to keep it free-flowing, to make it white, to iodize it, etc. etc.

It’s important to recognize that chemically pure sodium chloride (NaCl) is NOT a natural salt from either a culinary or dietary standpoint, and such a thing did not even exist prior the chemical-industrial revolution of  the late 1800s. Nature does not make anything resembling the refined, 99.8% and higher sodium chloride salts produced by the chemical giants who have taken over the manufacture most of the world’s salt.  Natural salts have a host of trace minerals (upwards of 15% sometimes) and are almost totally devoid of harmful environmental contaminants, and these minerals are part of a salt’s naturally “pure” make-up.  For this reason purity is not itself a terribly helpful term for salt, any more than it would be for rich topsoil, pungent grass, happy sheep, or molding cheese.  The unfathomable complexity of these things offer something far more than purity: they offer wholesomeness.

I look at a host of things when determining whether we should carry a salt in our store, with the ultimate goal of understandings each salt’s suitability for eating. After a salt has won us over with its flavor, beauty, and behavior on food, we look deeper. For many salts we obtain a spectral analysis. Here we keep an eye out for positive things like levels of magnesium, and negative things like levels of mercury and lead.  While heavy metals are very rarely present in levels sufficient for concern–often the levels are the same or lower than in natural rock salts, which predate man by several hundred million years–they can be indicators of a polluted environment.

But there are other things that are  more important  than a chemical analysis. Serious saltmakers  are far more demanding than any technical specification can possibly reflect.  As fierce guardians of the ecology in which they practice their trade, artisan saltmakers have a deep and nuanced understanding of the dynamics behind the creation of their salt.  No amount of testing has saved Americans from contaminated eggs, produce, and meat because contaminants are part of the very mechanism of industrial food manufacturing—it’s just a matter of minimizing this contamination.  Artisans practice outside of this logic, with criteria for quality organized around the principles of expert knowledge, hand labor, ecological stewardship, and economic sustainability.  Such wholesomeness is at the heart of good salt, and I guess that insofar as its meets these standards, it is “pure.” This logic might be applied not just to salt, but to all food.

2. Regarding the contamination of salts from natural environmental things like birds and bugs:

Most sea salt is made in open salt pans where it is evaporated by the energy of the sun and wind.  All open pan solar sea salts are subject to all the effects of the environment.  A pristine natural environment will buffer salt pans from industrialization, but birds, fish, crustaceans, algae, and pollens are all present in such places.  So, is this a problem?

In a word, No.

Admittedly, no unrefined sea salt will be utterly free of all the things that naturally occur in the this environment. (Fresh, ice-cold water drawn from a mountain spring water will contain organic matter. Water stored in plastic bottles on supermarket shelves will contain no organic matter–though it may contain Bisphenol A and other chemicals.  Which is better?)  But salt makers will often pour clean ocean brine over the salt crystals as they are harvested to rinse them of any unwanted matter.  In other places, seasonal things like pollen from nearby mountains is considered part of the character of the salt, though this, too, is often rinsed out when the salt is going to be sold outside the community. In addition, the natural ecology of a healthy salt pond will help keep things in balance. As the chemical, visual, and taste analyses can attest, the combination of the pond ecology and rinsing in natural brine results in a very clean salt.

So this morning I set out for Chelsea Market in New York City to buy some coffee beans and I had absolutely no intention of falling in love with another berry. But I stumbled across some great-looking stracchino cheese, and then moments later bumped into some luscious strawberries, and while I was fumbling for change to pay for the strawberries, what do I do but pull out but a pile of chocolate salt that had spilled from a jar in my pockets a few days earlier.  When this sort of thing happens it makes no sense to question fate.  I strolled out to the street, found one of those odd new middle-of-the-street tables they’re putting at the voids in intersections all over the city, and sat down for a little impromptu strawberry-stracchino-chocolate-salt breakfast in the morning coolness.  This was one of the first times I’ve used my own chocolate-infused salt on cheese—other than on cottage cheese and peaches, etc.  The pairing was a natural: Bitterman’s Chocolate Fleur de Sel (it’s the only salt at The Meadow we make ourselves, a secret infusion of chocolate and our house fleur de sel) brings a rich chocolate aroma to your senses even before you bite.  And the salt’s discrete nutty-mocha flavors are like a curtain through which emerge silvery spangles of mineral-fresh salt.  The impact of the salt in your mouth is incredible as it finds its way through the rich stracchino cheese mixing with the buoyant fruitiness of the strawberry: like one of those scenes in the movies when two lovers set eyes on one another from across a crowded train platform, and struggle ardently through the all those jostling people to reunite.

I’m sitting on a black leather couch of a playwright whose West Village apartment I’m subletting, thinking about how I need to get outside to buy some more raspberries.  About to pop the last one into my mouth. But then I stop.  My last raspberry ils talking to me. (If you’ve ever seen those videos of the annoying talking orange, you have a pretty clear idea of what I’m talking about.)  The last raspberry was reminding me that I hadn’t actually paid that much attention to the first raspberry.  It suggested I go back and retroactively experience past raspberries, though it didn’t say how far past. So I sprinkled a little Cyprus Hardwood Smoked sea salt on my talking raspberry.  The salt sparked images of all the raspberries that had come before: childhood raspberries from my grandmother’s Connecticut brambles, later raspberries from beach parties crashed in the Vendée, more recent from the hands of my boy in Oregon.  The flash of Cyprus Hardwood Smoked–a bright sizzle suffused in a maple warmth–makes for your own personalized version of the raspberry eating experience.

A crispy tangy spicy red snapper: flavors singing in exotic Southeast Asian voices.  Restless nights preceded this recipe.  There was hand wringing.  Soul searching.  The dilemma of which salt.  Bali Rama, with its arrowhead tips of explosive freshness, was the seductive choice, a magnificent sea salt that seems never to steer me wrong.  Maldon sea salt would have been a convenient and more predictable choice, salt’s gold standard of unflappable, balanced crispness.  But the snapper wanted something more, something both melodic and taunting, like the sound of seashells raked by summer waves across a tropical reef.  The choice of salts became clear: The Meadow Flake, with its huge pyramidal crystals that seem nearly to tremble with oceanic vitality, a sea salt with the mathematical exactitude of music.

Serves 3 to 4

For the Snapper

2 teaspoon coriander seed, ground
1 tablespoon white peppercorns, ground
1 three-finger pinch Meadow fleur de sel
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 bunch cilantro, leave, minced
4 to 5 pounds cleaned (gutted, scaled, fins trimmed, gills removed) whole red snapper
juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 three-finger pinches Meadow flake sauce

For the Sauce

2 fresh lemon grass stalks, all fibrous layers removed, finely sliced
1/2 fresh chile, minced
1/4 cup Nam Pla (fish sauce)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup lime juice, about 2 limes
8 chives, finely sliced

Combine the coriander, peppercorns, fleur de sel, garlic and cilantro into a coarse paste.  Make 3 deep slits in the sides of the fish and rub the spice paste into the slits and all over the surface of the fish. Set on a boiler pan and drizzle with lime juice and olive oil. Preheat the broiler and set the fish aside for 10 minutes while you make the sauce.

The lemon grass needs to be thoroughly trimmed so that only the tender heart is left.  (The trick to lemon grass is pealing away way more of the outer layers than you might think.)  Combine the sliced lemon grass, chile, fish sauce, water, and lime juice.

Broil the fish 4 inches away from the heat until the skin is crisp on both sides and fish flesh is opaque (but still moist) deep in the slits.  Transfer to a serving platter.

Drizzle the sauce over the fish, scatter the chive, and finish with The Meadow Flake salt over top.