Sautéeing on Himalayan salt blocks creates exponentially more flavor than sautéeing in a conventional skillet.  This is because a salt block cooks your food in two ways. At a blazing 500 degrees or higher, the heavy block of salt has enormous thermal mass, sizzling away moisture to produce a thick crust of rich, concentrated flavor.  At the same time, the Himalayan salt itself sets to work, bursting cell membranes, intermingling juices, and breaking loose new flavors that in turn sizzle away to make for even more concentrated flavors.  Want to make the most of this miracle of cooking chemistry?  Balance out the scallop’s rich buttery flavors with a spritz of citrus and reinforce everything with the lip-tingling spice of Szechuan peppercorns. You’ll not have another scallop that’s this fun to cook, impressive to serve, or tasty to eat.

FYI We’re holding a Himalayan Salt Block Class Wednesday July 14 at The Meadow!  Info here>>

Makes 4 servings

2 4x8x2 inch (or one 8x8x2 inch) cooking grade Himalayan salt blocks
1 1/4 pounds large wild-caught sea scallops (about 16)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cracked red Szechuan peppercorns
Finely shredded zest and juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 lime

Place the salt block(s) over a low gas flame and heat for 15 minutes. Raise the flame to medium and heat another 10 minutes. Raise the flame to high and heat another 15 minutes, until it is uncomfortable to hold your hand about 2 inches from the surface of the block for longer than 3 seconds (approximately 500°F).

While the salt block is heating pat the scallops dry and pull off their white gristly tendons (located on the side of the scallop) if not already removed. Coat the scallops with the olive oil and Szechuan pepper and let stand at room temperature until the salt block is hot.

Place the scallops on the hot block.  The scallops should almost skitter across the top.  If they just plop there and sizzle modestly, the salt is  and sear until browned and springy to the touch but still a little soft in the center, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Work in batches if your salt block cannot comfortably fit all the scallops at once.

Remove to a platter or plates, or move the entire salt block to the table and set on an oven mitt or trivet to serve still sizzling to your guests. Scatter the citrus zest over top and drizzle with the juice.  Eat immediately.

I’ve covered this dish before here and elsewhere, including at the Himalayan salt block cooking classes at The Meadow, but I don’t think it has ever actually been hammered into a simple recipe.

There are two simple tricks to this dish (if you can call steak seared on a giant block of salt a dish): cutting the meat against the grain, and cooking it at a high temperature.  Oh, and cooking it NOT on steel, but on a block of ancient, super dense, mineral rich Himalayan rock salt.

Ingredients:
1 2lb piece of flank steak
1 8x8x2 inch Himalayan Salt Block or Plate

Place the block of Himalayan rock salt on the stove and set to low heat, gradually, over the course of 30 minutes, bringing it to high heat, until the block reaches a cooking temperature of 475 to 500 degrees F.  Cut the piece of flank steak length wise along the grain of the meat, creating two long strips.  Then, turning the piece perpendicular to the blade of your knife cut the strips across the fiber of the meat into 1/4 inch thick strips, each about 2 to 3 inches long.

When the Himalayan pink salt plate is hot, which you can tell by when a sample piece of meat sizzles vigorously (or however it is that a piece of meat sizzles when it is REALLY sizzling), or by moving your hand closer and closer to the hot Himalayan salt block until your hand definitely doesn’t want to get any closer at about 2 or 3 inches away, or by gunning it with one of those very cool infra-red thermometers and noting that it is 475 to 500 degrees F, you are ready to cook.

Place about 12 pieces of steak onto the block.  After 15 to 20 seconds, flip and cook for another 15 to 20 seconds.  Serve immediately.

The major drawback to this dish is that no matter how fast you cook, you can generally eat faster.  I’ve noticed that when diners are hungry enough, it is possible to actually eat the entire pieces without chewing–sort of iguana style.  To avoid giving the impression that we are savages, we have conferred upon this dish a sophisticated name that distracts those we are trying to impress.  We call it bifsteak à l’iguanne.

Hence the name, steak a l’iguana.  A good way avoid just hovering over the stove wolfing down the hot, juicy, rare-on-the-inside, seared-golden-on-the-outside pieces of steak, is to bring the cooking to the table, where children can be controlled and adults are obligated to be civil.

Place the hot brick on a trivet and place the piping hot Himalayan salt brick on the table.  The block of Himalayan salt stores enough heat to allow for 3 to 5 courses.  (As the block cools, subsequent batches of steak will be saltier.)  And voilà, all the civility of a good fondue Bourguignonne with even better, more indubitably seasoned cooking.

A variety of sizes are available, and the cost-conscious, or restaurants looking to serve many, can use Cookware 4 x 8 x 2 bricks as well.  A selection available here>>

My favorite by far this time around has to be the imperial super mondo extra big and fancy and fun Himalayan salt platters (it’s tempting to call them Himalayan salt boards, or salt planks, or salt joists…), which measure a solid 8 inches by 16 inches in size, with a thickness of 2 full inches.  They are begging to party.  Some ideas that come to mind:

• Islands of mozzarella surrounded by flotillas of sliced green apple, pear, and peach on a fiery sea of pink rock salt.
• Schools of sushi grade salmon, ahi tuna, and saba mackerel netted by slivers of pickled ginger and a shaved dusting of wasabi.
• A dozen balls of home-made sorbet (got to use that ice-cream maker sometime) glistening on the pink salt stone surface beading salty perspiration like the athletic little treats that they are.

Anyway, there are lots of other nice new sizes in as well, including the size so many chefs have been clamoring for as a daily use salt plate: the 4 x 4 x 1 inch size, which can also be used as single serving salt plate, a salt coaster (so you can lick the salty condensation off the bottom of your margarita glass when nobody is looking), salt butter dish, or salt serving tray for the caramelized walnuts destined for that lovely Belgian endive, blue cheese, and pear salad you have been meaning to make for all these weeks.  (dang, why did I not take a picture of that last night?…)

What else do we have?  Bowls!  Plates!  Serve rice and stir-fried vegetables in the bowl, and grilled fish in the plate, and let the salt delicately play off the edges of whatever moisture is at play.

The Himalayan pink rock salt bowls are very cool, a massive 6 and a half pounds of 600 million year old pink rock salt.  They measures just over 6 inches wide by 4 1/2 inches high.  It is only hollowed about 7/8th of the way down, so it has a very heavy base that suggests it should be gently warmed up and used to serve chocolate fondu in it.

The Himalayan pink rock salt plates have a beautiful geometry to them, just concave enough to keep your scrambled eggs from skittering all over the place and onto the table, into your lap, and under your chair (some of us are vigorous scrambled egg eaters).  They measure over 8 inches wide and almost 2 inches high, making them well-proportioned, slightly large side plate or a tidy, tapas-style dining plate.  They weigh a solid 4 pounds 10 ounces, so they hold their own on a table with a certain James Bond debonair air.

Cooking on Himalayan Salt Blocks at WCI Le Cordon Bleu

I just did a cooking class at the Western Culinary Institute – Le Cordon Bleu demonstrating cooking with Himalayan Salt Blocks, and used the extra hefty premium grade 9 x 9 x 2 inch salt plates.  I demonstrated the basics, like cooking thinly sliced flank steak, scallop, apples and home-made mozzarella (not mine) and the snazzy-simple melted chocolate fruit dip thing that gets people to actually lick the salt plate with their tongues.  That’s it for the holiday season, I think, but we’ll be sure to have another class sometime early in the new year.

In the spring of 2007, the editors of the bridal issue of a magazine popular here in the Pacific Northwest asked us to design a floral arrangement and table service.   Jennifer came up with an idea that stunned everybody who saw it, combining in one sophisticated table setting the most ephemeral and delicate of beauties with the closest thing on planet Earth to the eternal.

For flowers, Jennifer found about two dozen different varieties of white flowers, many of them wildflowers we collected ourselves from the forests, streams, and meadows near our house in Portland Oregon.  She arranged them either singly or in small bunches in a variety of unique vintage and antique glass vases from the vintage vase collection in our shop.  For the centerpiece she arranged pale pink dogwood blossoms with very tall, slender white tulips. The effect was one of extraordinary diversity brought into strange and unexpected harmony, as if nature herself had flung together the vases and flowers, and suddenly withdrawn, leaving the fragile petals trembling above the crisp white linens covering the table.

Jennifer then set 8 inch by 8 inch by 2 inch thick squares of light pink Himalayan rock salt plates on white china chargers.  The Himalayan rock salts are 600 million years old.  They just sat there, and glowed.  Way back before there as any developed life on the planet, a great ocean became enclosed by land and slowly evaporated off to form a vast deposit of salt and natural trace minerals.  The luminescent squares of Himalayan salt, effectively the distillate of one of the first oceans to form on the planet, both anchored the table with their solidity and uprooted it, bringing the primordial bed of all life on earth into contradistinction that was simultaneously aesthetic, conceptual, and playful.

The photographs in the magazine were great, but never quite did justice to the amazing delicacy of the white wildflowers and the immutable depth of the salt blocks.  But this picture at least serves as a schematic for the idea.

For any of you–like me recently–still baffled: to get an image out of your cell phone you can email it to yourself.

The happy day has come: the latest shipment of Himalayan salt blocks has arrived, and now, after horrendous physical labor in the warehouse (my forearms are like Popeye’s, and small children stop and gape), it’s all ready to use.

Thanks to the great work of our supplier, for the first time we have divided our blocks into grades, allowing customers to buy the Himalayan salt block that best suits their expected needs. The bad news is I somehow have not yet managed to snap a photograph of them, but that shall be forthcoming.

There is more detail available at www.atthemeadow.com, but to summarize:

Our larger tiles and plates are thicker than standard blocks, for both added strength and a greater physical appeal. Large pieces such as 8 x 8 x 2 and the new 9 x 9 x 2 are an impressive half inch thicker than standard salt blocks, and the same goes for our extra-huge 9 x 18 platters. This larger size applies to all grades, not just the new premium.

The thick size is extremely cool to look at: it sits at the table like it wants to crush it. It broods. It handily supports the most massive food, from a Tomme de Savoie to a fan of lobster tails. I still have the 1.5 inch thick blocks in my kitchen, but they look a touch puny next to the new big fat boys.

Regular Grade Himalayan Salt Blocks are for serving food at room temperature, or if you have a mind, frozen for a sorbet or that semifreddo service you have been wanting to attempt for all those years. A Himalayan salt block cheese platter, marinated vegetable plate, sashimi plate, butter dishh, centerpiece, etc., will do best with a Regular Grade Himalayan Salt block.

The new Premium Grade Himalayan Salt Blocks™ are painstakingly selected (ever tried to move 200 ninety pound boxes of salt around a warehouse in the middle of July?), for the most versatile use by the most serious-minded cooks. They are the ones I wanted to take home… Fear not, I get all the funky pieces. I am glad to sort though a stack of the premium grade (or the regular grade for that matter) salt blocks looking for anything in particular that might desire.

Architectural Grade Himalayan Salt Blocks™ are the least expensive Himalayan salt blocks. They are pure and beautiful and similar to the regular grade in many regards, but are only sold in large quantities and may contain some flaws that make them less than ideal for culinary uses of Himalayan salt blocks. Starting a new club and want a luminous wall of salt? Building out a wine cellar? Sprucing up a spa? That’s the idea.

IDEAS IN FOOD: Improvisation and experimentation in the kitchen, written by Chefs Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot, has a huge readership, and for good reason: they are intrepid, clever, and skilled cooks.  Check out their brief experimentation with Himalayan salt blocks here>>

There are dozens of ways to use Himalayan salt blocks, as plates, platters, skillets, curing bricks, freezing slabs, and more.  Cooking, however, is an important one to get under your belt as soon as possible.

And by the way, I personally like to use one Himalayan salt block for cooking, and keep a separate Himalayan salt block/plate for room temperature uses such as curing, serving, and otherwise presenting food.  That way, your cooking salt block benefits from the patina and structural changes inherent to cooking, much as a cast iron skillet benefits from careful use and cleaning. At the same time, the purity and simplicity of the unheated Himalayan salt block can be emphasized when used for presentation at the table.

Heating, Using, Cleaning, and Storing Tips for Himalayan Salt Blocks: see the complete article.

The prospect of a kitchen utensil harboring unspoken truths about our private kitchen lives, our sordid failures and glittery triumphs, is upsetting to some people. To them, there may be nothing to say but, “Stick with stainless steel.” Many others are not so much averse to the intrinsic mysteriousness and seemingly endless misbehaviors of salt plates, as they are flummoxed. For the benefit of the latter, I would like to share a recent letter I received from a particularly courageous Himalayan salt block user, and offer some replies as best as I can.

Hi,

I recently bought the large salt block and have a couple of questions/concerns.

My salt block has fissures/cracks going all the way through. After cooking on it, there is a difference in the height from one section to the other. Is this a cause for concern? The gaps between the fissures also seem to be widening. ANSWERS, SEE BELOW.

While somewhat translucent when first unwrapped, after cooking with it, it has become cloudy and mottled. Concern or typical? You mentioned that you’ve tested them up to 900 deg. I had mine in a 500 degree oven for a while before transitioning to the burner, but should I be more careful with the temperature? (This applies to the above concern as well, I suppose.) ANSWER: IT IS ALWAYS NICE TO BE NICE. IF YOU CAN HEAT UP YOUR PLATE SLOWER, IT WILL LAST LONGER. I DO OFTEN JUST PUT MY PLATE RIGHT ON THE STOVETOP, HOWEVER, STARTING AT LOW TEMPERATURE, BEFORE CRANKING IT UP.

Finally, mineral deposits are forming around the cracks/fissures (again after cooking)—it looks like a basement wall that is efflorescing. Is this typical? I haven’t yet come up with a storage solution, so it is just sitting out on a cabinet wrapped in a paper towel. Any recommendations on how I should store it? Is moisture a concern? ANSWER: POSSIBLY YOUR HOUSE IS VERY DAMP, AND THE BEST THING TO DO IS TO KEEP IT IN A WARM SPOT THAT WILL MINIMIZE CONDENSATION. THE MAIN THING IS TO BE SURE TO PAT DOWN YOUR FRESHLY WASHED SALT PLATE WITH A PAPER TOWEL, AND LEAVE IT OUT IN THE DRY AIR UNTIL COMPLETELY DRY. IF YOU HAVE AN ELECTRIC RANGE OR OVEN, YOU CAN POP IN IN THERE FOR 5 MINUTES AND THAT WILL ALSO DO THE TRICK. GAS RANGES PUT OUT TOO MUCH HUMIDITY TO FUNCTION AS DRYERS, ALAS.

Well, one other thing: In my inaugural fried egg, I overheated the block, burned the butter seem to have managed to pit the surface. Should I expect that normal usage (and clean up) will tend to smooth out the rough spots? I was somewhat disappointed by how much the egg stuck to the surface. Again, will that smooth out and improve with use, or do I need more (unburned!) butter? COOKING IS AN INEXACT SCIENCE (FOR MOST OF US). BURNING BUTTER CAN CAUSE DISCOLORATION OF SALT BLOCKS, AND IS TO BE AVOIDED IF YOU WISH TO KEEP IT PRETTY. HOWEVER, PITTING AND THE LIKE ARE SOMEWHAT INESCAPABLE. REGARDING STICKING: THIS IS NOT A NO-STICK FRYING PAN. EGGS WILL STICK, SO JUST BE VERY AGGRESSIVE WHEN SCRAPING IT OFF TO SERVE WITH YOUR SPATULA. YOU GET MICROSCOPICALLY LARGER AMOUNTS OF SALT THAT WAY TOO, SO IT TASTES BETTER! I ALMOST NEVER USE ANY OIL WITH ANYTHING I COOK ON HIMALAYAN SALT PLATES. SCALLOPS, STEAK, EGG, DUCK. MUSHROOMS ARE AN EXCEPTION…

Thanks!
-G.B.

Fissures and cracks: The salt plate at top (click for a larger view) also pictured here (definitely click for a larger view) has been rather heavily used, in this case heated on an electric hotplate rather than a gas burner. To me, it is more beautiful than ever, and shows very few signs of actual wear or degradation from washing and dissolving.

These are more or less inevitable in any Himalayan salt block. Microfissures will develop when the massive block of salt is subjected to an irregular heat source such as a gas burner. However, I find these fissures do not affect the salt plate as a cooking surface, and can even bring new beauty to the piece. To the right are some close-ups of the types of fissures I typically seen in a salt block that is subjected to extreme heat. However, what G.B. is experiencing is presumably more severe. One of my favorite salt blocks anywhere has exceptionally varied levels of mineral density distributed throughout. While this makes for one of the most beautiful Himalayan salt plates I have ever seen, there are some trade-offs in terms of its long-term prospects as a high temperature cooking plate. When the plate is heated, different parts expand at different rates and different amounts. The result is a certain instability. That said, this piece is still holding up pretty well after having fried many an egg on our stovetop. Note that for the sake of keeping this salt piece beautiful, I have not subjected it to the most brutal of treatment, such as flambeing, or mistakes such as burning butter or oil or animal fat.

Click on the image of my Himalayan beauty to see it up close, and you will see that there are some definitely variations and fissures running throughout, many of which are doubtless harming the structural integrity of the block. Beauty is ephemeral. Still, so far she has served up many a breakfast with her fairness undiminished.

But moving on to the less savory results that can be had with Himalayan salt blocks, The Cracken.

I inspect all the Himalayan salt plates we sell at The Meadow. I do my best to assure that every block and brick and plate and tile has enough structural integrity permit use in most kitchen activities. That said, folks are creative in the extremes they can subject a poor salt block to–and are also, at times, just unlucky in the salt brick they procure. Let it be said, if your salt brick breaks, I will gladly replace it unless the breakage comes as the result of some gross negligence.

Sorting through wayward of blocks, I found a real humdinger, all beat up, with severe cracks throughout, and definitely looking like it was about to break.

I have since used it for a series of meals, using it more or less daily for a spell, heating it up in the broiler (gas) to sauté scallops, heating it on the stovetop (gas) for flank steak, and variously cooking about a dozen of other things ranging from fillet of sole to whole sardines to veggies.

As expected, the salt block has cracked, but it has not exhibited all the various forms of unsettling behavior I imagined–like breaking, or worse, splintering. In fact the Himalayan salt tile seems to have stabilized, and I continue to use this plate in a show of defiance, and in humble admiration for the unplumbed mysteries of salt.

Fissures and cracks are a fact of life, in Himalayan salt, occurring naturally as a result of the forces they are subjected to deep in the earth, and from the trauma of quarrying them. There are still some forms of behavior–such as alligatoring I have observed on the surface of a salt skillet of the executive chef of a large resort here in Oregon–so I cannot say without seeing it whether the issues experienced by G.B. are serious enough to affect the performance of the salt plate. However, it is safe to assume G.B. has one of the more temperamental instances of Himalayan salt plate, so the solace I offer is simple: use the salt plate taking care to observe some of the handling practices mentioned above, and keep me posted.

For more information, see my previous posting on Cooking Ideas for Himalayan Salt Plates.

I cooked eggs this morning for The Missus. In a futile attempt to temporarily sooth her implacable appetite for eggs, I cooked two “dishes”:

Salt Skillet Fried Egg
Buttered Salt Skillet Fried Egg

Every morning for the last ten years or so, I have been greeted with the same refrain:

“Mmmm… (whuh?) I’m in the mood… (uh?) A nice… (a nice?…) fried egg.”

So, these are the mystical rhythms of the female mind. An eternity of the soporific/invigorating smell of eggs sizzling on butter on a skillet downstairs, salted delicately with Pangasinan Star or Fleur de Sel de l’Ile de Re, or, on an occasion of rare deviation, truffle salt.

But not today.

“Mmmm… (whuh?) I’m in the mood… (uh?) A nice… (a nice?…) salt brick.”

Today, Jennifer, with at least 85% of her brain still sleeping, decided that she wanted her Saturday Morning Egg cooked on a large block of Himalayan Salt. I don’t know if it is because she has caught on the midnight vibe of Himalayan Pink Salt Block writing that pervades the house like the surly ghost of Ezra Pound, or whether it was some creative impulse of her own, but the request was there.

Pursuant to Jennifer’s request, I cooked up two fried eggs on a thick but smallish-sized Himalayan salt block. The first egg I fried straight up, with no butter or other oil. Just me, the egg, and a 600 million year old plate of salt quarried from the ancient haunches of Pakistan’s Himalayas mountain range.

Step one, heat salt block. This particular block is of a salmon hue, but striated with blood-red veins of denser minerals. A few customers at The Meadow have given me somewhat suspicious looks when I suggest cooking eggs, pancakes, and other gooey substances on rocks of Himalayan salt. I chose one from our embarrassingly large collection because it was smaller than many of the others, measuring 6 by 6 by 1.75 inches.

Still, it took about 20 minutes to get it hot. (After about fifteen minutes on medium heat on the medium-sized burner of our gas range, I turned it up to full for another 2-3 minutes.)

I cracked the egg and tested whether the salt block was hot enough by letting a small amount of egg white drip onto the surface. Noting that it immediately sizzled and turned white, I then plopped the entire egg, yolks unbroken, in the middle of the brick and partially covered with a saucepan lid.

In one minute I had THE WORLDS MOST PERFECT FRIED EGG. Just-crispy whites, luscious liquid/gelatinous yolk, and get this: it was delicately salty on the down side of the egg! Imagine what your palat experiences when it gets the salt-singed bit of the egg first, and THEN the egg itself! The tongue is stimulated, the mouth awakens, the higher sensory faculties of anticipation and sunny delight engaged, for in one happy second the world is salty eggyness. But then, rather than have that drift into salt-laden overkill, that delicate unfleshly avian endoplasm comes through in an a moment of delicate triumph. Suffice it to say, Jennifer was pleased.

For the second, I buttered the slab of Himalayan salt thoroughly. A nice bulky brick of buttered salt block: springboard for the wildest of rampages through the culinary unknown. Anticipation in the kitchen was palpable. First, the butter, strangely, did not burn at all, but rather just spread like pale honey across the surface of the very hot salt Himalayan block. I fried the egg, partially covered again.

Amazingly enough, given the relative exoticness of the tools at hand, the egg’s glory was in its simplicity. Perfect texture, and above all, perfectly evenly cooked. I said it above and I’ll say it again, the heat distribution when cooking on salt blocks, whether on an open fire or over a gas burner or on top of an electric range (more on that another time) or in an oven or under a broiler is unsurpassed. I have a very heavy, very old cast iron skillet that nonetheless could never get delicate foods like eggs to cook to thoroughly. I have a brand new, state of the art calphalon pan that cost about $75,000 that can’t hold a candle to it.

Jennifer’s observation was this: “I have never had an egg so hot!”

One other note: the buttered Himialayan pink salt block did not impart more than a trace hint of saltiness. Rather, the result was a very subtly salted egg that could then be tuned up with a pinch of Maldon or a fleur de sel.

You can buy Himalayan salt plates at The Meadow at www.atthemeadow.com/salt/himalayan-pink-salt-blocks.html

Cooking on blocks of Himalayan pink salt opens up a new door in the old, old book of cooking. Or is it, a new chapter in the big house of food… Like a good bad mixed metaphor, cooking, serving, and eating food on blocks salt that predate food itself presents something of a self-contained paradox.

I’ve been cooking, freezing, curing and presenting foods of every sort on great slabs of Himalayan pink rock salt Pakistan, and have posed some ideas here for inspiration and edification. I hope my brief compendium of how to cook on Himalayan salt rocks helps dispel any notion that we have even come close to discovering the myriad dazzling and delicious ways we can combine food with salt to produce something greater than the sum of its parts.

Salt on food. Food on salt. Here is a brief but semi-in-depth look at cooking with Himalayan salt plates and blocks and platters and planks and cubes and chunks of the eerily beautiful Himalayan salt. Read on…