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 »

My friend Michael Ruhlman has shared his thoughts on salt.  He suggests using Kosher, a fine grind of so-called fine Sea Salt, and a finishing salt of choice.

I have a thought that speaks to both of our perspectives on salt.  Ruhlman ’s book, Soul of the Chef, is a brilliant account of what’s involved in the technical mastery of cooking.  But implicit in the story (and sometimes explicit) is the importance of the ingredient.  Thomas Keller is a technical master, but he is also the consummate curator of ingredients.

The tension between technique and ingredient is age-old.  In the history of food there has always been a fight between technique and ingredient.  Cultures tend to come out on one side or the other: French, the technique; Italian, the ingredient.  This tension also plays out through trends and influences:  molecular gastronomy is about technique; Alice Waters is about ingredient.  As he describes so well, Keller is not only a master technician, he also emblematizes the age-old concept “honor the animal” and “honor the vegetable,” meaning use your ingredients fully and respectfully.

Keller also honors the mineral.

Keller’s strategic, creative, mindful use of natural, unique salts has been a major inspiration for me in my life and work.  If fact, I can think of no other person (outside Japan) who has so fully grasped the essential link between the technical perfection of cooking and the elemental imperative of good salt.  Several of the over 100 salts we carry in our store I discovered through Keller.

But, in conclusion, I will say that I totally agree three salts are enough for any household.  But they should be salts that reflect your values as a chef no less than the grade of meat or freshness of vegetable.  Coarse, moist Sel Gris for all around cooking and hearty foods like grilled and roasted meats and roots.  Delicate, irregular crystals of Fleur de Sel for subtler, moist foods like fish, sauced foods, and cooked vegetables.  Parchment fine Flake Salts for fresh vegetables and wherever you want a dramatic salty snap.  We have the Foundations Set at The Meadow to help with this.

The technical skill required for using salt masterfully is easy as pie (or easier: crust is a bear).  And finding good salts is easier now than ever.  My book will be coming out this fall in an effort to help matters along.  Honor the mineral!

Mark Bitterman :: Feb.02.2010 :: Gourmet Salt, News & Musings, Recipes :: No Comments »

Popcorn is serious food for most of us.  It’s one of those snacks–the more fun you have making it, the more serious the result.  A dance of fluffy crunch, butter, and salt, there is probably no food better suited to stuffing with child-like abandon into your mouth.  But getting back to the serious part.  Making great popcorn means using great salt.  Indulging in alternative popcorn face-stuffing experiences means exploring different salts.  The Meadow’s Popcorn Salt Set is the ultimate popcorn eater’s companion.

Papohaku Opal Sea Salt – This is the “beautiful, super fruity, buttery salt from Hawaii” we raved about in The Oregonian. This is hand harvested sea salt from Molokai Hawaii, one of the more beautiful salts you are likely to find anywhere. We recommend that you grind this salt onto your popcorn, for a flavor combination of “super-buttered movie theater popcorn, amusement park caramel corn and something you might nibble on in the plush shadows of the Ritz bar in Paris.”

Amabito No Moshio Sea Salt – Adapted from a 2,000-year-old method for salt making in Japan, this is probably the first salt ever regularly made on the island. Salt was made by dragging seaweed from the ocean onto the rocks on the shore, letting the brine dry off, and then repeatedly sprinkling water on again and letting it dry, until a thick crust of salt built up. On the seaweed.  Water was then gingerly rinsed off to make a concentrated brine that was then evaporated over fire to yield salt. The resulting superfine, almost moussey crystals have a savory flavor called Umami, which the Japanese have for centuries distinguished as a flavor category of its own. Sprinkled on popcorn, Amabito No Moshio provides a hearty, savory flavor almost like pasta speckled with Parmesan cheese minus the pasta Parmesan: it’s only the intensity of the flavors that you experience.

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Mark Bitterman :: Dec.17.2009 :: Gourmet Salt, Recipes :: 1 Comment »

Poultry loves a brine.  The major advantage to brining is that it adds moisture to lean, low-moisture meats – turkey is a prime candidate.  In addition to more moisture, brined turkey has more tender flesh and a plumper texture.

A brine is a salt solution that denatures protein. This means the salt in the brine unravels the spiral formation of the protein molecules, resulting in many more places for water to bond onto the meat. For some lean turkey meat or low-moisture pork (especially ribs), brining can add up to 10% moisture.  But not all brines are created equal.

Most brine recipes call for an industrially-refined salt such as kosher or table salt.  Such salts lack the beautiful magnesium, potassium, and calcium salts that occur naturally and make for a flatter, duller salt sensation—to say nothing of the 80 other sundry minerals that are found in all natural, unrefined salt.  Many salts marketed as “sea salt” – manufactured in huge industrial salt evaporators optimized for yield and global industrial purity standards – are stripped of their natural minerals as well.  Brines are straightforward – a solution of salt, water, sugar and spices – and whatever you put in them gets absorbed into the meat, so you should take care with what you use.  Please use natural salt in your brine.  It makes a huge difference.

I recommend any natural sel gris (aka gray salt, or gros sel) for brining.  A 2 pound 8 ounce bag of excellent sel gris costs $18, and it will leave you with plenty left over for sprinkling on candied yams as a finishing salt, not to mention on buttered crusty Thanksgiving dinner rolls.  In fact, the bag will easily take you through the holidays and into the new year.  Sel gris is just about as old-school beautiful as any salt made.  Plus, all sels gris are especially rich in trace minerals, insuring a flavor that is balanced and full. Actually, there’s another plus: minerals in the salt are absorbed into the turkey along with the water, so you get more of all the good things salt has to offer.

Ingredients and recipe for a 16 lb bird.

• 1 1/2 cup sel gris (gray salt) or natural traditional sea salt
• 2 gallons of cold water. Like the salt, the water should be good. (I err on the safe side and avoid tap water, which contains lots of chlorine. Instead, buy a few jugs of spring water of some sort, and your turkey will not smell like a swimming pool.)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 medium-sized branches rosemary
• 6 sprigs thyme
• 6 leaves sage
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and gently crushed
• 9 fat peppercorns, preferably, Parameswaran’s pepper, with it’s succulent lemon-zesty-eucalyptusy-cardamom spice flavors

Bring 2 cups of the water to a boil, mixing in all the above ingredients to dissolve the salt as much as possible. Let the water cool for half an hour, then combine back with remaining water to make your brine. Put turkey in double layer food grade plastic bag breast down, pour cold brine solution over bird, get all excess air out of bag and tie off. Place bagged brined bird in fridge and let soak for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove bird from fridge, pat dry very thoroughly, and rub with a thin film of olive oil.  Stuff with the stuffing of your choice, truss to hold stuffing in place, and roast. Cook until the internal temperature of the bird (at the inner thick part of the thigh) is 165°F, about 2 1/2 hours. I know this doneness temperature might be lower than what you are used to.  Many older cookbooks call for roasting turkey to 180°F.  This is excessive.  Bacteria (including salmonella bacteria) is killed at 145°F and roasting poultry much beyond 165°F dries it out.  In the case of a brined bird roasting to too high a temperature can drain out all the moisture you took so much time to get in there.  You’ll get much better results by stopping roasting at 165°F.

Allow the roasted turkey to sit for 20 minutes before carving (you can cover it loosely with foil or a clean towel if you want); a rest period will help the bird retain its juices and firm the meat for easier carving.

Scoop the stuffing into a serving bowl; carve and serve.

Mark Bitterman :: Nov.19.2009 :: Recipes :: 5 Comments »