salt

OK, guys, I'm gonna rant a little and fill you all in on one of my favorite things that I attribute my GooD FooD to - Celtic Sea Salt.
The brand I use is f/ Selina Naturally. You can buy it most health food stores, Whole foods, etc. The website sells it cheapest, and in larger quantities, but they charge quite a bit for shipping. It can be found on Amazon w/ free shipping.

What do I like about it? Well, besides the supposed health benefits, it just plain tastes good! I've been using some sort of sea salt for, like forever, as I can't stand Kosher salt. I know, I know, everyone raves about Kosher salt and how flaky it is, and blah blah blah. Can't stand it - it tastes acrid and sour to me, and that taste is imparted to food. Celtic Sea Salt has a pure, clean, almost sweet flavor, and it enhances the flavor of food dramatically without added any salty tones or other weird flavors - provided you don't use too much.

One caveat - unless you spend the extra bucks for the fine ground stuff, it's really really coarse (and it's wet). Too coarse to be useful if I'm honest. So what then? I use a mortar and pestle and grind small batches to the size I want, and keep the ground salt in a covered sugar bowl nest to the pepper mill and olive oil bottles.

About the only thing I use Kosher salt for is boiling water for pasta or brines, as the CSS is too expensive for my blood to wash down the drain. For everything else, it's only CSS. Can be used to sprinkle on a protein destined for a grill or pan, used as a seasoning in a sauté, or as a finishing salt on fruit such as melons or strawberries w/ balsamic syrup. Hope you find this useful and try it out for yourselves! Cheers! mpp

Sea salt is always better (in my book) than most other salt. The flavor profile is changed by regions. I have not tried this one myself, but it sounds good.

One thing I wouldn't switch from Kosher to sea would be margaritas. I can't stand Tequila so its not a problem.

I have been using Celtic Sea Salt a fair amount recently, good stuff. I also like to use Japanese sea salt, Himalayan pink and some others. A good sea salt can definitely elevate a dish.

Crothcipt said:

One thing I wouldn't switch from Kosher to sea would be margaritas. I can't stand Tequila so its not a problem.

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Can't decide if that deserves a :scratchhead: or a :bat:.

I use alot of Hawaiian red salt They also have a coarse white which I get mostly because it's local, good for pasta water, sauces etc. - just a little coarser than the standard kosher salt. Just ran out of fleur de sel recently. In Europe I was using a lot of a greyish, wet French sea salt, from the Bretagne IIRC. Oh, there was also an English flaky salt that I liked but haven't seen in a while - Maldon? (sp?). I also wanted to eventually make a few seasoned/scented salts like truffle salt etc. Any other ideas for such scented salts? (not sure what else to call them).

Stefan

apicius9 said:

In Europe I was using a lot of a greyish, wet French sea salt, from the Bretagne IIRC. Oh, there was also an English flaky salt that I liked but haven't seen in a while - Maldon? (sp?).
Stefan

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These are the 2 that I use for everything

BurkeCutlery said:

Can't decide if that deserves a :scratchhead: or a :bat:.

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Ok you asked, so here it goes. when I was about 25 I was seeing a stripper, that loved tequila. Long story short. 3 days of Tequila, and 3 days of being sick I still have a hard time even smelling it. Talk about having a hard time bar tending...

Haha everyone has a death drink, I still can't go near jd or pastis uke:

I go for Whiskey, and I like it the way I like my girls.
18 years old and mixed with coke

I want to get some fleur de sel salt to make some domino potatoes.

Crothcipt said:

Long story short. 3 days of Tequila, and 3 days of being sick I still have a hard time even smelling it.

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Does the smell of strippers and the sight of glitter give you the same reaction?:O

I've tried some varieties, though strangely not the celtic sea salt. We use a Camargue sea salt usually.

I have been eyeing up some Himalayan Pink lately, possibly a block for a new cutting block j/k. Has anyone used one for serving / cooking?

Any tried to Portuguese flor da sal? I saw it at a spice shop last week and was intrigued.

rahimlee54 said:

Any tried to Portuguese flor da sal? I saw it at a spice shop last week and was intrigued.

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I think it is the portuguese name for fleur de sel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur_de_sel

Fleur de Sel is great for finishing, but in my limited experience, if you are going to notice the subtle difference between it and any other high-quality sea salt, and difference between varieties is going to be a moot point, because the difference between BATCHES of the stuff is just as stark. Fleur De Sel from this one region this month is totally different from the month before. The good news is, it's all delicious. I just would be skeptical of someone swearing by one variety of Fleue De Sel over another, especially Portugal VS France.

DeepCSweede said:

I have been eyeing up some Himalayan Pink lately, possibly a block for a new cutting block j/k. Has anyone used one for serving / cooking?

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Got one for my wife for Christmas. The coolest thing is cutting a Grapefruit and just throwing the fruit on there and sliding it right off into a bowl. Seasons perfectly.

We used it for Sushi too. Don't leave a cucumber on it--it will grow a pit!

Haven't seared on it yet, partially because when you do, it turns it whitish brown and it's just so pretty right now.

:yuck::sofa::couch:

DeepCSweede said:

Does the smell of strippers and the sight of glitter give you the same reaction?:O

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lol. It depends on the stripper.

Apparently, a valid study was done desolving different salts in some water and the result was no appreciable difference in taste.

I think there's a difference so for years we've used Sel Marin Gris, which some salt expert on the radio said was his every day salt. He talked about all sorts of esoteric salts to pair with particular foods. My eyes glazed over. We have some pink Hawaiian salt that went unused until I put it in a fancy salt box on the counter. Used it on fish and added a pinch to aged balsamic and unfiltered EVOO and it was terrific!

We get course salt and put it in our Unicorn salt grinder.

That celtic salt is $24/lb!? No way!

oivind_dahle said:

I go for Whiskey, and I like it the way I like my girls.
18 years old and mixed with coke

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+1

Going to see if we have some at work, Always looking for upgrades to the pantry

I switched from Mortons Koser salt to Diamond KS. While I liked the consistance of mortons I just can't get past the metalic taste (to me) Diamond KS doesn't have that so far. But as far as a finishing salt I'm always on the lookout for something interesting. Tried a smoked seasalt and I still need to work on ideas for it, kind of on the fence. Also picked up a coarse seasalt from work that has a higher mineral content but tastes nothing like the mortons so I have been experimenting with it as a water/marinade salt.

Hope to find this on the shealf as I'm making my list to go shopping right now

oivind_dahle said:

I go for Whiskey, and I like it the way I like my girls.
18 years old and mixed with coke

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I like this

I just got some Celtic Sea Salt and some Himalayan pink in today. The difference in taste from Kosher is dramatic. I'll use Kosher for salting water for pasta, etc. but the Celtic for seasoning and pink for finishing will be a nice upgrade.

No one has mentioned Maldon. Some folks rave about it. I'm not sure it is that much better than Fleur de Sel, but it is nice.

Maldon beats fluer de sel??? I've been using Maldon off the shelf from the supermarket, but just recently splurged on a bucket (much cheaper this way) of fluer de sel to find out what all the fuss was about. I hope this doesn't spoil it for me.

There are different grades of flour de sel, the best stuff tastes like limestone and is far nicer than maldon, which I also like.

I use at home a Sicilian sea salt that is my go to for everything.

Last year I had some smoked Celtic sea salt that was frankly awesome.

Which fleur de sel would you recommend?

I am a big Maldon fan, although since they changed the box the crystals seem to have changed a little shape wise too.

Anyway if better than Maldon I would really like to try some of the good fleur de sel.

Fleur de Sel De Guerande is what I have, and it is marvelous, but I don't have a lot to compare it with. You can get it on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003CHQEG2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Maldon and Fleur de Sel are two different animals, IMHO. Maldon is light and consists of larger, thin flakes than this fleur de sel:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002FGY9O/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

This fleur de sel consists of crystals that are more squared off and noticeably crunchier and denser. I personally use Maldon because of its texture - the fine flakes of Maldon dissolve nicely and don't add a crunch that the fleur de sel can add.

To me, Maldon has a more delicate and pure flavor, where as the fleur de sel has a noticeable mineral flavor. Also, the clean, pure flavor of Maldon matches with a larger variety of foods, whereas the fleur de sel seems to match best with seafood.

Keith Neal said:

Fleur de Sel De Guerande is what I have, and it is marvelous, but I don't have a lot to compare it with. You can get it on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003CHQEG2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

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My everyday seasoning salt is La Baleine iodized sea salt from France (available in every supermarket here), while my heavy-duty (pasta water, etc.) is regular iodized small-crystal table salt (Sifto or Windsor/Morton brand). But my specialty salts of choice are Fleur de sel de Guérande and Flor de sal d'Es Trenc from Mallorca, Spain. That one is flavored with hibiscus and gives a unique twist to almost any fresh vegetable or fish plate.