The New Luxury Ingredient

As I wound my way through the dark labyrinth of the Royal Wieliczka Salt Mine, near Krakow, Poland, I lagged behind the tour group. I was enchanted by the tunnels descending through the hard black salt and by the historical and religious figures carved into the walls by miners long ago. (Salt has been mined there for more than 700 years.)

Some of the tunnels open onto underground lakes tinted emerald green by algae that bloom in the dark brine, others into small chapels and huge cathedrals lighted by chandeliers made of carved salt crystals, their high ceilings covered with lacy designs of white salt leached from the walls. So much salt.

Finally, I couldn’t resist. I licked a finger, rubbed it over a black wall polished smooth by thousands of similarly curious digits, and slowly licked it, savoring both the taste and the assurance it brought: Sure enough, these ancient walls were salt.

Salt in all its forms--from the underground mines of Wieliczka; Bogota, Colombia; Hutchinson, Kan.; and Avery Island, La., to the salt marshes of the San Francisco Bay, the Atlantic coast of France, the shores of the southern Mediterranean and the coast of western India--has fascinated us from our earliest history.

For several decades, salt has had a bad rap, blamed for a host of diseases in a population that overindulged. Suddenly it’s coming back into favor.

Perhaps this heralds an awareness of salt’s deep importance to human history and pleasure, or maybe it’s just coincidence that researchers discovered good news about salt about the same time we woke up to its culinary diversity. Today, trendy menus list the type of salt in a particular dish, and its function has moved far beyond a shake absently sprinkled over everything but dessert.

Today, salt is plentiful and cheap and, as with many things available in abundance, it is easy to take for granted. When it was hard to get--before modern methods of mining and rapid evaporation--possession of salt was proof of status and a symbol of security. Today, to abstain is considered by many to be a sign of virtue.

Yet salt is every bit as necessary to our health and survival as it was when we first emerged from the sea and migrated inland, far from life-giving salt. We needed it, and so we grew to crave it. We still do.

As salt has come back into favor, the selection of interesting salts has expanded deliciously. Call them specialty salts, if you will, or condiment salts, ideal for finishing a dish.

Although all salt is primarily sodium and chloride, joined by one of the strongest chemical bonds in all of nature, there are variations in the color, size and texture of salt crystals. There also are intriguing differences in taste influenced by trace elements of other ingredients that make these salts worth the higher price tags they inevitably carry. Table salt is about $1 a pound, or less. Some specialty salts sell for $30 a pound and more.

Salt contributes more than saltiness to food; it wakes up other flavors. Applied with a skilled hand, salt improves the taste of almost everything, allowing flavors to blossom. A flat sauce will usually perk right up with a little salt. A dull soup or stew will bloom with flavor when the right quantity of salt is added.

It is important to build flavor as you cook, adding salt in stages--as the onions saute, for example, and in the water for cooking pasta and blanching vegetables.

Recipes often end with an instruction to “correct the seasoning” or “season to taste with salt and pepper,” a step that good professional chefs do intuitively. This final adjustment brings disparate flavors into harmony and balance.

For these purposes, the choice is easy: Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt (see What is Kosher Salt?, below). This coarse salt is easy to measure by hand for the classic pinch of salt, and because of its unique shape, it dissolves more quickly than other salts.

But what about those other salts--the condiment salts, rock salts and colorful salts from around the world? Some, the condiment salts, should be used when you want both a salty flourish and a bit of texture in the final dish. The crunch of sea salt can add an enticing element.

A simple salad of summer tomatoes is dazzling when you scatter these tiny salt jewels over it. The best choice is sel gris, a robust salt from the Atlantic coast of France. A grilled filet of salmon needs nothing more than freshly ground black pepper and a good finishing salt, such as the orange crystals of Hawaiian alae salt, silky from red clay. It’s inexpensive and available in many Asian markets.

The queen of the condiment salts is fleur de sel, the delicate white salt that is harvested from the top of the same drying pans that give us sel gris, the Celtic gray sea salt from Brittany.

It is an expensive salt, selling in the United States for as much as $30 a pound because there isn’t much of it. The conditions must be just right if there’s to be any fleur de sel at all. It needs hot sun and wind to form, so during a cold, wet summer--and there have been some recently--there may be no fleur de sel to harvest.

Use it sparingly, atop a rare lamb loin, for example, or to finish seared scallops. Don’t waste it in pasta water or even in soup, where its texture will vanish as it dissolves.

Along with its current fashionableness, there’s some silliness that has been attached to salt. Perhaps the most ridiculous I’ve heard is that for the best flavor, salt must be freshly ground immediately before you use it. This is impossible. Salt is a rock. There is nothing in it--no volatile oils, no organic materials--to deteriorate. A salt mill is a handy tool for grinding large crystals, but it does not serve the same purpose as a pepper mill, which makes available the aromas and flavors that dissipate soon after pepper is ground.

Beyond its ability to heighten flavor, salt has culinary functions stemming from its chemical nature. Sometimes it is used to create a distinct cooking environment. Apples, peaches, pears, potatoes, filets and whole fish, small and large poultry, and certain cuts of meat can be baked in nests, crusts and doughs made of salt.

The salt crust seals in aromas, flavors and juices, keeping the foods inside moist and tender. If herbs, spices or other seasonings are tucked inside, their flavors will infuse the food. These crusts and doughs are cracked open and discarded after the perfectly cooked morsels are removed.

You need larger quantities of salt for these techniques than you might be accustomed to using. For example, it may take 8 to 10 pounds of salt to encase a whole salmon in a salt crust. This is the time to use an inexpensive coarse salt--the rock salt available in almost every supermarket, for example, or Korean sea salt, a smallish gray crystal sold in Asian markets for about 50 cents a pound.

To learn the technique, begin with small fish, such as trout, or with small filets. Once you get the hang of the technique, you’ll be comfortable using the method with larger items.

Trout Baked in Salt Crust

Active Work Time: 25 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour

Trout is outstanding cooked in salt. Rock salt is a good choice because it makes the best-looking crust, but you can use whatever is least expensive, because flavor, finesse, texture and other subtle qualities of specific salts are irrelevant when salt is used in this way. Most recipes for salt crust call for the food--a loin of beef, a whole chicken, a filet of salmon, a peach--to be placed directly on the salt. In a few recipes, the food is encased first in herbs, then in parchment and then in foil before being tucked into its nest of salt. I prefer a middle ground with something between the salt and the food that will protect it and contribute aroma and flavor. If you grow French lavender, you can use clippings of the greens (not the flowers) in place of the parsley. It will impart a subtle yet appealing flavor and aroma to the fish.

2 trout, about 1 to 1 1/4 pounds each

4 (1/4-inch-thick) slices ginger root

4 1/2 cups (3 pounds) rock salt

2 egg whites

1/3 cup water

2 lemons, thinly sliced

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley

1 lemon, cut in wedges, for garnish

* Rinse trout under cool water and pat dry. Place 2 slices ginger inside cavity of each trout.

* In medium bowl, combine salt, egg whites and water. Mixture should be slightly sticky and without any lumps. Place about 1/3 of salt on baking dish or baking sheet in 3/4-inch-thick rectangle just slightly larger than trout. Leaving 1-inch margin, cover surface of salt with half of lemon slices and set trout on top. Cover trout with remaining lemon slices and cover any remaining exposed skin with some of parsley. Tuck parsley sprigs between trout, tucking them in as tightly as possible. Pack remaining salt over trout, enclosing fish completely.

* Bake trout at 375 degrees 30 minutes. Remove pan from oven and cool 5 minutes before breaking open salt, which will have hardened, and removing trout. Use dry pastry brush to brush off any salt stuck to trout. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.

2 to 4 servings. Each serving: 743 calories; 338 mg sodium; 331 mg cholesterol; 20 grams fat; 13 grams carbohydrates; 124 grams protein; 0.39 gram fiber.

Halibut Gravlax

Active Work Time: 15 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 4 days

Gravlax traditionally is made with salmon filets, but halibut cured in the same way produces a delicate gravlax with a bright clean flavor. Most supermarkets sell halibut steaks, but if you have a specialty fish market or wholesaler near you, you can usually order filets. The classic condiments for gravlax are a minced red onion, a sieved hard-boiled egg, capers, sour cream and thin slices of toasted rye bread. It is also excellent with a good, strong Dijon mustard. Sichuan peppercorns can be found at Chinese groceries.

2 halibut filets, about 1 3/4 pounds each, skin on

2 tablespoons vodka

1/2 cup coarse salt

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons toasted, crushed and sifted Sichuan peppercorns

2 teaspoons coarsely crushed black peppercorns

* Be sure scales of halibut are removed. Use needle-nose pliers to pull out any pin bones down center of filets.

* Place 1 halibut filet, skin-side down, in glass or stainless steel container and pour vodka over top. Set other filet on work surface.

* Combine salt, sugar and Sichuan and black peppercorns. Spread half of mixture over each filet, adding slightly more where filet is thickest, and rubbing slightly to ensure that mixture sticks to fish. Set filet that was on work surface on top of filet in dish, skin-side up.

* Cover halibut with plastic wrap and place heavy plate on top. Cover entire dish with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator.

* After 1 day, remove fish from refrigerator and unwrap. Spoon juices over halibut and reverse filets, placing one from top on bottom. Always keep skin side facing out with inner part of filets touching each other.

* As before, cover fish and place a weight on it, cover dish and return to refrigerator. Repeat this daily up to a total of 4 days (3 days will suffice), by which time flesh of halibut will glisten.

* Remove fish from brine, wrap tightly in clean plastic wrap and refrigerate. Kept wrapped tightly, gravlax will keep 8 to 10 days. To serve, cut several thin slices, cutting down to but not through skin. Arrange on plate and serve with desired condiments.

Serves 16 to 20. Each of 20 servings: 54 calories; 34 mg sodium; 13 mg cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 1 gram carbohydrates; 8 grams protein; 0 fiber.

Kalua Pork

Active Work Time: 15 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 4 hours

True kalua pork is the centerpiece of the Hawaiian luau staged in resort hotels on several of Hawaii’s islands. It’s a big production in which a whole pig is rubbed heavily with salt and baked in an underground pit (called an imu) lined with rocks that hold the heat of the fire. You can find kalua pork in many casual restaurants in Hawaii, too, and it is almost always delicious even though it is not cooked in a traditional imu. As I searched for a recipe that would produce the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth meat of the classic preparation, everyone said there were just three ingredients: pork, salt and liquid smoke. I’ve made it successfully both ways, with the liquid smoke and without. It’s the slow cooking and salt that are the most important elements. If you have a clay roaster, use it, soaking it according to the manufacturer’s instructions before cooking.

3 1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder or butt

2 tablespoons liquid smoke

3 tablespoons coarse salt

About 1 cup water

* Using pastry brush, brush pork all over with thin coating of liquid smoke. Rub all of salt into pork. Place pork in clay roaster or heavy roasting pan with tight-fitting lid. Add enough water to come 1/4 inch up side of pork and cover.

* Bake at 300 degrees until pork falls apart when touched, 3 to 4 hours. Let meat rest 10 minutes before serving. Use 2 forks to pull pork apart into big chunks and serve immediately.

8 to 10 servings. Each of 6 servings: 278 calories; 212 mg sodium; 128 mg cholesterol; 12 grams fat; 0 carbohydrates; 39 grams protein; 0 fiber.

Beef Tenderloin in Salt Crust

Active Work Time: 25 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 6 hours

Coarse salt, flour and egg whites form a seamless crust that keeps this beef tenderloin tender and juicy. The salt dough can be made with or without the herbs, which contribute a subtle flavor to the meat as it cooks. Once removed from the oven, the meat continues to cook inside its crusty shell and will remain hot for as long as an hour. If it is to sit for a time before you serve it, be sure to remove it from the oven before the recommended time, or the meat will be overcooked by the time you put it on the table.

1 1/2 cups coarse salt

1/2 cup minced fresh herbs, such as rosemary, oregano, thyme and Italian parsley

2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

2 1/2 cups flour plus additional for work surface

2 egg whites

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 pounds beef tenderloin, trimmed

Fleur de sel or other finishing salt

Fresh herb sprigs, for garnish

* Combine coarse salt, 1/4 cup herbs, black pepper and flour in bowl of heavy-duty mixer fitted with paddle. Mix briefly.

* In small bowl, whisk together egg whites and water until slightly foamy. With mixer running at low speed, slowly pour egg and water into salt mixture. When water is fully incorporated, increase speed to high and knead until firm but moist dough is formed, 3 to 4 minutes. If necessary, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time.

* Turn out onto very lightly floured surface, form into ball and cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at room temperature for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours.

* Heat olive oil in heavy skillet over medium heat and sear tenderloin on all sides. Transfer to plate and set aside.

* Roll out salt dough on lightly floured surface to form 11x8-inch rectangle (adjust size to fit beef). Set beef in center of dough, sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup herbs over beef, turning meat to spread herbs evenly over surface of meat, and wrap dough tightly around tenderloin, sealing edges by pinching dough together. Set on ungreased baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees 20 minutes for rare, 25 minutes for medium rare.

* Remove meat from oven and let rest for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour before removing salt crust. Slice off end of crust, pull beef out and cut into thick slices. Garnish with finishing salt and herbs.

4 to 6 servings. Each of 6 servings: 114 calories; 46 mg sodium; 53 mg cholesterol; 8 grams fat; 0 carbohydrates; 18 grams protein; 0 fiber.

*

Jordan is the author of “Salt and Pepper: 135 Perfectly Seasoned Recipes” (Broadway Books, $25).

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Specialty Salts

Type: Kosher salt (Alberger method)

Source and Price: Mined deposits; cheap

Texture and Appearance: Uneven, hollow pyramids; very dry

Taste: Moderately salty, delicate; fast-dissolving

Uses: Baking, preserving, finishing

*

Type: Kosher salt (other brands)

Source and Price: Mined deposits; cheap

Texture and Appearance: Flattened cubes or fused cubes; very dry

Taste: Mild; delicate; slow-dissolving

Uses: Preserving, salt doughs, crusts

*

Type: Celtic gray sea salt

Source and Price: Sea water, Atlantic coast of France; moderate to expensive

Texture and Appearance: Uneven, moderate to large solid crystals; moist to very moist

Taste: Mild, full in mouth, briny, earthy, tangy; slow-dissolving

Uses: Baking, roasting, finishing

*

Type: Maldon Crystal Salt

Source and Price: Sea water; coastal England; moderate

Texture and Appearance: Hollow, pyramid-shaped crystals; dry

Taste: Delicate, briny; fast-dissolving

Uses: Finishing

*

Type: Fleur de sel

Source and Price: Sea water, Atlantic coast of France; expensive

Texture and Appearance: Small, hard, off-white crystals; moist

Taste: Delicate, full in mouth; slow-dissolving

Uses: Finishing

*

Type: Hawaiian alae salt

Source and Price: Sea water, often with red clay added; Hawaii; cheap

Texture and Appearance: Moderate crystals; pale orange; dry

Taste: Delicate, silky

Uses: Finishing

*

Type: Black Salt

Source and Price: Indian quarry salt; cheap

Texture and Appearance: In rocks or ground fine and almost powdery

Taste: Smoky and in some cases strongly sulfurous

Uses: Very specific to Indian cooking

*

Type: Sea Salt

Source and Price: Global; unless otherwise specified, kiln-dried

Texture and Appearance:

Taste: Various grinds

Uses: Varies from assertive to delicate: Seasoning

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Where to Get Them

Many of the specialty salts described here must be ordered by mail. Here are some sources:

The Baker’s Catalog, P.O. Box 876, Norwich, VT 050055-0876; (800)-827-6836; https://www.kingarthurflour.com; Fleur de sel de Guerande, Maldon Crystal sea salt, Celtic Grey, various grinds of salt.

Zingerman’s, 422 Detroit St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104; (888) 636-8162; Fleur de sel de Guerande.

Corti Bros., 5810 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95822; (800) 509-FOOD; Sicilian sea salt, Japanese Oshima Island salt.