Specialty salts/peppers - what are your favorites?

[David M. Bueker]

I just got a shipment of salts (and a new pepper mill), including some fantastic "Danish Viking Smoked Salt" that is just like standing next to a wood fire!

Also picked up some porcini salt and some Himalayan pink salt. The pepper mill is for my stash of Telicherry peppercorns.

So how about y'all?

I just got a shipment of salts (and a new pepper mill), including some fantastic "Danish Viking Smoked Salt" that is just like standing next to a wood fire!

I'm going to have to play around with one or two of those the next time I'm cooking anything at your place.

Personal favourites here are the pink Himalayan rock salt I have, and the Hawaiian black lava sea salt I didn't buy enough of.

I have always liked the Maldon salt flakes and in recent years a lovely pink flake salt produced locally here in Australia has supplanted it in my pantry. It has the bright flakiness and zestiness and looks very pretty!
I am led to believe it is helping our salinity problems in the Murray irrigation areas as well.
I also use a sea salt with sea weed which is tasty as well.
I am with you and have a grinder just for my Tellicherry peppercorns.

I particularly like a French truffle salt (that Jenise has had and praised, as I recall).

Maldon is good, yes. Love the pink flake salt too. The black lava is a bit gritty for me, but tasty.

Smoked salt---I have some bourbon barrel smoked salt---is great, but only in tiny, tiny amounts, as it is so pronounced.

For pepper, long ago I started throwing in a few cloves of allspice into my five pepper blend for the grinder. Wow! Incredible difference. Addictive.

I've also, from time to time, added just a couple of the Szechuan peppers with good effect.

If you get the truffle salt, it's awesome on potatoes. I also like it lightly sprinkled on fresh grilled halibut steaks. Great effect. Totally...and I mean totally different from truffle oils, and waaaay better.

Sea salt has long been a requirement of mine for cooking. Although I'm not really sure that is specialty.

But I have recently been enjoying the black lava salt, which is new to our house and is great on top of avocado slices. Or risotto. Or...

[Jenise]

If you get the truffle salt, it's awesome on potatoes. I also like it lightly sprinkled on fresh grilled halibut steaks. Great effect. Totally...and I mean totally different from truffle oils, and waaaay better.

Bob adores it on scrambled eggs. And have you tried it on popcorn?

[Jenise]

But I have recently been enjoying the black lava salt, which is new to our house and is great on top of avocado slices. Or risotto. Or...

I love it too. Mostly use it to sprinkle over platters of sliced vegetables like turnips, kohlrabi and cucumbers--but always where the sharp color contrast is maximized.

[Jenise]

Diamond Crystal is my standard cooking salt
Maldon is my standard finishing salt
Situationally, I also use alder smoked salt, truffle salt and black lava salt

Barb, I agree that the Murray River flakes are fantastic and on par with the Maldon. Here, though, the Maldon is about a third the cost of the Murray River, so I use Maldon.

By the way, speaking of Maldon, Maldon now makes a smoked salt. I do not reccomend it: there are a lot of rudely rock sized pieces in there, and the smokiness is so mild that it's there in the smell but not at all in the taste. So much so that I just blended into the regular Maldon rather than maintain it separately--after fishing out the rocks and breaking them down with a pestle. They're very pretty, though, kind of a pinkish gold beige color.

but always where the sharp color contrast is maximized.

Yes, love getting the unique color edge.

I have a pantry full of salts: Kosher, white sea salts from France, Italy and Brazil, iodized sea salt for shaker and grinding (I have two salt grinders), smoked salts: one applewood and one alderwood, and a deep terra cotta red sea salt from Hawaii . I mostly use the Kosher and the Italian in a grinder. That said, I receved a Cabernet Sea Salt from Walden Lane Gourmet in Mt. Vernon WA as a belated holiday gift. It has a pleasant burgandy and remains unopened as I have not come up with a use for it. Anyone tried it? I would love some ideas for using it.

The only specialty salt I use is Indian black salt. There are some recipes that call for it.

I don't use any specialty peppers, unless you consider brine-preserved fresh green peppercorns (a Thai ingredient) a specialty pepper.

-Paul W.

For pepper, I have black (Tellicherry), white, and grains of paradise each in their own grinders. In jars I also have green and the so-called pink.

For salt, I have regular table salt (Diamond or Morton's), truffle salt (from O & Co.), and a mixed pack of three sea salts that I bought in a supermarket in France (and darn if I know the name of the brand).

[Jenise]

I forgot to address pepper. I keep dried green, szechuan and powdered white, which most everyone else probably does too. In the grinder(2), 100% tellicherry.

I've become addicted to a Habenaro Salt that we carry at the spice shop. Nice heat. FIL grilled scallops recently just brushed with olive oil and a little s/p. A few grains of the hab salt sent them over the top. We've also got one infused with balsamic that's awesome on fresh tomatoes. My go to cooking salt rotates between a brazilian sea salt we carry and Murray River which is the most amazing apricot color.

I keep a 4pepper blend in the grinder. Tellicherry, white, pink, green.

[David M. Bueker]

If you get the truffle salt, it's awesome on potatoes. I also like it lightly sprinkled on fresh grilled halibut steaks. Great effect. Totally...and I mean totally different from truffle oils, and waaaay better.

Bob adores it on scrambled eggs. And have you tried it on popcorn?

Sounds good for popcorn, but my preferred topping is Old Bay!

I have to get on the stick with the salt. I have some pink Himalayan crystals and some smoked salt I haven't tried on anything yet.

We do love the Maldon's, though.

other than fleur de sel, the only salt i use is Redmond RealSalt.

Kosher fine grind salt, Maldon Sea Salt, Garlic salt, truffle salt, Lava salt, pink, smoked alder, grey, all coarse
Tellicherry, white, pink, Penzey's three blend and fine grind black, and a fine grind of pepper with all sorts of colors, from the health food store.

My favorite pepper is Parameswaran's Special Wynad if and when I can get it. It had a very complex, warm, spicy flavor that no other has.
I keep a variety of peppercorns on hand depending on the dish - Green Mysore/Sczchuan/TellicherryBold all from Penzey's. Use the regular Tellicherry for everyday- always grind the corns at the time of use - no special grinder or mortar if coarse needed.
Salt is less exotic- Maldon

Wow, what an assortment from everyone. We're kinda basic....sea salt, Kosher salt, Tellicherry pepper. That's about it.

I have to admit that I'm somewhat skeptical of using sea salts after seeing first hand how it's made in southern San Francisco Bay, namely, the estuary and sloughs of Mountain View, CA. The plains where they evaporate the sea salt is right next to the outlet of the sewage plant that services the greater San Jose municipal area. The stench in the air within sight of where they produce the sea salt is unbearable.

Knowing what is dumped into the Mekong River, I avoid Vietnamese sea salts, and I don't trust French or other Mediterranean sea salts for similar reasons. I have too much knowledge of what they dump into their rivers to be comfortable with consuming unrefined salt crystals derived by mere evaporation of the local sea water. It's tragic, but you really don't know what horrible things you're getting with sea salt these days.

The bottom line, sad to say, is that given modern oceanic pollution, "sea salt" doesn't in any way mean "pure and good for you". Just the opposite, in most cases.

Of course, the black color in Indian black salt is due to sulfur--more than evident in the H2S "rotten eggs" aroma that this salt has. A positive aspect, and non-toxic, in the quantities called for in the various recipes. But certainly not something one would use everyday.

-Paul W.

Paul, you could always try Himalayan. Those crystals have been around since before pollution began.

I have to admit that I'm somewhat skeptical of using sea salts after seeing first hand how it's made in southern San Francisco Bay, namely, the estuary and sloughs of Mountain View, CA. The plains where they evaporate the sea salt is right next to the outlet of the sewage plant that services the greater San Jose municipal area. The stench in the air within sight of where they produce the sea salt is unbearable.

Knowing what is dumped into the Mekong River, I avoid Vietnamese sea salts, and I don't trust French or other Mediterranean sea salts for similar reasons. I have too much knowledge of what they dump into their rivers to be comfortable with consuming unrefined salt crystals derived by mere evaporation of the local sea water. It's tragic, but you really don't know what horrible things you're getting with sea salt these days.

The bottom line, sad to say, is that given modern oceanic pollution, "sea salt" doesn't in any way mean "pure and good for you". Just the opposite, in most cases.

Of course, the black color in Indian black salt is due to sulfur--more than evident in the H2S "rotten eggs" aroma that this salt has. A positive aspect, and non-toxic, in the quantities called for in the various recipes. But certainly not something one would use everyday.

-Paul W.

Which salts do you use, if any? How do you know the one syou use are pure and free from contaminants?

[Jenise]

Karen, Maldon would be a perfect finishing salt for someone with those concerns, as it's a manufactured salt.