I should really test this before posting about it but I am too excited to wait!!! My friend Anton and I were talking about a salt incorporating blackberries and sugar and I gave him some advice on how to proceed making one...but then I couldn't stop thinking about it and had to try making some. I will post a specific recipe later once I have the chance to test it more extensively and know you will have good results.
Some things I suspected, and were true:
~ Moisture affects this blend. As a finishing salt it's nice to see the colors turn from a lavender purple, to dark violet, as the blackberries take on the moisture of whatever food it is being paired with (pate and chicken are a couple of winners). It's not so nice when you've left some out for sprinkling over an extended period of time - just the air moistens it to a sticky consistency within hours.
~ Dried blackberries have an interesting smell, kind of funky actually, and I knew this, but blending the powdered blackberries with sea salt brought out a fishy type odor - not quite what was expected! Kosher salt and sugar augmented this odd effect and helped with the end result of a sweet/salty/tangy balanced product.
~ Using this salt as a baking rub on chicken yielded a darkly caramelized color when cooked.
~ I made a pate using this blend, both in the prep while cooking the livers, and as a finishing salt. If I do say so myself, it tasted and looked beautiful; more pics of that to come with pate recipe.
2 comments:
Dorothy, you rock. I do have to confess to you though, that after our conversation, I took a slightly different tack and went the route of raspberry salt/sugar for a couple of reasons. The seed issue with blackberries was one of the primary motivators, the other being (while tasting wild blackberries on a hike) that I wasn't as entranced with the flavor as I'd thought, given its ultimate use on a slice of bacon glazed with spiced chocolate. (Visually, the raspberry salt tooked great against the dark brown backdrop)
The raspberry version using purchased freeze-dried raspberries yielded usage results similar to yours, in that it does tend to get sodden rather quickly, so making it for immediate use rather than stockpiling it seems key. I used a coffee grinder to powder the raspberries then tossed with sugar and Maldon salt. next time, I think I will attempt to use a more course sugar to get a bit more 'crunch' on the final product.
i saw some "gourmet" salt just last night and thought about you. now i turn to your blog, and there you are writing about it!
Post a Comment