Sicilian Sea Salt With Dried Herbs

Salt, the single most important ingredient in imparting flavour in foods. The right usage brings foods to life in a way nothing else matches. The right amount in foods shouldn't actually taste salty. Beef should taste beefier, potatoes more potatoey, and, yes, chocolate, more chocolatey. Salt in baking is of utmost importance too, for the same reasons, livening up the flavours.

Which brings me to having some fun with salt in the kitchen, creating some unusual blends to boost your creations in unexpected ways. It's as simple as blending freshly grated lemon peel with good sea salt in a spice grinder and letting your nose and tongue enjoy the experience. Or pulsing ruby red Espelette pepper with sea salt for a sweet/hot condiment to sprinkle on salads and savoury dishes. The Sicilian sea salt blend in the photo above was a gift my parents brought home from an Italian fine foods market they tripped over while recently visiting a small town in England. My spice scouts are on task!

Intriguing salty notions were transmitted to my brain via Patricia Wells, from her new book Salad As A Meal, with plenty of goodies besides salads to salivate over. Here are some perfect examples of using simple ingredients in a new way to create something extraordinary.

Lemon Zest Salt

1 tbsp. grated lemon zest; 1 tbsp fine sea salt (or kosher salt). Combine zest and salt in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Transfer to a small jar and close with the lid. Store, sealed in the jar, in the fridge, for up to one week. Try it on grilled salmon, clam chowder or sauteed asparagus.

Red Hot Salt

2 tsp. ground piment d'Espelette or other ground mild chile pepper; 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika; 1/2 tsp. sweet paprika; 1 tsp. fine sea salt. Combine all ingredients in a jar. Cover and shake to blend. Store, sealed in the jar, at room temperature for up to 1 month. Use on chicken dishes, meat or vegetables.

Fennel and Saffron Salt

Pinch of ground saffron; 3 tbsp. fine sea salt; 2 tbsp. fennel seeds. Combine ingredients in a spice grinder and grind until the fennel seeds are fairly coarse. Transfer to small jar and cover, shaking to blend. Keeps for up to 1 month. Wonderful over tomatoes or stewed beans.

Japanese Sesame Salt

1 tbsp. fine sea salt; 7 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds. Grind the sesame seeds and salt in spice grinder but do not let the mixture form a paste. Store for up to 1 month. Nice on salads or Asian noodles.

Right now may be a good time to throw out that box of iodized table salt sitting in your pantry and go for something infinitely better, kosher salt or sea salt. I used kosher salt in the place of sea salt in the recipes above and love the clean, natural taste it delivers, chemical free, uncomplicated and pure. You will find iodized salt harsh and crude in comparison and will not turn back.

Salt gets bad press because high sodium diets have been linked to high blood presesure and other illnesses. I believe that many of these health problems are associated with consuming commercially prepared foods which are heavily loaded with sodium. Moderate usage of salt in home cooking should not pose a problem to your health under most normal circumstances.

Build flavour right into your cooking with inspiration from these titles:

Word is out that authentic guacamole does not, in fact, contain garlic. Who knew? My chunky version usually does feature a clove or two but I am keen to simplify the flavours and let the lime and jalapenos sing out more. Garlic fiend that I am, even I will agree that it can overpower.

My epiphany was prompted by the food blog Amateur Gourmet's story about authentic guacamole. Apparently the blogger has a friend Mark from New Mexico and Mark says he knows about guacamole. That's authoritative enough for me! Whoever Mark is, his advice is to use these and only these ingredients: avocados, lime juice, jalapenos, tomatoes, cilantro and salt and pepper. So, not only no garlic, but no chile powder or cumin either. I am known in some circles for my garlic/chile/cumin-laden gaucamole and my friends and family will be in for a change next time I dish this out. With the velvety rich delivery system of mashed avocado, I want to emphasize it and bring it to life with its long-standing friends lime, jalapenos and cilantro. It seems like a well-advised plan.

Mark's Authentic Guacamole adapted from www.amateurgourmet.com
Serves 4 to 6

4 to 6 ripe Haas avocados (they should have mostly brown skin); 1 small red onion, chopped; 1 small tomato, diced; 1 large jalapeño, stemmed and seeded and finely diced; 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish; Juice from 1 lime, plus more as necessary; Salt, to taste; Tortilla chips (for serving).

Slice your avocados in half vertically, circling your knife around the pit. Separate the two halves and then smack your knife into the hard pit (this is the best way to remove it.) Use a paper towel or a dish towel to yank it off your knife (it's a good way to cut yourself, otherwise.) Use a spoon to cleanly scoop the avocado flesh into a large bowl. Repeat with the rest of the avocados.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and begin to mash it all together with a fork. The most essential part is that you break down the avocados into a pulp, working the jalapeno, onion and cilantro into the mass as you do so. You'll know your done when there are no hard bits of avocado remaining.

Taste and adjust for salt and lime juice. When it's delicious, sprinkle some more cilantro to garnish and serve with a big bag of sturdy, high-quality tortilla chips for scooping. Great with icy beer.

And with tacos!

No recipe! No measuring! No cooked custard! No eggs! I whipped up a beautiful batch of dazzling pink rhubarb ice cream and here is how it played out. First, it was time to harvest the hearty rhubarb stalks taking over my vegetable patch, so I cut some down and hopefully more will grow. Gave them a wash, a chop and then placed them into a pot to simmer with some sugar and a splash of water. The rhubarb quickly boiled down to a thick, pastey mush which I then pureed and enhanced with natural vanilla extract and some freshly ground cinnamon. Added in some light cream and milk and a pinch of salt to round out the flavours. Tossed in some raspberries. Into the fridge for an overnight chill before churning. A spin in my Cuisinart ice cream maker quickly transformed a cold slurry into a thick, luscious, creamy gelato. Some freezer time firmed things up just right. Served it up in a vintage glass pedestal cup. Success!!

That's all there is to it, really. How much sugar? Up to you. Rhubarb is nasty without it, so don't be shocked when you taste your pre-churned mixture and find you need lots. Use equal amounts of milk and cream. If you feel comfortable with some more guidance, try these proportions:

Rhubarb Raspberry Ice Cream

4 stalks of rhubarb, about 1.25 pounds, cut into 1- inch pieces; 1 cup water; 3/4 cup sugar; 3 whole green cardamom pods, cracked; 1 cup milk; 1 cup table cream, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon; 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract; pinch of salt; 3/4 cup raspberries, frozen or fresh.

Place your rhubarb pieces, water, sugar and cardamom pods in a saucepan and cook until rhubarb breaks down and turns soft and mushy. Take off the heat and remove the cardamom pods and any seeds that may have escaped. Let cool and puree. In a mixing bowl combine the pureed rhubarb, milk, cream, cinnamon, vanilla and pinch of salt. Mix well and taste for sweetness. Add more sugar if the mixture seems too tart. Chill in the fridge overnight. Churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add the raspberries about half way through the churning process, when the ice cream is still soft. Makes about 2 litres.

Rhubarb may not be your go-to flavour for ice cream at the moment but once you get your hot little hands on this cool, rose-toned treat you will effortlessly succumb to its charms.

Keep cool with more chilled treats:

Tomatoes before oven treatment:

After oven treatment:

I never thought I would admit this, but the words "shriveled" and "shrunken" appeal to me. In a tomato kind of way. When a sweet, ripe, meaty tomato takes some serious heat in an oven and comes away greatly reduced. With its essence concentrated in the shrunken flesh, and all the moisture evaporated, the whithered tomato becomes even more of itself. It's an oxymoron.

Decent tomatoes are starting to appear in markets and grocery stores and I am ready with my arsenal of tools: a roasting pan, fresh garlic, olive oil and thyme from the garden. I start with a fragrant Roma tomato and cut it into eighths. It then gets a bath in a glug of good, fruity olive oil, as well as a toss with chopped garlic, sprigs of thyme and salt and pepper to taste. It's already tasting good. Tomatoes like a hot oven, so don't be shy to crank yours to 425 F. Watch those babies darken and shrink. Give them a toss every 15 minutes or so to let the caramelization occur evenly and to prevent sticking. I say 45 minutes or so in the oven should render your tomatoes tender and soft, ready for the next stage in their lives.

Those of you who are fussy about tomato skins have a couple of options. You could peel the tomatoes before roasting by quickly immersing them in boiling water and then removing the skin. I do this though: I let them roast and cool and then quickly and easily pick off the pieces of shrivelled skin with my fingers.

You are now the proud owner of a pan of intensely aromatic roasted tomatoes. You may, of course, devour them on the spot. Standing at the oven. But do keep some for a magnificent pasta sauce. You can gently press them with a potato masher to futher soften the flesh and pair them with your favourite robust pasta, perhaps penne or fusili. Throw in some grated parmesan cheese, loosen with a bit of the pasta cooking water and call it dinner. I used roasted tomatoes as part of a melange of fillings for calzone last night, adding body and flavour to the mozzarella cheese, sauteed mushrooms, olives and roasted peppers they were accompanying. Grilled chicken breasts enjoy being slathered with a scattering of roasted tomatoes overtop as does a halibut steak. Omelettes filled with your withered wonders and little cubes of fresh mozzarella are a fine idea too. In a quiche, on a pizza, beside some garlicy shrimp, strewn over grilled sausages . . . . . . you get the idea.

The next time you see a nice looking tomato, treat it to some time in the oven.

More inspiration for putting tomatoes to good use:

I baked up a batch of these beauties recently for a folk dance workshop and their success was measured in moans and swoons. Just the right quota of deep bittersweet morsels and the crunch of toasted walnuts encased in a fragrant, buttery, chewy cookie dough. All of these elements enhanced each other in an intoxicating interplay of flavour and texture, a virtual marriage of disparate parts that synthesized into a unified whole.

I realized, after a thoughtful chew, that the recipe for success in this cookie is essentially balance. You will find a dough sweet enough to titilate but that does not overwhelm the chocolate. There is a certain, special chewiness that feels just right, a small snap with every bite that melds into tenderness. The chocolate must stand up on its own two feet, delicious enough to win praise as it nestles into the crevices of your mouth. You expect a sweet sensation of nuttiness, little nuggets that play off of the silky smoothness of the chocolate. Here, the size of the nuts, their freshness and amount, come into play. Too many is the wrong emphasis. Too few is just wrong.

I subscribe to the school of thought that ordains that a chunk of chocolate is better than a chip. And chunking your own bar of chocolate yields all kinds of extra bonuses - lovely little pieces of course, but also slivers, shavings, dust, all useful in the cookie you are about to build. It all goes in, the dust speckling the dough, the slivers adding small dashes of flavour, and, the part you live for, the chunks, the explosion of chocolate indulgence that elevates this cookie to a realm unattainable by its cousin, the chocolate chip cookie.

From where does this cookie come to me? The one and only David Lebovitz, chocolate guru, ice cream maven, food blogger, essentially the perfect man:

David Lebovitz's Perfectly Balanced Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2+1/2 cups all-purpose flour; 3/4 tsp. baking soda; 1/8 tsp. salt; 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature; 1 cup light brown sugar; 3/4 cup granulated sugar; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 2 large eggs at room temperature; 2 cups walnuts, coarsely chopped; 14 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - use the best quality you can get your hands on.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. In a stand mixer beat together butter, the two sugars and vanilla and beat on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly blended. Stir in the flour mixture, nuts and chocolate chunks and mix just until the flour disappears. Chill the dough overnight in the fridge. Preheat oven to 350 F. Form teaspoon sized balls of dough and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Press down gently on each ball with the palm of your hand to flatten slightly. Bake about 10 minutes or until the cookies are set, very lightly browned in the centres and are still soft.

Learn more about great cookies: