I used to take salt for granted.
I’ve always been a fan but you’d never hear me list salt among my favorite seasonings. Smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, rosemary, or ginger, yes. But salt? A pinch of salt is a given, right? Totally taken for granted…until I discovered herb salt.
A new world opened up.
Himalayan Pink. Fleur de Sel. Celtic Gray. ‘Real’. Black. Smoked….smoked salt rocks my world.
Each salt really does taste unique and add it’s own texture to food.
Another obsession of mine is lemon zest. So good.
When I saw this little jar of lemon salt flakes at The Meadow, a specialty salt shop in Portland, I knew I’d love it.
The Meadow allows you to taste each of their 50-billion salts and just as I suspected, I loved it. I loved it enough to pay the price. Yes, gourmet salt can be spendy but a little goes a long way…which is a good thing because it’s a little jar!
In the true DIY spirit that often overtakes me I got busy creating my own lemon salt.
If you have an awesome zester it would probably work better than peeling the lemon. I need an awesome zester. I think I’ll go buy one today. But at the time I used a peeler.
The lemon peels went in the oven at 200* until they were almost dry…20 minutes? Towards the end I added a few sprigs of thyme straight from the garden.
My herb garden is full of thyme but I never quite know what to do with it, aside from adding it to cocktails and stuffing salt. Thyme and lemon is a thing though, right?
I had some Red Alaea Sea Salt on hand (thank you Whole Foods salt bar!) and thought the combo of red and yellow would be perfect.
I love to crunch into crystals so I left the red salt pretty coarse, adding it to the mortar only after the lemon and thyme was all but pulverized.
The flavor is intense and creates little bursts of citrus when you least expect it.
As usual my mind is swimming with possibilities…could I just douse salt with lemon then dry it in the oven? How about just throwing some lemon zest into salt without drying it? Could orange zest salt be a thing? Mmmmm, how about lemon lavender? Good thing I use a lot of lemon!
This sounds wonderful! I’ve tried fleur de sel (love it on chocolate desserts and homemade caramel!) and Himalayan pink salt (I made bath essential oil salt scrubs with it for gifts one time) but never tried the gray, Celtic, smoked salt or red salt… I bet it would be fun to do a salt tasting party – like the way you would do a chocolate, wine, or cheese tasting party – a variety of dishes or appetizers incorporating various salts or flavored salts as the main flavoring. Mmmm. By the way, Microplane makes the best zesters and graters, in my (humble) opinion… and they’re pretty much available at any large home goods store. I use citrus zest a lot too so this is one of my most well-loved tools in my kitchen! PS: Your mortar and pestle looks like the real deal – from South America, I presume? 🙂
Thanks for the recommendation!
Yes it’s authentic, the mortar and pestle was a gift brought back from Mexico from one of my dearest friends. 🙂
Hi Faith!
Check out this link for citrus salt recipes.
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/citrus-salt-recipe.html
xoxo.
karen
Hi Karen!
Oh yes, Heidi…she is the expert on all things amazing afterall. 🙂
I love thyme on fish- I just sprinkle dried
thyme on along with cracked pepper and a bit of
fresh lemon juice and then bake the fish( usually
haddock but halibut ,cod or tilapia or salmon)
Super yum! ( also thyme is good sprinkled on
top of plain yogurt spread on salmon or chicken , then baked)
Thanks! I tend to be pretty boring when it comes to fish, s+p and lemon are my usual suspects. I will definitely try the thyme in yogurt, I’m making a fresh batch of yogurt right now. 🙂
Your post reminds me that I have a big jar of rosemary salt in the pantry I need to start using. Would be perfect on the baked fries I’ve been making lately. My mom sent me some meyer lemons from her tree, so I’ll try lemon salt soon, just need to pick up some salt flakes.
I hope you are bringing some citrisalt when you come to WV to perform in the Trillium concert Gather the Village and Dance this weekend.
I think this would be awesome sprinkled on some salmon. into the broiler for 10. All good. nom nom.
I love gourmet salts. I’ve been meaning to make some citrus varieties, especially since we have some really nice local citrus around. Thanks for the reminder. Lemon & thyme are lovely together!