Flavoured salt

Salt it seems is all the rage and there are a few associated topics I might pursue another day, but today I'm going to stick to flavoured salt. My attention was drawn to it when I attempted to do a lucky dip and found on the page before the one I had chosen, a recipe for flavoured salt. Which made me think I would write about it because I have indeed been thinking about it on and off. There's such a lot of it in the shops is there not? And I have also been thinking about Christmas and little gifts I could make. (I'll come back to the lucky dip another day, although I guess this is sort of it.)

First let me get out of the way the fact that salt is definitely bad for you. Apparently the NHS says you shouldn't have more than 6g a day (a teaspoon) - we all know that it is a major contributing factor in heart disease and hypertension. However, it is also an essential food. I'm afraid I didn't really understand what it does - but ironically I think one thing is associated with the heart - and also digestion. I'm pretty sure you get cramps if you don't have enough salt. But too much is definitely bad, and I no longer cook with salt - I don't put salt in with my vegetables, main dishes, pasta ... However, I do sprinkle a little on top when I eat because I do like the taste. It heightens the taste somehow. Beware of the hidden salt in things like bread, cheese, ham and bacon though, not to mention any processed foods.

I recently got sucked into buying some flavoured chilli salt. David no longer likes food with chilli, so this way I can sprinkle a little on my food with the salt. I got sucked into buying it because it looked so pretty, but actually, for my purposes, there is a little too much salt and not enough chilli in this mix.

So I'm toying with making some for Christmas presents. It seems to be all the rage and my Christmas Cooking with the Weekly book shows you how. And, of course, when I visited the web there were dozens of recipes.

"Flavoured salts can actually give some really fragrant and shocking results to your palate. Things like Jasmine tea salt have traditionally been used in Japanese and Chinese cooking for flavouring things like tempura."

So says Jamie Oliver, and he goes on to explain how to go about making your own. He is quoted on his User Forum - Click here for the full article - it's the long post just a couple of posts down.

The result of my browsing seems to be that you mix the salt with your flavourings in a ratio of one third flavouring to two thirds salt. Chop up the flavourings and mix with the salt. Some say that's all you do but others suggest you spread it out on a tray and dry it in the oven or else the herbs and spices will make the salt wet. Sounds sensible to me. For gifts you find some pretty jars and then tart them up with ribbons or labels, or other things.

So here are some suggestions gleaned from here and there"

jasmine tea fennel seed lemon zest and vanilla lavender rosemary and thyme lime zest lemongrass chilli and ginger Szechuan peppercorns chilli and ginger

thyme and juniper

lavender

lemon and orange zest and dill

And the recipe that started all this from the old-fashioned Herbs and Spices by Rosemary Hemphill is called seasoned salt.

"Grind together in a mortar 1 teaspoon celery seed and 1 teaspoon dried rosemary. Add 1 teaspoon each of ground mace and paprika, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1 tablespoon table salt. Put it in a small airtight bottle and use as required."

I think nowadays you would not use table salt - you would use a gourmet kind of salt - and there are many of them too. You can't find mace these days either. Use nutmeg instead. You can buy celery salt of course - it's been around for a very long time, and Jamie says it is surprisingly good.

Really though it's something that you can experiment with at will. Use it to sprinkle on finished food or rub into barbecues and grills, or use it to cure fish with - like gravlax.