Herb Salt

I keep a few easy-to-prepare stock items in the fridge. They’re versatile, convenient flavorings, and some play essential roles in certain dishes.  Since there are a number of these useful things, I opened a new category: Useful Flavorings and Relishes. With these ideas, you can take advantage of  seasonal ingredients that are suddenly abundant and cheap:  tomatoes, for example. On the other hand, some of these useful items call for ingredients that are available anytime, such as dried spices and herbs.

Preparation time is different for each flavoring. The useful soup stock needs a long cooking time. That’s convenient to make when you’re planning to be at home for a few hours, doing other things.  Another favorite, pesto, is whizzed up in just a few minutes.

Most of these things are best made in small quantities, to keep their flavors fresh and the quality high.  But if you brought home an enormous bunch of basil, I’d say, go ahead and make lots of pesto, herb butter, and salad dressing. Just refrigerate what you think will get used up over the next couple of weeks, and freeze the rest (not the salad dressing, though). I’ll add my suggestions for preserving as I present the recipes.

The first Useful Flavoring is herb salt. It’s easily made and adds a savory sparkle to all kinds of foods.

For every 1/2 cup  of  salt – any quality salt – use up to 1 tablespoon of your favorite dried herbs and spices, either singly or a mixture of several.  Quantities aren’t exact; it depends on if one dominant herb is more important at the time. But here’s a rule of thumb for making small quantities. Use 1/4 herb, 3/4 salt. This is a stronger combination, but works well if you only want a few tablespoons of any given flavored salt.

Put it in your mortar and pestle and grind everything up

- or use a coffee grinder, which gives a much finer-grained salt.

Lacking either, use the bottom end of a bottle as pestle and a wooden bowl as mortar.

Dried herbs to combine with salt:

Thyme, rosemary, z’atar, sage, bay leaf, dried chile peppers, powdered turmeric, cumin, paprika, saffon, ginger, – and others that your own taste may suggest.  Once everything’s ground together and mixed, put the salt in a jar and keep it out at hand’s reach.

Fresh herbs: these should be whizzed in the food processor or at least very earnestly pounded up by hand. Herb salt made with fresh herbs should be kept in a covered jar and refrigerated. It will last up to a year, but the flavor will deteriorate eventually, so it’s best to make only 1/2-cup at a time. If you feel like taking it a step further, make your herb salt with fresh plants , spread it out on a baking tray and leave it in the oven, at its very lowest setting, overnight. Sieve it before pouring it into its jar.

Garlic – very little, just one small clove per cup as it can become too strong; parsley, coriander leaf, lemon grass, chives, scallions, ginger, thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, lemon or orange zest.

So how do you use herb salt, already?

Just about any food gratefully accepts herb salt.

• Do you love the taste of rosemary and lemon on lamb chops? Pound up some salt with those herbs , mix it with olive oil, and work it into the meat.
  
• Does your pumpkin soup need an oomph? Oomphy soup coming up: just add a little salt flavored with thyme and sage.
• A combinatinon of orange zest, lemongrass and ginger is delicious with roast chicken or duck. Add a splash of brandy or wine while the bird is roasting.
  
• My favorite Mediterranean combo of thyme, sage, oregano, hot pepper, bay leaf and rosemary, added to vegetable or pea soup or lentils, or baked potato, or an omelet. I shook some of that over a few potato latkehs yesterday. The sparkly flavored salt really complemented the earthier, potato-and-onion taste of the latkehs.
• Steaming, buttered cobs of corn are delicious by themselves, but sprinkle them lightly with herb salt and all your taste buds will wake up.
• When making croutons, add herb salt to melted butter or oil; roll cubes of bread in this and toast them.

Get the idea? Herb salt is nice to have around when you’re cooking but feeling uninspired, or when you feel like adding a brighter flavor to any dish.