Our Recipes

Fish has been a delicacy for as long as humans can remember. It's light, beautifully presented, and delicious. There are many ways to cook up fish, but the easiest (and most flavorful) way to cook it is whole. Here is a recipe from Salt Block Cooking, by Mark Bitterman, for a fresh, crispy, and visually dramatic way to cook up and serve fish.   Serves 4 to 6 Ingredients: 2 8x12x1.5 inch salt block 2 whole fish (about 1½" lbs. each) with skin attached, such as snapper, pompano, striped bass, etc. 2 tablespoons packed pickled ginger slices for sushi, finely chopped 1 garlic glove, minced Leaves from 4 large mint sprigs 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Juice and zest of 1 large lime Place the salt block over low heat on a gas grill or stovetop for 10 minutes. Turn the heat to medium and heat for 10 more minutes (see Read Before Heating!, page 25 in Salt Block Cooking). Raise the heat to medium-high and heat the block to about 500°F, about 10 more minutes. For the last 10 minutes, preheat the oven to 500°F (see Getting It Hot, page 24 in Salt Block Cooking). Meanwhile, mix the ginger, garlic, mint and 1 teaspoon of the oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cut three diagonal slices in the sides of both fish. Fill each slit with 1 teaspoon of the ginger mixture. Pack the rest into the fishes’ cavities. Rub the remaining 1 teaspoon oil all over the fish. Using two heavy oven mitts, transfer the block to a baking sheet. Put the fish on the hot block and slip the pan into the preheated oven. Roast for 5-minutes, then turn over with a metal spatula, scraping carefully to avoid tearing the skin. Roast until the flesh of the fish flakes to gentle pressure, about 5 more minutes. Transfer the fish to a serving platter using a wide spatula. Scatter the lime zest over the fish and drizzle with lime juice. Serve, removing the fish from the bone at the table. To serve the fish, make a slit through the skin of the cooked fish down the length on the spine right above the dorsal fin, using a narrow knife. Insert a spatula into the slit and slide it between the flesh and the bone. Make a slice just behind the head and just in front of the tail, separating the top fillet from the skeleton. Lift the released fillet from the carcass and serve. Using the spatula or two forks, lift the central skeleton, including the head and the tail, from the bottom fillet and discard. Serve the bottom fillet.   Recipe and photos by Mark Bitterman. To see more, check out Salt Block Cooking.      

Summer time is also grilling time! Change up your grilled chicken recipe this year by throwing a salt brick into the mix.     Serves 6 to 8 Ingredients: 2 4x8x2 pink himalayan salt bricks 1 (4-pound) chicken, preferably free-range 2 tablespoons olive oil 4 garlic cloves, halved lengthwise ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Juice of ½ lemon Place the salt blocks on the grill grate of a gas grill over low heat, close the lid, and warm for 10 minutes while you prepare the chicken (see Read Before Heating!, page 25 of Salt Block Cooking). Turn the heat to medium and heat the block for 10 more minutes. Its surface should be about 375°F (see Getting It Hot, page 24 of Salt Block Cooking). If you are using a charcoal fire, set up a bi-level fire with half the grill set up for low heat (one layer of coals) and the other half set up for medium heat (two layers of coals). Remove and discard the neck and package of innards from the cavity of the chicken. Place the chicken, breast side down, on a cutting board. With a large knife or poultry shears, cut down the length of the spine on both sides. Remove the spine. Cut the breast side of the chicken in half lengthwise. You will now have two chicken halves. Wash the halves in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Coat with the olive oil and rub all over with the cut sides of the garlic cloves; tuck the pieces of garlic under the edges of the skin. Season all over with pepper. Clean the area of the grill grate not occupied by the salt block with a wire brush. Put the chicken halves, skin side down, on the grill grate and, using grill gloves/mitts, put a hot salt block on top of each half. Close the lid and cook until the chicken skin is crisp and deeply grill-marked, about 15 minutes. Remove the blocks using the grill gloves. Flip the chicken halves with tongs, put the blocks back on top of the chicken, close the lid, and cook until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the inside of the thicker thigh registers 170°F, about 10 to 15 minutes on the grill. Remove the salt blocks. Transfer the chicken to a clean cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes before cutting into parts. Drizzle with the lemon juice and serve. Recipe and photos by Mark Bitterman. To see more, check out Salt Block Cooking.      

This summer's heat has been record breaking! Here is a remedy to help you through the marathon of hot days we have been having. Mark Bitterman's recipe for Parmesan Ice Cream with Tomato Marmalade and Basil Gremolata from the original book of salt block recipes, Salt Block Cooking.  Serves a crowd Ingredients: For the ice cream: 1 round Himalayan salt block 5 cups heavy cream  8 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano, freshly grated For the marmalade: 1 pound plum tomatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped ⅓ cup sugar 1½ tablespoons sherry vinegar 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, use high-quality For the gremolata: 12 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped ¼ garlic clove, minced ½ cup chopped toasted hazelnuts 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest To finish: 2 tablespoons olive oil, use high-quality Chill the salt block in the freezer for 6 hours before you want to finish the ice cream. To make the ice cream, bring the cream to a simmer in a large saucepan. Add the cheese slowly, stirring all the time, and continue to simmer and stir over low heat until the cheese has melted and the mixture is smooth, about 5 minutes. Pass through a strainer to remove any lumps, and let cool to room temperature. Put in a closed container and chill thoroughly in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight. An hour before you want to finish the ice cream, put the container of ice cream mixture in the freezer. To make the marmalade, cook the tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar in a medium saucepan, stirring frequently until lightly thickened, about 15 minutes. Stir in the olive oil and let cool to room temperature. To make the gremolata, mix the basil, garlic, hazelnuts, and lemon zest together in a small bowl. To finish the ice cream, put the frozen salt block on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips. Spoon half of the chilled ice cream mixture onto the frozen salt block, using a pastry scraper or the side of a spatula to control its flow. Scrape and fold the ice cream across the surface of the salt until it sets up. Scrape into a chilled bowl put in the freezer while repeating the process with the remaining half of the ice cream mixture. To serve, scoop the ice cream into chilled bowls. Drizzle each serving with the olive oil, and top each with a spoonful of marmalade and a sprinkling of gremolata. Recipe and photos by Mark Bitterman. To see more, check out Salt Block Cooking.

The vegetables of summer are steadily dropping off their vines and sliding back into the sun-soaked recesses of memory. Much as I look forward to fall–rain, endive, leaves, rain, a hiatus from mowing the lawn, endive, rain–I still crave the crisp, succulent, almost arrogant freshness of a veggie sandwich: all that is vegetal between the savory bookends of bread and cheese. And nothing loves a great salt like a veggie sandwich. My favorite: Amabito no Moshio(藻塩) is an ancient type of Japanese salt, called shio. Shios are identifiable by their fine, snow-like texture. Their firm, intensely mineral backbone lends a delicacy and brightness to food, much as acidity supports definition and complexity in wine. Amabito no Moshio is the granddaddy of shios, created some 2,500 years ago in what was then more or less a neolithic Japan. Seaweed was hauled out of the water by fishermen and dried on the rocks, then sprayed with water, then dried some more, then sprayed some more, etc. etc. until a now salt-encrusted seaweed could be rinsed to make a saturated brine. The brine, along with bits of the kelp, would then be boiled off over a wood fire, resulting in a delicately seaweed-infused salt. Today, The Meadow’s Amabito no Moshio, made with the hondawara variety of seaweed (Sargassum fulvellum) is inspired by that tradition. If today is your day to celebrate the veggie sandwich–perhaps your last true fresh veggie sandwich of the year–do it with the proper reverence, and with a last backwards glimpse of summer’s sunny sanctity. Serves 5 Ingredients: 8 slices black bread or pumpernickel 1 teaspoon horseradish (optional) 4 ounces (8 tablespoons) cream cheese ½ bunch watercress, large stems trimmed 8 thin slices ripe tomato 2 thin slices red onion, halved 1 cup mung bean sprouts 24 thin slices cucumber ½ avocado, cut in 8 thin wedges 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar Small grind of black peppercorns 4 three-finger pinches Amabito No Moshio sea salt Spread the (optional) horseradish very sparingly over each slice of bread. Spread the cream cheese on one side of each slice of bread. Top four of the slices with a small fistful of watercress, two slices tomato, a half-slice red onion, ¼ cup sprouts, six cucumber slices, and two slices avocado. Mix the olive oil and vinegar and spoon a small amount over the vegetables. Season each sandwich with a grinding of pepper and a three-finger pinch of Amabito no Moshio sea salt. Top with remaining cream cheese and bread and serve immediately.

Usually the thing to ask when using salt is: how can I make the most of the interplay between salt and food? There’s texture to consider, the mineral flavors of the salt itself, and the visual cues that sensuously salted food can provide to get the engines of your appetite revving.   A spinach gratin is a slightly difficult character in this regard. Gratin is incredibly delicious, easy to eat, and naturally accommodates a variety of dishes, but its nature is to avoid acting like the life of the party. Also, much of the salt comes from the cheese, and the general texture of the dish is so full and rich that it leaves little room for any but the most aggressive salt crystals to have an impact on the mouthfeel of the dish. It takes an aggressive salt to shine against the backdrop of such a dish with sufficient luminosity to actually illuminate it without overwhelming it with saltiness. One salt jump to mind: Maine Coast Sea Salt. The salt has a hard, bright, faintly hot but minerally flavors and a somewhat hard crunch, so you don’t need a lot for the salt to contribute a note of rowdiness to the spinach gratin. A few pinches on the top of a gratin will greet your lips with something unexpected, an in-your-face attitude that awakens you to the full pleasure of the gratin’s comforting flavors. Serves 4 Ingredients: 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems trimmed, caps sliced about 1/4 inch thick 1 pound cleaned baby spinach leaves 3 two-finger pinches Maine Coast Sea Salt  3 grindings black peppercorns 2 tablespoons dry sherry 1 cup heavy cream 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard Grating of nutmeg 2 ounces shredded Gruyere cheese Preheat a broiler. Heat the olive oil in a very large skillet (raw spinach occupies 50 times the space of the same spinach cooked, which means you will need a pan many times larger than you think you will need) over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms and sauté just until tender, about 4 minutes. Add the spinach leaves and stir until completely wilted, about 3 minutes. While the spinach is cooking season it with one pinch of Maine Coast sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Transfer to a shallow gratin dish or casserole. Return the pan to the heat and add the sherry. Bring to a boil. Add the cream and boil until the volume is reduced by half. Remove from heat and stir in the mustard and nutmeg. Pour over the spinach and spread evenly. Scatter the gruyere on top of the spinach mixture and run under the broiler until the cheese is fully melted and preferably a little brown. If it begins to get oily before it browns remove it right away. Scatter the remaining Maine coast sea salt over top and serve immediately.

Avert your eyes. Blush. Go ahead. The steak salad is always a little embarrassing to look at. Nobody is to blame for this. Like the pitterpat of a Geisha’s geta sandal across the parquet, the modesty of the salad is betrayed by its inescapable voluptuousness. But this needs to be greeted in the spirit in which it is offered, which is to say, with deference and respect. So often the architect of the steak salad indulges in the natural inclination to use the steak itself as the seasoning for the entire dish, salting the heck out of the steak–and in effect utilizing the steak in much the way we use bacon bits and gorgonzola on a cobb salad, or anchovies and parmesan on a Caesar salad—taking advantage of an ingredient’s natural saltiness to season for the dish. This is a perfectly normal impulse. After all, for millions of years we got most of the salt we ate from red meat, so if some part of our reptile mind still thinks of meat as salt, the modern steak salad maker can surely be excused for thinking of salt as meat. But the missed opportunity to enlist a good salt with steak makes this confusion tragic nonetheless. Shinkai Deep Sea Salt: taught, brilliant, bitter-sweet, immaculate. Sprinkled over the steak on this Japanese steak salad, Shinkai Deep Sea Salt brings grace and definition to the meat, deliciously integrating its carnal succulence into the civilized bed of gleaming garden greens. Serves 8 Ingredients: For the dressing/marinade: 1/4 cup soy sauce Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon 2 tablespoons canola oil 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil 1 tablespoon honey 1 garlic clove, minced 1 tablespoon minced gingerroot 1 small fresh red chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced For the salad: 1 pound flank steak 3 tablespoons canola oil 1/4 lb oyster or shiitake mushrooms 2 baby bok choy, halved lengthwise 1 quart mixed baby greens, cleaned 3 stalks Chinese celery, or 1 stalk Pascal celery, thinly sliced 2 scallions, root end trimmed, thinly sliced 6 grape tomatoes, sliced 1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced 8 sugar snap or snow pea pods, sliced crosswise Julienned zest of 1 lemon 4 three-finger pinches Shinkai Deep Sea Salt Mix the ingredients for the dressing/marinade in a small bowl.Put the steak in a zip-lock bag. Add ¼ cup of the dressing/marinade to the bag. Seal the bag and massage the dressing into the meat. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and as long as 12 hours. Cover the remaining dressing/marinade and refrigerate. Heat a charcoal or gas grill for high direct grilling. Remove the steak from the bag and wipe off any excess marinade. Coat the steak with 1 tablespoon oil, the mushrooms with 1 ½ tablespoons oil, and the bok choy with the remaining ½ tablespoon oil. Grill the mushrooms until well marked and almost tender, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Set aside and toss with 2 tablespoons reserved dressing. Grill the bok choy halves until grill marked on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Set aside and toss with 1 tablespoon reserved dressing. Grill the flank steak to desired degree of doneness, about 4 minutes per side for very rare, 5 minutes per side for rare, 6 minutes per side for medium rare, 7 minutes per side for medium, turning 90 degrees halfway through the grilling of each side to create cross-hatched grill marks. Set aside to rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing. While the steak is resting, gently toss the baby greens, celery, scallions, tomatoes, cucumber, and sliced pea pods with 1/3 cup of the remaining dressing. Mound on 4 plates. Slice the steak against its grain into thin slices. Arrange several slices steak, some grilled mushrooms, and grilled bok choy on the salad. Scatter the lemon zest over all. Drizzle with the remaining dressing. Sprinkle a pinch of Shinkai deep sea salt over each portion, rubbing fingers together gently as it falls to scatter as evenly as possible. Serve.  

A salmon caught high in the freshwater streams of the mountains bears within its pink flesh the flavors of faraway places in the Pacific Ocean, a rosy imprint of the long voyage back to its birthplace. These fish see a lot of things below the ocean depths. And then they eat them. Salmon deserve a suitably thoughtful and voracious treatment in the kitchen. Iburi-Jio Cherry, a smoked sea salt from Japan, has endured a journey comparable to that of the salmon. Artisan salt makers plumb seawater off the coast of the Oga Peninsula, drawing a pristine brine up from the pure, deepwater currents. After concentrating the brine, they heat it over a wood fire over three days, stirring constantly to produce asalt that is the texture of powder snow. This salt is then gently cold smoked over cherry wood for a sweet, smoky, bacony aroma that is unrivaled in the culinary world. The combination of deep sea minerals, cherry wood smoke, and buttery salmon takes your taste buds on peregrinations through flavor’s most unfathomed depths. Serves 6 Ingredients: 1 side of salmon, preferably wild, about 2 pounds, bones removed ¼ cup black sesame seeds ¼ cup white sesame seeds 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil Finely grated zest and juice of a lime 1 teaspoon dark toasted sesame oil ½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper, or ¼ teaspoon crushed chilies 3 big pinches Iburi-Jio Cherry smoked salt Coat the flesh-side of the salmon with the sesame seeds and pat gently into the surface. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until smoking. Carefully put the salmon in the pan flesh-side down and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Turn carefully and cook until the fish is firm but still translucent in the center, 4 to 5 minutes more. While the salmon is cooking, combine the lime zest, lime juice, sesame oil and Aleppo pepper in a small bowl. Using a wide spatula or two spatulas, transfer the fish to a serving platter. Drizzle with the lime mixture and scatter the salt over all. Serve immediately. If you need to delay serving, wait until the last second to salt. You want the delicate crystals of the Iburi-Jio to barely dissolve at first bite.

Once in a while salting is not about harmony. Instead it’s about a gentle but jangling discord. Haleakala Ruby is a luscious, warm Hawaiian sea salt that takes its color from the Haleakala volcano’s sacred alaea clay. This is a salt that excels on fish and pork, where it seeks out and then embellishes the opulent undercurrents of flavors lurking in these subtler foods. But it’s also good on fruit. The salt shifts unexpectedly from meadows of sunny butter to coral reefs of revitalizing brine. The less acidic the fruit, the more pronounced the oceanic freshness, as if the salt knows precisely how to respond to the needs of the food. Start with a cantaloupe sweet as honeysuckle, trickle a little balsamic acidity for added complexity, stir in a pinch of fleur de sel to bring the flavors into crystal clarity, then serve with a sprinkle of Haleakala Ruby… This is what it tastes like to have your heart skip a beat. Serves 4 Ingredients: 1 pound peeled and seeded cantaloupe chunks, about 3 cups 1 cup simple syrup 4 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar 1 two-finger pinch fleur de sel 4 two-finger pinched Haleakala Ruby sea salt Recipe coming soon.

Sautéeing on Himalayan salt blocks creates exponentially more flavor than sautéeing in a conventional skillet. This is because a salt block cooks your food in two ways. At a blazing 500 degrees or higher, the heavy block of salt has enormous thermal mass, sizzling away moisture to produce a thick crust of rich, concentrated flavor. At the same time, the Himalayan salt itself sets to work, bursting cell membranes, intermingling juices, and breaking loose new flavors that in turn sizzle away to make for even more concentrated flavors. Want to make the most of this miracle of cooking chemistry? Balance out the scallop’s rich buttery flavors with a spritz of citrus and reinforce everything with the lip-tingling spice of Szechuan peppercorns. You’ll not have another scallop that’s this fun to cook, impressive to serve, or tasty to eat. Serves 4 Ingredients: 2 4x8x2 inch salt block 1 1/4 pounds large wild-caught sea scallops (about 16) 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 teaspoon cracked red Sichuan peppercorns Finely shredded zest and juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 lime Place the salt block(s) over a low gas flame and heat for 15 minutes. Raise the flame to medium and heat another 10 minutes. Raise the flame to high and heat another 15 minutes, until it is uncomfortable to hold your hand about 2 inches from the surface of the block for longer than 3 seconds (approximately 500°F). While the salt block is heating pat the scallops dry and pull off their white gristly tendons (located on the side of the scallop) if not already removed. Coat the scallops with the olive oil and Szechuan pepper and let stand at room temperature until the salt block is hot. Place the scallops on the hot block. The scallops should almost skitter across the top. If they just plop there and sizzle modestly, the salt is and sear until browned and springy to the touch but still a little soft in the center, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Work in batches if your salt block cannot comfortably fit all the scallops at once. Remove to a platter or plates, or move the entire salt block to the table and set on an oven mitt or trivet to serve still sizzling to your guests. Scatter the citrus zest over top and drizzle with the juice. Eat immediately.