Home cook: Sharmini Jayawardena
Making herb salt is a good way of preserving your herb harvest*.
Herb salts taste great in anything you want salted.
They can be given as gifts to foodies and hostesses or as wedding favours and as house warming gifts.
Sea salt is produced by gathering sea water in salterns and drying it under the sun to form salt crystals.
Idiomatic expressions such as “not worth his salt”, which comes from around the 19th century, comes to mind, which show the scarcity of and value placed on salt; or NaCl – Sodium Chloride, which is its’ scientific name.
In this sense salt could be equaled to money 💰 💴 💵 or even gold for instance. For, without it, our food would be utterly unpalatable and insipid.
Salt, by the way, was considered bad for your health during the ‘60s, due to a misconception created by Dr Lewis Dahl, who based his survey using an amount of salt that was not reasonably consumed by humans!
https://www.leafblogazine.com/2018/02/08/the-14-day-challenge-to-the-ketogenic-diet/
http://14dayketochallenge.com/index-c-m.php
https://www.drstevenlin.com/salt-good-for-you/
Ingredients for Making Herb 🌿 Salt:
2 handfuls of single or mixed fresh herbs
(A Tuscan blend of rosemary, sage, thyme and garlic or a marinara blend of basil, parsley, oregano and garlic are possibilities)
I used rosemary, basil and oregano harvested from our little herbarium.
2 cloves garlic
1/2 bag of sea 🌊 salt
Method
1. Harvest and wash the leaves.
2. Dry the leaves.
3. Follow the pix below to your very own herb salt bliss!
Herb salts give that oomph to any dish – as a marinade in barbecues, to be sprinkled over your tomatoes or other vegetable like potatoes or beans, and in fries. Added to stews, casseroles and eggs, it elevates your dishes to another level.
It’s great on fish, poultry and even pop corn!
Use them in adding flavour to your sauces.
Once you have harvested your herbs select the best leaves, give them a good wash and dry them thoroughly, before proceeding with making the herb salt.
Make sure not to mix Asian herbs with western herbs. So, do not combine Thai basil or Vietnamese mint with sweet basil or the Italian varieties of basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme or sage.
Use your herb or citrus salt as rim salts in dressing the rim of a glass to decorate and elevate your cocktails. Ideally suitable as a substitute for a drink that calls for a Basil leaf garnish.
