TOP: Flavored salts from Saltopia. Center: Trio of homemade flavored salts from Chef Eric LeVine | Steamy Kitchen. Bottom: Close-up of Szechuan Pepper Salt.

We have 10 jars of artisan* flavored salts, of which we often use just our three favorites (rosemary, saffron and truffle). The other seven take up a lot of space. It’s not that we don’t like them; it’s similar to shoes and clothing. We own a lot but wear the same three most of the time.

It’s tempting to reach for yet another exciting artisan salt. Here’s some of what we see when we visit a specialty salt website like Saltopia or US Saltworks:

 
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH FLAVORED SALTS?

Says Chef Eric LeVine: “One of the easiest ways to elevate your cooking to another level is to use flavored salts, or finishing salts. I call these ‘finishing salts’ because most of the time, its exactly what I use them for. No recipe is needed, really: Flavor + Salt = Flavored Salt.

“I like to use these salts in place of regular salt. The flavor I use is dependent on either the type of dish I’m cooking, the ethnic cuisine or a flavor I would like to infuse into the dish.

“Sometimes a dish just needs a little color after plating. A finishing salt is the perfect complement, flavor-wise and eye-candy-deliciousness-wise.

Learn from professional cooks—who often serve food on white dinnerware—and sprinkle a bit of finishing salt directly on the food and the plate. The vibrant colors are shown off against the white and your dinner guests can dab as much as or as little of the salt [on their food] as they wish. You can make a batch for less than $1….or you could go to a gourmet shop and spend $12 for an itty bitty jar.”

Spring and summer grilling are another reason to bring out the flavored salt instead of reaching for Morton’s Little Salt Girl or Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt.

“You can also use it as a finishing salt. And you can use it to add a bit of color to all those beige and brown foods.”

At THE NIBBLE, we use them as in ingredient or a garnish:

 
SOLUTION: SAVE SPACE & MONEY—BLEND YOUR OWN

It takes just five minutes to blend salt, herbs and spices in a spice grinder. You can make them on an as-needed basis, or make larger batches for your spice rack.

At $13 and up retail for a 3.5-ounce jar, you can make your own for perhaps $1 a batch.

Pick A Base Salt

If you don’t have sea salt on hand, start with kosher salt or table salt. After you get the hang of blending, you can try more exotic salts, such as:

 
FLAVORED SALT RECIPES

Here are four recipes, two savory and two sweet. The first three are from Chef Eric; the Blueberry Salt is from THE NIBBLE archives.
 
Recipe: Szechuan (Sichuan) Peppercorn Salt

Dry-roasted Szechuan or Sichuan Peppercorn + food processor to grind the peppercorn + sea salt. Chef Eric roasted peppercorns in a hot, dry skillet until they were smoking but not burnt. Let it cool and add to a food processor or piece mill to grind to your preferred granule size. Then add the salt and pulse a couple of times to fully blend the flavors.

Says Chef Eric: “I like my Szechuan pepper salt a little chunky and not like a fine powder, so I use equal amts of peppercorns and sea salt. You can adjust the proportions based on your tastes. If you are using a very fine sea salt or just regular table salt, decrease the amount of salt.

“In addition to Asian-accent dishes or for a touch of heat, I also love seasoning my steaks with this salt prior to grilling, instead of the standard salt and pepper. It can also be served as a dipping salt for fried shrimp.”

Recipe: Matcha Salt

Matcha is Japanese green tea powder made from the highest quality of green tea leaves. It’s very different from simply grinding green tea leaves. It’s a stunning mossy green color, which makes such a pretty finishing salt. Matcha powder + sea salt + couple pulses in food processor if you are using coarse sea salt.

Chef Eric likes to use it on a chocolate truffle or mousse; you can dip a plain chocolate bar dip in Matcha Salt. Use it with eggs and tofu, and with dishes that are light in texture and flavor, since this salt’s flavor is more delicate and subtle. “Don’t get the super-premium stuff,” says Chef Eric, “It would be a waste to use the expensive powder for the salts.”
 
Recipe: Citrus Salt

Peel any citrus and let the peels dry a little bit on a paper towel. Citrus salt is bright, cheery and light, says Chef Eric.

“Finish your shrimp skewers, any vegetables, grilled chicken breasts or grilled salmon with Citrus Salt. Lighten your risotto or steamed rice.”

 
Recipe: Blueberry Salt

For summer, make Blueberry Salt. Start with a small batch (this recipe makes one cup). This recipe takes longer, because you’re drying fresh fruit. Prep time is 35 minutes, cook time is 1 hour to 1 day, depending on whether you choose to oven dry (1 hour) or let dry naturally (24 hours or more).

After you make this recipe, you can customize it with other ingredients: balsamic vinegar, citrus peel, thyme, rosemary or any of the ideas above. The recipe is courtesy of the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council.
 
Ingredients For 1 Cup

Blueberry salt: You can buy a jar or make your own. Photos courtesy Saltopia.

 
Preparation

1. LINE two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

2. SIMMER the berries and water in a saucepan over medium heat until the berries pop and release their juices, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

3. PRESS the blueberries with a potato masher or the back of a large spoon, reserving the juice. Further strain the berries with a fine wire sieve, pressing out as much liquid as possible; discard the solids. Line the sieve with cheesecloth and strain out the finer particles.

4. RETURN the juice to the saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Simmer (watching closely so the juice doesn’t burn) until the juice is reduced to a syrup thick enough to coat a spoon. You should have 2 to 3 tablespoons of juice.

5. REMOVE from the heat. Stir in the salt until the crystals are evenly coated, then spread the salt onto baking sheets. Let it air dry, stirring occasionally, until dry. This will take 4-24 hours, depending on the humidity. Alternatively, bake the salt in a 150° convection oven, stirring frequently until dry, about 1 hour.

TIP: For a deeper purple salt, add food color to the blueberry juice in Step 4.

 
HOW MANY TYPES OF SALT HAVE YOU HAD?

Check out the different types of salt in our Salt Glossary.
  

Top: We love these meaty boneless ribs. Center: Look for this package in your supermarket. Bottom: Baby back ribs. All photos courtesy Tony Roma’s.

We try to avoid barbecue joints because way beyond the barbecue, we fill up on cornbread, buttermilk biscuits, cole slaw, mac and cheese and banana pudding. We feel overstuffed now, just by thinking of it.

That’s why it was our lucky day when we accepted Tony Roma’s offer of heat-and-eat pork ribs to consider for THE NIBBLE. They’re available at supermarkets nationwide, and we’re thankful for that! (Here’s a store locator.)

They’re as good or better than what we get in restaurants…and we don’t face a menu of tempting, high-carb, high-sugar, high-fat choices. And we don’t have to make anyone’s brother’s award-winning recipe.
 
ABOUT THE RIBS

The ribs and barbecue are marinated and slow-cooked. Fully cooked and nicely sauced, we microwaved them and they were ready in minutes. We tried:

 
There are other choices we didn’t taste—but look forward to:

 
All are available in with either Sweet & Spicy or Sweet Hickory barbecue sauces, and all made us happy. But the boneless ribs are by far our favorite: thick slices of tender meat with no bones to contend with.

We were in hog heaven, and the boneless ribs have joined our “addiction list”—Top Picks that we continue to buy regularly at the grocer’s.

Now, we can enjoy delicious ribs without all the empty carb sides and without sticky fingers: We eat them with a knife and fork. We…

There are two types of barbecue preparation: dry and wet. Dry ribs are rubbed with a mixture of herbs and spices. The rubs don’t require advance preparation; they can be applied just before barbecuing. Wet ribs are basted with sauce prior to and during the barbecuing process.

 
Glossary information and chart courtesy Rupari Foods, maker of Tony Roma’s retail barbecue products.
 
LOVE PORK?

Check our the different cuts of pork in our Pork Glossary.

We’re so glad that B and S are in the kitchen! Brother (B) and sister (S) Bob and Carlene Deutscher of Saskatchewan are authors of the food blog BsInTheKitchen.com.

They’ve inspired us to whip up some mac & cheese—to turn into a special grilled cheese sandwich for National Grilled Cheese Month.
 
 
RECIPE: MAC & CHEESE GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH

Prep time is 15 minutes, cook time is 10 minutes.

Ingredients Per Sandwich

 
Preparation

1. GRILL the bacon or heat the pulled pork.

3. MIX the macaroni & cheese, 2 tablespoons of panko crumbs, a couple pinches of cheese in a bowl, with salt and pepper to taste. Form into patties and place in heated pan.
Cook until golden brown on each side. While the patties cook…

4. BUTTER the outside of each slice, place the panko on a plate and press the buttered side of each slice into the panko to crust the sandwich.

5. PLACE about half of the cheese onto the bottom slice. Once the patties are cooked, add them on top of cheese, then top with more cheese. Add the other slice of bread and fry until golden brown on each side.

 
Photo and recipe © copyright BSInTheKitchen.com.
  

[1] Vegetarian spring rolls with shredded daikon, carrots, cucumber trips and peanuts (photo © iStock Photo).

[2] Vietnamese summer rolls, with the beauty of colored vegetables showing through the translucent rice paper wrapper (photo © Elegant Affairs Caterers).

[3] Shrimp spring rolls. Vietnamese and Thai spring rolls are pretty much identical. The rice paper is used uncooked (photo © Three Ladies Rice Paper).

[4] Chinese-style fried spring rolls (photo © Davio’s | Boston).

[5] Egg rolls are fried, but wider (photo © National Pork Board).

So why don’t we make them at home?

Yesterday, a lazy Sunday, we held a Spring Roll Brunch in our home, along with wine pairings.

You can create a do-it-yourself spring roll buffet, but given the crowd, we enlisted one dexterous friend to help us with the wrap-and-roll.

That said, they are easy to make and have a very high prep time-to-delicious factor ratio.

The recipe for chicken and avocado spring rolls is below.

But first: What’s a spring roll?
 
 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EGG ROLLS, SPRING ROLLS & SUMMER ROLLS?

Identifying spring rolls can be confusing, and here’s why:

While some countries, including China, make fried spring rolls, Thailand and Vietnam use uncooked wrappers.

The term “spring roll” is not synonymous with “egg roll,” which is always fried. An egg roll has a heavier pastry wrapper that can be sliced into sections; a fried spring roll is very fragile and can shatter like phyllo.

RECIPE: CHICKEN & AVOCADO SPRING ROLLS

Ingredients For 4 Rolls

 
Preparation

1. SEED, peel and slice the avocado.

2. SOFTEN the spring roll skin in cold water for 5 seconds then place flat on cutting board. Place the sliced avocado and chicken breast, romaine, and shredded carrots in the center of the spring roll skin. Gently fold over one side of the spring roll skin, fold in the edges and gently roll to the other end of the spring roll skin as though you are wrapping a burrito.

3. SERVE on a platter with dipping sauce.

 
RECIPE: DIPPING SAUCE

Ingredients

[6] Spring roll wrappers, made from tapioca and rice flour (photo © Rose Brand Rice Paper).

1. HEAT the vinegar, water, and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Add the fish sauce, garlic, lime juice and chilies.

2. COOL and serve, or else refrigerate.
 
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†Large avocados are recommended for this recipe. A large avocado averages about 8 ounces. If using smaller or larger size avocados adjust the quantity accordingly.

‡Depending on your personal palate, you can reverse the quantities of rice vinegar and lime juice. One good-size lime will yield 1/2 cup of juice.

**Soy sauce will obviously taste different from fish sauce, but it still works as an Asian dipping sauce.

[1] A glass of Malbec in the specially designed Riedel Malbec glass. Photo courtesy Riedel.

[2] Malbec often has notes of blackberries, blueberries and plums (photo © Alex 9500 | Panther Media).

[3] Look for Altos Las Hormigas Malbecs, a favorite of our wine editor (photo © Altos Las Hormigas).

[4] The quirky label of another favorite Malbec, Tinto Negro (photo © Tinto Negro).

[5] Go casual, with a burger, pizza or sandwich (photo © Michael Mina).

[6] Go fancy, with a rack of lamb or a good steak (photo © DeLallo).

Celebrated on April 17th, Malbec World Day (not World Malbec Day) is the perfect opportunity to open up a bottle of the wine that is Argentina’s claim to varietal fame.

Malbec is a purple grape that produces red wine that’s a deep purple-red in color and nearly opaque, similar to Syrah and Mourvedre.

The original Malbec rootstock came from France, where it was widely planted in the Cahors region in the Midi-Pyrénées region of south-central France.

The first records of the varietal date to the 16th century. when it was known as Auxerrois. The name Malbec was introduced at some point in the 1780s, likely because a Monsieur Malbeck planted it in Bordeaux [source].

It was also planted in the Loire Valley of central France, and in California. But Argentina now has 75% of the world’s Malbec acreage.

Here’s more on the history of Malbec.
 
 
ARGENTINE MALBEC

Argentine Malbec is very different from its French parent. As is true among all wine grapes (and some other crops), planting the same vines in different terroirs* yield different results.

 
Malbec World Day commemorates April 17, 1853, when President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento of Argentina launched a mission to transform Argentina’s wine industry. To start that endeavor, a French soil expert bought grape varietals from France, one of which was Malbec.

During the experiment period, which planted different wines in different terroirs*, Malbec proved to be a star. It flourished in the Mendoza region of Argentina, in the northwest part of the country at the foothills of the Andes Mountains.
 
 
MALBEC IS A WELL-PRICED RED WINE

As a result of the volume produced and the economics of wine production in Argentina, Malbec also proved to be a bargain. It’s a well-priced alternative to Cabernet Sauvignon. You can find many good Malbecs for $10 a bottle or less.

You can also find bottles at twice that price, and even pricier—for example, $95 for a bottle of Cheval des Andes, a joint venture between Bordeaux’s great Chateau Cheval Blanc and Argentina’s Terrazas de los Andes.

 
Three Favorite Malbecs From Argentina

Our wine editor, Kris Prasad, has a fondness for Altos Las Hormigas and Alamos (photo #3—one of the wines can have some Syrah added, depending on the vintage).

Both can be found for $10 or less, although special bottlings (e.g., certain vineyards) cost more.

He also likes Tinto Negro “Limestock Block,” pricier at around $15. He calls it an “interesting wine”; it is two-thirds Malbec.

We haven’t had it, but we do love the label, with part of the name spelled backwards (photo #4).

And $10? Can’t beat that for a good wine.
 
 
PAIRING MALBEC WITH FOOD

Steak—of which Argentina has a bounty—is a classic pairing (give us a T-bone, please!).

But Malbec is much more flexible than a pairing with beef. Try it with:

 
Serve it instead of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Syrah and other full-bodied reds.

For an even bigger celebration, put on some tango music—which developed in Argentina—and dance!
 
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*ABOUT TERROIR: The same rootstock that is grown in different locations produces different flavors; for example, depending on where it is grown, Sauvignon Blanc can have grass or grapefruit notes—or neither. Terroir, pronounced tur-WAH, is a French agricultural term referring to the unique set of environmental factors in a specific habitat that affect a crop’s qualities. It includes climate, elevation, proximity to a body of water, slant of the land, soil type and amount of sun. These environmental characteristics gives the wine its character. Terroir is the basis of the French A.O.C. (appellation d’origine contrôlée) system.