Salad Seasoned with Indian Black Salt
How do volcanoes fit into the culinary scene, you ask? Good question. Sulfur.
Turns out that the sodium sulfide present in “black” salt ( it’s actually pinkish) tricks the tongue into thinking that you’re eating hard-boiled eggs. (They also contain sulfur and therefore possess that signature scent…and since so much of our sense of taste comes from our sense of smell, there you go.) While sea salts all have a bit of a unique flavor — Portuguese pink sea salt tastes sweet while fleur de sel is rather briny — black salt is probably the most striking of the salts.
Of course, if you’re not a fan of hard-boiled eggs, then you’re not going to be a fan of black salt (also called “kala namak”), but if you do enjoy hard-boiled eggs, you’re gonna love what you can achieve with this salt. Talk about an easy way and natural way to mimic a desired flavor! If you don’t have ten minutes to spare to hard-boil an egg or if you’re cooking for someone who can’t eat eggs or if you’re just plain out of eggs at the moment, sprinkle on a bit of kala namak and do a taste-test. Amazing, huh?
For this salad, I simply tossed cooked Arctic char with some baby arugula, then dressed the salad with extra-virgin olive oil and black salt. The egg flavor blended beautifully with the smooth fish and slightly-bitter greens. Although salads are one of the best ways to showcase this intriguing salt, I also use it on anything that I’d normally add an egg to, from hash browns to stews. (Many other cuisines add a single egg to a stew to provide an extra touch of richness.)
Try a pinch of kala namak — you’ll be surprised at how tasty a volcano can be!
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Tags: black salt, egg substitute, eggs, seasoning, volcano
