i was chatting about salt with my local
providore owner a few weeks ago and during the conversation he mentioned cypriot black salt*..oh..that would be interesting i thought..should buy some..then i remembered that my son was in cyprus..oh..hang on..i'll see if he can get me some..long story long i contacted him about it..he brought me some back when he arrived home from his 6 month holiday just before christmas..apparently it was very hard to find though..luckily he had a close friend and cafe owner who helped him find it..seems to just be an export item and that the locals don't use it..he brought me a bottle of home produced cypriot olive oil too..he knows his mother well! i used the oil and salt in a greek style warm wilted greens salad the other day..eating it i was in greek heaven..
note:
* black lava salt is sea salt that has purified volcanic charcoal added to it..apparently the charcoal aids digestion and detoxifies the body although i'm skeptical about the health benefits considering it's used as a garnish only and not meant for cooking and thus the amount of charcoal consumed tends to be very small
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i mulched my garden heavily with pea straw this year and it's sprouted
lots of pea plants that i've let grow just for the heck of it..but bonus..
i'm now picking a handful of snow peas every day |
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warm wilted greens salad (horta salata) with homegrown spinach,
purslane, snow peas and garlic and garnished with shaved pecorino,
a drizzle of cypriot olive oil and a sprinkle of cypriot black lava salt |
have you come across any interesting ingredients recently?
How interesting Jane, I have not heard of this before. Those peas look perfect, a bonus indeed x
ReplyDeletethanks jane..the peas are a wonderful bonus..the irony is that if i planted them, i suspect from past experience, they'd not be doing so well! x
DeleteJane you salt is interesting but those snow peas are wonderful, fancy, self sown ... well sort of.
ReplyDeletehi glenda..wonderful too because there are plants at different stages so they'll be producing for quite a while..x
DeleteI hadn't heard of this salt before this post. I knew about that black salt that tastes like eggs as that's something that the vegan confraternity has embraced wholeheartedly. Adding charcoal to something certainly makes it black, that's about all the health benefits that you would get with a small sprinkle of this unless you sprinkled small on every single meal for a year perhaps? ;) Your salad looks magnificent. Pea hay is too expensive here for us to add to our biota but we use aged horse manure and rotted oak leaves which seem to be doing the trick. Hopefully your garden is growing and producing well. Thank you for sharing this salt although I doubt I will be able to get hold of it any day soon ;)
ReplyDeletehi fran..i've tried lots of different mulches but i like pea straw best particularly because it doesn't have a tendency to be blown around like some of the others..my garden is exposed to the hot northerly and westerly winds in summer and i've noticed all of my plants are coping better with the heat this year..hope your garden is doing well too..x
DeleteOhh that is interesting. I've not heard of this salt before.
ReplyDeleteInteresting ingredients gracing my table lately?...Hmmm the chocolate coated raspberries were delicious :-)
i don't think i'll be rushing out to buy more of it brydie once mine has finished..it was worth a try but it's not earth shattering stuff..x
ReplyDelete