Himalayan Salt Blocks

I love salt. Prior to ordering this salt plate:

(Ordered from The Meadow, $48 for an 8×8x1″ block)

… I always had at least five kinds of salt in my kitchen: a strong sel gris for making dry rubs for meat or adding to soups, fleur de sel for vegetables, plain kosher salt for pickling or boiling pasta, Hawaiian pink salt (not sure what all this is useful for, good in guacamole though), and flaky Maldon sea salt for fish.

This salt plate thing is pretty rad. I saw Mario Batali use one for plating a tuna crudo on Iron Chef America and was pretty excited to find them for sale. I got mine last week and served some ahi and opah sashimi on it and the flavor was pretty amazing — the mineral content of this salt tastes stronger than a white salt I use on fish, but a little more delicate than the grey salt I usually use for meats. In other words, it’s totally perfect for meaty fishes like tuna.

The plate works as advertised, I rinsed it with a little warm water and set it to dry. As far as I could tell, I still had a big-ass block of salt. As a plus, my hands felt like I had just been to the beach.