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Fleur de sel SALT


mignardise

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Maldon is good -- there was an article not too long ago in Slate magazine testing a bunch of salts, and I think they picked Maldon as their winner.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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Maldon is good -- there was an article not too long ago in Slate magazine testing a bunch of salts, and I think they picked Maldon as their winner.

I love Maldon but it's not fleur de sel, is it?

My house fds is an inexpensive Portuguese alternative called "salt cream" or something which I get from The Spice House. It is clearly not on a par with the French stuff though. I think the one I like best has "Fleur de Sel de Camargue" on the label but it may have another brand name too.

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I love Maldon but it's not fleur de sel, is it?

No, it is not.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Maldon is good -- there was an article not too long ago in Slate magazine testing a bunch of salts, and I think they picked Maldon as their winner.

I love Maldon but it's not fleur de sel, is it?

My house fds is an inexpensive Portuguese alternative called "salt cream" or something which I get from The Spice House. It is clearly not on a par with the French stuff though. I think the one I like best has "Fleur de Sel de Camargue" on the label but it may have another brand name too.

I believe the brand is "Baleine," and it is great stuff. Among my stupid parental moves is to get two kids to where they don't thing the fried potatoes taste right unless they have fleur du sel on them.

If Maldon is free-flowing and flaky, it's very different from the fds I'm used to.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Baleine comes in two varieties, gros and fin. I use the fine stuff for baking and cooking and the larger crystals from sprinkling.

I am also partial to Halen Môn, a Welsh sea salt with large pure white crystals and Esprit du Sel, a gray fleur de sel from the Ile de Ré.

Edited by hjshorter (log)

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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Maldon is good -- there was an article not too long ago in Slate magazine testing a bunch of salts, and I think they picked Maldon as their winner.

I love Maldon but it's not fleur de sel, is it?

My house fds is an inexpensive Portuguese alternative called "salt cream" or something which I get from The Spice House. It is clearly not on a par with the French stuff though. I think the one I like best has "Fleur de Sel de Camargue" on the label but it may have another brand name too.

I believe the brand is "Baleine," and it is great stuff. Among my stupid parental moves is to get two kids to where they don't thing the fried potatoes taste right unless they have fleur du sel on them.

If Maldon is free-flowing and flaky, it's very different from the fds I'm used to.

Maldon...as Fat Guy has pointed out is not fds...however it is a very good quality sea salt used by many chefs as a finishing salt due to its unique flaky crystals.

Lefty Ruggiero to Donnie Brasco: "Anywhere you go, all around the world, all the best cooks are men."

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If Maldon is free-flowing and flaky, it's very different from the fds I'm used to.

I think fleur de sel is a lot moister. It's good layered with butter to spread on stuff.

In case the OP is actually interested in sea salt more generally, I do join in the recommendation of Maldon. If I could keep only one finishing salt, it would be that. I am also a big fan of pink Hawaiian salt-- not the red, not the black but the traditional "alaea" salt sold all over Hawaii.

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Fleur de sel is traditionally harvested by skimming off from the top of the salt pans the flaky, friable, crumbly layer of salt as it crystalises by evaporation but before it forms heavier, larger crystals that precipitate and fall to the bottom of the salt pan (these are raked out separately). The most famous French fleur de sel comes from the ancient salt pans of Guérande in Brittany.

Maldon sea salt, from Essex, England, is made by a different process (the salt pans are heated rather than evaporated naturally by wind and sun), though the result is similar, flaky and friable. It's also one of my favourite salts.

Fleur de sel is quite different from any old garden variety sea salt - Baleine I think comes from the Camargue and neither the gros nor fine versions are true fleur de sel.

Flor de sal from the Algarve has the great virtue of being stunningly white, unlike the French sel gris from Guérande. It is an outstanding naturally harvested sea salt that is also considerably cheaper than the highly touted French equivalent that has become such a favourite with chefs and connoisseurs.

Here's a story about flor de sal that I researched and wrote a few years ago (first published in Slow - the journal of Slow Food).

Marc

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I am an addict of Le Saunier fleur de sel.

And no, Maldon isn't fleur de sel; though I use it on a regular basis because of its delicate taste and high salting power.

- fanny

Yeap, that's the one I use BUT only as finishing salt of course. Using it in cooking (like M. Chiarello does with Maldon) is just wasteful. Kosher salt is more than enough for that.

E. Nassar
Houston, TX

My Blog
contact: enassar(AT)gmail(DOT)com

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Here's a story about flor de sal  that I researched and wrote a few years ago (first published in Slow - the journal of Slow Food).

Marc

Oh, that's a cool story.

Salt for sprinkling on chocolate? Pink salt or smoked salt would come to mind, but the possibilities are endless.

The only Vosges chocolate bars I really like contain pink Himalayan salt and grey salt.

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Maldon is good -- there was an article not too long ago in Slate magazine testing a bunch of salts, and I think they picked Maldon as their winner.

I love Maldon but it's not fleur de sel, is it?

You're right of course. In my experience though a lot of people use the term "fleur de sel" (technically) as a synonym for sea salt, since that's what fleur de sel is, just as many people refer to all sparkling wines as Champagne, and not just those produced in Champagne, France. Sorry if I confused things.

mignardise, here is the article from Slate: Worth One's SaltFrom fleur de sel to kosher, which salt is best?. In their ratings, the Maldon won 4/5 of the tests of the 9 salts they tried, including 2 varieties of sea salt.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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Hal Mon Welsh Smoked salt....Lovely on chocolate. may i suggest melting the chocolate on a piece of toast sprinkled with walnut oil and then the Hale Mon crystals.

Idea stolen from Fernan Adria, who used Olive Oil.

Maybe I should've mentioned what to sprinkle on chocolate?

Since it's the craze now, thought I'd join in.

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