Salt: My Favorite Rock At The Meadow!

I'm a self-described sel-melier - salt's the best-tasting rock, in my opinion!  So when I heard that there was a shop in north Portland, Oregon devoted to salt, I decided it was time to stop by The Meadow.

source (all pics): yelp

The store itself is rather small - it's definitely a boutique - but it packs a punch.  Most obviously, you can find a wall-to-wall selection of different salts; it's what they're known for.  Don't be intimidated by the selection - you're encouraged to sample as many types of salt as you want!  The Meadow also carries a very respectable selection of imported chocolate (Blanxart and Dolfin were my favorites), wine, olive oil, bitters and syrups for your drinks, and flowers.  Serendipitously, I had been looking for a hand-powered coffee bean burr grinder - and they carried that, too!

The owners Jennifer and Mark Bitterman are happy to answer any questions you have.  Which is great, because I had questions about salt, chocolate, bitters, flowers... pretty much everything in their store!  Everything in there looks, smells, and tastes delicious.  I was even greeted with a sample of freshly-popped champagne!

One of the more unique products they sell at The Meadow is their Himalayan Salt Block.  It's a block... of salt!  It comes in many sizes (the one pictured is about 9 inches in diameter by about 3 inches thick), and can be used for nearly anything you can dream up.  Salt is an amazingly good heat conductor - put it on the grill, and cook an egg on it!  Or you could serve chilled sashimi on the block - it will add a subtle hint of saltiness.  I asked one of the owners what gave the Himalayan Salt Block its unique color and striations, and she informed me it came from the minerals (besides NaCl) where it was formed.  Needless to say, I also walked out of this beautiful little shop with a 9x9 inch Salt Block in tow.

The Meadow offers cocktail classes and Himalayan Salt Block cooking classes seasonally, and owner Mark Bitterman recently finished his book Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral.

Have you stopped by The Meadow recently?  How do you use flavored salts in your cooking?

Related: Best Way To Showcase Mesquite Smoked Salt

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Do you brown your butter?

Personally, I prefer my chocolate chip cookie recipe to be simple, efficient, and fast.  If I want a choco-chip cookie, there's no point to a lot of fuss - I want the cookie in my mouth!  While my usual go-to recipe has never failed me, I'd heard rumors of a better way to make a cookie: brown the butter!

Cook's Illustrated (always a tried and true source of kitchen know-how) decided early last year to improve their chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Among other things, they found that browning the butter yielded a cookie that tasted of caramel, almost like toffee!  This makes a dynamite paring with the chocolate in the cookie.  Properly browned butter - beurre noisette in French - takes on an almost hazelnut-like flavor.  The aroma is nutty, rich, and smooth all at once.

Since I prefer to keep my cookie recipe straight forward (i.e. I want to eat it asap!), I decided to adapt my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe (found here) with this new technique.  The results were astonishing!  I literally laughed - cookie in mouth - because it tasted so.good.  The best part?  (After eating the cookie, of course.)  My cookie recipe was almost easier to make!  I didn't have to bother with softening the butter, since I was melting and browning it anyways!

Do you brown the butter for your chocolate chip cookies?


Related: Bakers Tricks: Browning the Butter

Ingredient Spotlight: Merquén

Have you ever wondered what the end of the world tastes like?  For the native Mapuche of Chile (which, by the way, is their word for "The end of the world"), it tastes a lot like Merquén - that sassy, zesty, smokey spice they've been adding to their dishes for centuries.  Merquén is made from smoking the spicy cacho de cabra (goat horn) peppers.  If you like Spanish Paprika, you'll love Merquén!

Merquén, or Merkén (not to be confused with the oft-named wig!) is made by grinding together smoked ají cacho de cabra, cumin, toasted coriander seeds, and salt.  The historical process of making the spice is slow and elaborate.  The cacho de cabra peppers are left to age on the vine until they take a deep red color.  Then, they are dried in the sun for a short while before they are smoked over an open fire.  Traditionally, the peppers are ground whole (seeds included!) in a stone mortar.  When it has been reduced to a fine grain, the peppers are ground further with salt, toasted cilantro seeds, and often cumin.  This paprika-like blend adds an intense smokey flavor to dishes along with a distinct kick of heat.

While customarily used in native Mapuche recipes, Merquén is now a staple in nearly every Chilean kitchen.  Use this spice in soups and stews to add a unique subtle aroma, or as the main ingredient to a traditionally bland dish - it's really very versatile!  Chileans love Merquén best on buttered potatoes.  That makes the most sense, anyways; the most common potato was originally cultivated on the Chilean island of Chiloé - home to many Mapuche!


Merquén is becoming more available in the US now - look for it online from domestic distributors such as Tu Chile Aqui or Amazon.

Try Merquén in these dishes:

Garlic Chicken with Merquén
Mandarin Merquén Salsa
Puré Picante (Spicy Mashed Potatoes)

How would you use Merquén?