hawaiian sea salt ??


 
G

Glenn Fleming

TVWBB Fan
sup folks??

was looking at the Kiawe chicken recipe but dont have the wood or the salt so it will have too wait. noticed there are 3 hawaiian sea salts white red and black, they all look really cool. has anyone tried these in other brines rubs and general recipes??? do they bring anything too the table?? they really caught my eye as i looked at places too buy them.. thanx

Glenn in SC
 
They're too expensive for me to use in rubs - outside of hawaiian dishes where I want authenticity. They are a lot more "earthy" than normal sea salts, with clay (red) and lava (black) traces in them.

I use these mostly as finishing salts when I want that earthy flavor.
 
Aloha Glenn,
I use Hawaiian sea salt in most of my cooking, especially grilling and bbq. I was born and raised in Hawaii and used to harvest for our own use along the rocky coast line where seawater was trapped in rock pockets and indentations and mother nature dried it out. The red sea salt has clay and minerals that gives it a nut like flavor and the black has charcoal and minerals in it and I find it quite strong with too much minerals. I like the natural one, but use the alaea (red) in poke, chunks of raw fresh fish and a few other ingredients for its nut like flavor. I use Hawaiian salt to season the whole hogs that I roast either in the imu or on a rotisserie. Living on the West Coast it is not difficult at all to buy any of the salts.

joe
 
I brought a big back from Oahu when I was there. The neighbor told me the stuff I got was good but not as good as some special stuff in a closed off part of the Island and he was going to take me there but we never made it. I also bought some red at Trader Joes and they also sell black. I need to do some more cooks with it. As far a Kiawe wood I would substitute mesquite or find some online. You can buy Kiawe lump here made by Ono Charcoal.

Joe, can you recommend some more recipes to use it with? Thanks
 
most boutique salts are really only effective when used as a finishing salt. Most of their uniqueness lies in the shape of the crystal and how it melts on the tongue. And any mineral adjuncts are typically, extremely subtle. Therefore, I would not recommend using them in brines or most cooking applications for that matter. Sprinkle some on freshly grilled meats and see for yourself whether they are worth the expense.
 
Hawaiian sea salt is not a "boutique" salt because it is more expensive here on the mainland. It has been used for decades upon decades upon decades by Hawaiians and other Polynesians as a seasoning agent for that matter. It has different characteristics from sea salts from different oceans, Kosher salts or mined salt. Certain sea salts from Europe look and taste different because of its mineral contents. The red sea salt has clay, basically red dirt in it while the black sea salt has activated charcoal, not lava to make it black.
 
Shaun... I looked in the chicken recipe section of this forum and noticed a number of "huli-huli" style chicken, many with multiple ingredients.

For personal taste I use Hawaiian salt and black pepper only, like my mom taught me 60 years ago. I also use it when I grill or smoke meat; subbing it in place of table salt. Hawaiian sea salt is milder than regular table salt.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Hawaiian sea salt is not a "boutique" salt because it is more expensive here on the mainland. It has been used for decades upon decades upon decades by Hawaiians and other Polynesians as a seasoning agent for that matter. It has different characteristics from sea salts from different oceans, Kosher salts or mined salt. Certain sea salts from Europe look and taste different because of its mineral contents. The red sea salt has clay, basically red dirt in it while the black sea salt has activated charcoal, not lava to make it black. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I had no intent to offend. Maybe I should have refer to it as a "specialty" salt as in something other than table salt.

All salt, either mined or not, comes from sea water and has a certain amount of adjunct minerals. Jeffrey Steingarten, in an essay titles "Salt Chic" (see: It Must Have Been Something I Ate) did blind taste testing with trained tasters, and found that most of the different sea salts available cannot be identified when compared to diamond kosher salt. The few that had discernible differences were preferred less than diamond.

There was an addendum to the essay. Harold McGee noted that some pink sea salts contain halophilic (salt loving) bacteria that can provide some additional flavors when these salts are used in a cure.

I'm familiar with Hawaiian pink salt but have not used it, so I will defer to your expertise. However, unless the clay is in a significant quantity relative to the salt, I would not suggest it's use in a brine.
 
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