During a recent visit to Tokyo, we discovered Shioya Mamorishi, a boisterous shop that specializes in all things salt, even selling salted soft-serve ice cream. Offerings include special blends for specific uses—noodles and hard-cooked eggs among them—and more than 50 varieties of seasoned salts, blends that pair coarse- or fine-grained salts with everything from yuzu and shiso to black sesame and wasabi.
Our favorites included sesame seed-matcha green tea salt and ginger salt.
At Milk Street, we created our own versions of these blends by combining ¼ cup Diamond Crystal kosher salt with 1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds and 1½ teaspoons matcha (green tea) powder or with 1½ teaspoons ground ginger and 1 teaspoon white sugar. Both are delicious sprinkled on steamed rice, roasted sweet potatoes, pork chops, grilled portobellos, fruits such as mango or poached pears, and popcorn. Also try them on sweets such as sugar cookies, glazed cakes and ice cream.
We’re already fans of blending leftover herbs and salt, a great tip we picked up from Alon Shaya, who never lets herbs go to waste. He combines equal parts herbs and coarse kosher salt—1 to 1 ratio—and grinds them together in the food processor before storing the mix in the freezer—in a zip-close bag or sealed container—where the flavor actually intensifies.
As the seasoned salts from Shioya Mamorishi showed us, however, herb-flavored salts are just the beginning.
For more on getting the most out of the most essential seasoning, check out our handy chart that lays out the equivalent weight for a given volume of salt, whether it’s table or sea salt. Plus, you’ll see how much to use in common cooking applications, like salting pasta.
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