Sunday, November 9, 2008

Red-and-green speckled Christmas salt


This year for Christmas I am making baskets. I'll be writing a story about it for my employer, so I'll link to that once I am done.
In the meantime, though, check out one of my basket items. There's something about these mini jars of salt that makes me want to break into song ("What Child is This") and sit in front of a fire with some mulled wine.

The speckles of berry-red peppercorns and fir-green peppercorn are gorgeous against the salt crystals, and a couple of star anise give the jar a dash of exoticism.

I've adapted a recipe from Nigella's new book "Nigella Christmas."

Her recipe calls for sea salt, red peppercorns, crushed red chili peppers, with the option of star anise.

I've slightly adapted her recipe for my purposes, using star anise, red and green peppercorns and kosher salt instead.

It's this simple:
Sterilize your jars (This is important, try to keep your hands out of the jar once you're done).
Mix up the salt and other ingredients.
Pour into the jars. Voila.
Now keep it in a dark cool place until they're ready to come out. This salt lasts up to a year and would be best used as a rub for meats like poultry, pork, beef roasts. Or you can just put it on your counter looking pretty.

Be warned, red peppercorns and star anise are not cheap nor easy to find. You'll have to make a trip to your luxury foods store.

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