New: Sea Salt from Zeeland
Salt. We can’t live without it. With salt, (almost) everything tastes better. And more intense, above all. Add a few flakes of sea salt to a sweet, juicy mango and the flavor explodes in your mouth. Chocolate with salted caramel? Irresistible. It is salt’s magical transformative power as a flavor enhancer that makes it so indispensable in the kitchen.
We all know classic fine table salt (from underground salt layers). And then there’s sea salt, which is produced by evaporating seawater and is available in various varieties. For example, coarse sea salt, or the more refined and exclusive variety of sea salt known as fleur de sel (such as fleur de sel de Guérande from Brittany). Seawater can be evaporated faster or more slowly. If you extract salt from open basins in the sun, where the salty water evaporates slowly, you get light, hollow salt flakes. Rapid evaporation produces small, firm, cube-shaped salt crystals.
Oosterschelde
In the Netherlands, mainly table salt (Jozo!) is produced. We source sea salt from far away, such as Spain, Portugal and France. But now there is sea salt from Zeeland: Zeeuwsche Zoute. The first and only traditionally produced sea salt from the Netherlands, sourced from the Oosterschelde. Zeeuwsche Zoute is an initiative by native Zeeland resident Christian Clerx. “For my work, I spend a lot of time abroad, and I saw similar sea salt initiatives in Wales, Norway and the United States,” he says. “I thought: why isn’t there any Zeeland or Dutch sea salt?” A year ago, he first headed to the dike near his childhood home with a jerry can to start making salt from that water. By now, he has a modest salt production facility in Zeeland, where he produces around fifty kilos of salt per week.
RIJKS®
One of his first customers was RIJKS® restaurant, run by chef Joris Bijdendijk. Bijdendijk is one of the co-founders of Low Food and the recently opened Low Food Lab, and has been committed to using local Dutch products for years. At RIJKS®, for example, he cooks with traditional products such as Bergse anchovies, Chaam chicken and Boeren Leyden cheese. But also with new products from Dutch soil, such as Tomasu Soy Sauce, the only traditionally micro-brewed soy sauce in Europe. And Willem’s Wermoed, the first Dutch vermouth, inspired by the Hortus Botanicus.
Tasting
During a salt tasting at RIJKS®, we got to experience Zeeuwsche Zoute for the first time. The salt is beautifully white in color (the result of natural filtration, which removes impurities). The salt crystals are pyramid-shaped and light in texture (as a result of the slow evaporation). The shape of the crystals is irregular, so they dissolve in the mouth at different rates. The salt has a pleasant, subtle, long-lasting salty taste. Not a fleeting, almost biting salty taste like the one you experience with table salt. The texture of the salt crystals is finer and airier than that of coarse sea salt. The salt from Zeeland is pure and additive-free, unlike refined table salt, to which anti-caking agents are often added.
Tomato
And you save such an exclusive salt (from 9.95 euros per 100 grams) for special applications. A pinch of Zeeuwsche Zoute on a tomato, slice of cucumber or radish creates an intense explosion of flavor. It is also delicious for salting your steak, creating a crisp effect and adding extra flavor. Or sprinkle it over a soft-boiled egg. And we can also imagine, why not, snacking on a few salt flakes in front of the TV as an alternative to fattening chips, while retaining that irresistible salty sensation.
Zeeuwsche Zoute is available through the webshop. Another nice detail: the salt is beautifully packaged in an eye-catching tin.
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