We’ve teamed up with Hayman’s Gin to create our very own ‘Maldini’ cocktail. Using their London Dry Gin, we’ve paired this with a Maldon Salt solution base, where you use water and salt together to create a balance to the drink.
Salt with Gin? We know this might surprise a few people, but did you know that the use of salt with alcohol actually enhances the sweetness and balances the bitterness of a dry gin! It really is delicious and makes a great cocktail for your guests at a dinner party.
Add all ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and stir for approximately 15 seconds until diluted.
Pour into a Nick and Nora or Martini Glass (chilled) and serve with cornichon on a cocktail stick.
Join Romy Gill in creating these delicious roasted sweet potatoes, perfect to accompany her Hot and Spicy Whole Roasted Chicken.
Sweet potatoes are a great addition to a roasted chicken due to the sweet, earthy and nutty flavour that the wholesome root vegetable gives, elevating the spiciness of the chicken that Romy infuses. With a generous pinch of Maldon Salt, chilli flakes and garlic the seasonings will burst in flavour for the dish.
Preheat oven at 180C.
While the oven is getting hot, marinate the potatoes with Maldon Salt, pepper, chilli flakes, garlic granules and a good glug of olive oil.
Layer them on the baking tray and bake 40 minutes.
Serve with the whole roasted chicken.
Join Romy Gill in creating these deliciously stuffed courgettes, filled with lamb mince and a bundle of spices to give a burst of flavour to the dish.
Courgettes can have a slightly sweet flavour when roasted in the oven. When they are stuffed with the gorgeous, succulent filling of lamb mince it causes the ordinary courgette to become much versatile when cooking. You can find over lamb dishes including our Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder!
Cut the courgettes in half and then scoop the flesh out. Mash the flesh in a bowl, mixing in the lamb mince; garlic, banana shallot, ground black pepper, paprika, turmeric, ground coriander, 1tsp Maldon Salt, tomato purée and chopped mint.
Heat 3tsp of olive oil in a pan and add the mixture. Cook the mixture for 6-7 minutes on high heat.
Once the mixture is half cooked, keep aside to cool down.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
While the oven is getting hot, fill the courgettes with the mixture. Sprinkle over the top of the filled courgettes with Maldon Salt and add the panko bread crumbs for a crispy crunch.
Cook until golden brown for around 10 minutes.
Enjoy with flat breads and a leafy salad on the side.
Wanting to taste vibrant, citrus notes to your cocktail? We’ve paired up withHayman’s in using their Exotic Citrus Gin, giving the Salty Dog a burst of flavour with a sharp twist of grapefruit and lime juice. We have also included our very own Maldon Salt rim to enhance the flavour of of the exotic fruit peels.
Why add a salt rim to your cocktail? Not only does it keep your garnish from falling into your cocktail and throwing the flavour off, but it adds flavour to the drink, allowing it to develop in stages. Did you know the taste of isolated salt can actually awaken your taste buds! Therefore this allows you to enjoy the variety of flavours within your cocktail…science and delicious!
Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and stir.
Shake and strain over ice in a Rock’s Glass.
Garnish the drink with a Maldon Salt rim and a slice of grapefruit.
Start this recipe the day before you want to eat as the steak needs overnight brining. Up to 24 hours ahead is fine. You can also cook this steak in the oven and on the hob if you don’t have access to a barbecue.
When it comes to cooking the steak, you apply the same principles as below, but take the low part of the cooking in the oven – around 100C in a fan oven for as long as it takes to get to the temperature you are looking for. See the numbers you need within the recipe. The sear part can happen in a very very hot frying pan, just flipping and turning to get maximum Maillard reactions until it is cooked how you like to eat it. Again, whether to rest or not is a personal preference.
Begin by dry-brining the ribeyes. Please do it, it really makes the biggest difference (see more detail on why below) . Simply sprinkle Maldon Salt over both sides of the steaks, place on a rack set over a tray and slide into the fridge for 12-24 hours. The rack allows the air to circulate so the steak doesn’t swim in its own juices. Allow a good tablespoon or so of Maldon Salt per kilo of meat. Don’t cover the tray, you want the surface to dry out a little but do make sure the tray is on the bottom shelf of the fridge and not touching any other food.
When you are ready to cook, fire up your barbecue ready for slow indirect cooking, aiming for a gentle temperature of around 120°C.
Set the steak, always straight from the fridge, onto the grill bars far away from the fire, and shut the lid. Cook using very gentle convection heat, take the steak up to a temperature 10°C below the temperature you want to eat it at. A temperature probe is essential here. No need to turn or rotate, just let it very gently do its thing. It will look dry and unappetising at this point, never fear. The drying of the surface is going to work in your favour, allowing for the Maillard crust to build up during the sear.
Whilst the steak is having the low and slow treatment, get everything else ready.
To make the walnut and tarragon pesto, tip the walnuts into a small fireproof frying pan and toast over a medium heat on the hob for a couple of minutes. Add to a food processor along with the tarragon, garlic, olive oil and white wine vinegar and blend to a smooth paste. Season to taste with Maldon Salt and freshly ground black pepper and scoop into a bowl. Set aside.
Prepare the salad by chopping up the tomatoes and dividing onto a plates or a serving platter. Scatter over herbs and drizzle with a really generous glug of extra virgin olive oil. Season well with sprinkles of Maldon Salt to taste. Set aside at room temperature for maximum flavour.
Back to the steak – once it’s reached your chosen temperature you want get your barbecue really good and hot, so get those coals glowing red. I often start another little chimney of charcoal at this point if I feel it needs more heat. And get those bottom vents open wide – remember that more air means a hotter fire. Don’t worry about the top vents as you sear with the lid up.
When your fire is hot, get the steak directly on the hot grill bars over the fire. Sear it hot and fast, flipping every 30 seconds or so with the lid up. Every time you turn, try to place it back on a slightly different bit of the grill bars to get maximum heat.
Once the steak has a deep, mahogany brown crust on both sides and has reached your desired eating temperature, get it off and slice up to share, serving the salad and pesto alongside.
Top TipsBy Genevieve Taylor:
Brining is the number one trick to boost meat tenderness
Salt is amazing: a little water-soluble molecule (sodium chloride or NaCl if you’re a bit of a science nerd like me) that has the ability to amplify the flavour of everything. Salt makes things taste better – your roast pork more porky, your ribeye steak more beefy or your curry more deliciously spicy – but it also has rather more miraculous properties than just enhancing flavour.
All meat benefits from the application of salt to increase juiciness and I have got into the habit of salting, or brining, all my meat before I cook it, regardless of the cut or species. It is, however, especially effective when you want to cook the perfect steak. Good steak is a treat and it really pays to cook it as well as you can.
With dry-brining, when you sprinkle salt over meat it quickly draws out a little water from the muscle cells, creating a really concentrated salty brine on the surface. Over time this salty brine soaks back into the meat by a process called diffusion. Nature always wants to seek equilibrium – so the more salty outside diffuses into the less salty inside, doing its darnedest to make things equal. When you salt meat, it physically breaks the protein bonds that hold the muscle cells together in a tight bundle so over time the tight bundle becomes a much looser bundle. By disrupting the bonds between muscle fibres they cannot physically contract up as much once that meat hits the heat, so less of the water inside gets squeezed out. The result? Juicer meat with the flavour ramped up to the max.
How to dry-brine
Dry-brining is ridiculously easy and quick. Simply sprinkle Maldon Salt all over the meat and set the onto a rack hung over a tray, slide into the fridge, uncovered, and leave undisturbed while the salt does it magic. The rack allows air to circulate and prevents the meat from resting in its own juices. A rough rule of thumb is to use a level tablespoon of Maldon Salt per kilo of meat. I try to leave the meat brining for 12-24 hours as standard, but even a couple of hours is worth doing if you are short of time. There’s no need to wash the salt off after brining. In fact I would encourage you not to as the salt will have slightly dried out the surface and a dry surface results in more effective Maillard reactions.
Maillard reaction, and why we don’t want perfect grill bar marks
The Maillard, or browning, reaction is a chemical chain reaction sequence that creates hundreds of new flavour molecules. It is why steak with a glorious crisply seared crust will always taste infinitely better than steak that is floppy, pale and grey-looking. While we may have been led to believe that perfect grill bar marks on our steak are the end goal, if evidence of the Maillard reactions is shown by browning on the surface, it almost goes without saying that grill marks are 100% not the aim here. You are only allowing the browning reaction to happen where the marks are, all the unmarked bits don’t get the insane flavour boost Maillard gives you. The more browning, the more flavour and an evenly browned crusty outer is the goal rather than the neat parallel lines mirroring your grill bars. Constant turning and flipping your steaks over a very high heat is the way to get an even crust.
Why reverse sear?
I prefer to cook thick steaks to share; it’s easier to nail the internal temperature vs crust conundrum, i.e. max sear on the outside, minimal chance of overcooking the inside. And I like the spirit of generosity it’s served in; a sharing dish always feels like a more friendly way of eating, offering an edible gift to those I love. Sharing steaks are always best cooked used a brilliantly failsafe technique called ‘reverse sear’. The weight of steak is irrelevant as you are cooking to temperature and so this technique is identical whether you are cooking a 500-600g steak for two or a 1-1.2kg steak for four. You do need an instant read thermometer, such as a Thermapen, for this technique but they are such useful things for all meat cooking I think they are a worthwhile investment.
With the reverse sear technique you flip the traditional way of cooking steak on its head, so instead of searing hot and fast, then moving to a cooler spot to finish cooking, you start very cool and finish very, very hot indeed. The result is a steak cooked to equal perfection from the outside to the centre, with a glorious deep brown crust all over.
Heat energy from the fire of your barbecue excites the molecules on the outside of the steak and those molecules transfer the heat into the centre of the meat. By starting your cook very slowly that heat transfer happens evenly, so your steak will be the exact same temperature on the outside as it is in the middle. Call it the fire cook’s equivalent of sous vide, if you like. The danger with starting high and finishing cooler is that you overdo the outside while trying to get the inside done as you like it, so the outside layer of a steak can be dry and overcooked. Reverse sear gives you, the cook, the chance for gentle equilibrium from top to bottom, resulting in a juicer steak with a better crust.
What temperature to cook to?
Ribeye steaks have a generous nugget of tasty fat in the centre, and whilst I like rare steak, the ribeye is a good cut to take a little further, perhaps to medium rare or medium to render the fat melting and succulent. But by all means eat it rare if you prefer.
With the reverse sear method you cook the steak low and slow to 10C below the final eating temperature, then to sear it very hot and fast until you have the temperature you want to eat it at.
Follow these temperatures when cooking:
Rare – cook to 42C low and slow, then take to 52C with a hot and fast sear
Medium rare – 46c initially, then 56C to eat
Medium – 50C followed by 60C
Why I don’t bother to rest steak
I always prefer to cook steak to the temperature I want to each it at and eat it as quickly as possible after getting it off the grill. The reason being that meat carries on cooking once off the heat and resting, but the rate of carryover cooking is rather variable – is it a hot summers day, or rather cool and chilly, or a humid damp day? These things have a big impact on carryover cooking meaning it can be impossible to judge when to remove it from the grill. The good news is, with dry brining, I guarantee your steak will be juicy and succulent straight from the grill.
Genevieve Taylor: Seared – The Ultimate Guide to Barbecuing Meat
Pork and apple is a classic combination. Any variety of sharp apple will do here, but the red ones add a beautiful splash of colour to your kebabs.
Cut the pork steaks into 3cm (1 ¼ inch) cubes, dropping them into a mixing bowl as you go. Add the mustard, olive oil and a good pinch of Maldon Salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir well to coat the meat in the marinade, cover, then transfer to the fridge to marinate for 2 hours, or overnight if you have time.
When you are ready to cook, light the barbecue and set up the fire for direct cooking.
Chop the apples into quarters, remove the cores, then cut each piece in half – you should have 16 wedges. Add the apple to the pork and stir to coat in the marinade. Thread alternating pieces of pork and apple onto the skewers.
Once the barbecue is hot, lay the skewers onto the grill bars a little away from the fire – you want to cook over a moderate heat. Shut the lid and cook for 20 minutes, or until the pork is cooked through; the internal temperature should read 63c (145 F) for medium or 71c (160 F) for well done on a digital thermometer.
Serve with salad leaves and mustard on the side if you like.
Dredging clumps of crispy green beans through chilli sauce spiced mayonnaise is rather awonderful way to eat. This pairs well with a cold beer and friends. I like to pile the lightly coated green beans to encourage a bit of clumping. But do still cook in manageable batches. Draining each in-between piling on to a plate. Then you can tear away sections that way you eat form a perfect dredging apparatus.
In terms of adding chilli to the mayonnaise, play with your favourite sauce options. Gowith a hot sauce for a more vinegar led kick. For a spicy funk, try XO sauce or chilli rayu.
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until fluffy with soft peaks. Whisk in the flour and sparkling water.
Heat the oil in a wide, deep pan until about 180C or when a little bit of batter fries well in contact with the oil.
Meanwhile mix together the chilli sauce and the mayonnaise.
Dredge the beans through the batter, allowing any excess to fall off. Gently lay the batter-covered beans in the pan, crisscrossing the beans to form tangled masses. Fry in batches for 3 minutes, turning once to cook evenly. Drain on kitchen paper and repeat until the beans are cooked. Add a generous pinch of Maldon Salt to each batch you make.
Arrange on a platter with the chilli mayonnaise in a deep dipping bowl. Take great pleasure in dredging chunks of green beans through the chilli mayonnaise.
The Dusty Knuckle is East London’s favourite bakery and café with being experts in creating seriously good bread, knockout sandwiches and everything in between! Having two locations based in Dalston and Harringay, The Dusty Knuckle offer an abundance of baked goods, where you can wine & dine and even attend their baking classes during the weekend, learning how to make their ‘knock-out’ breads.
Sharing their baking secrets is at the heart of the bakery, where managers Max Tobias, Rebecca Oliver and Daisy Terry have shared it all with the release of their latest cook book, ‘The Dusty Knuckle’, whereby Maldon Salt is credited for being the bakery’s salt of choice!
Here we delve into one of the recipe’s in which The Dusty Knuckle have used Maldon Salt to enhance their dish…the infamous Focaccia!
For the poolish, add the water and yeast to a bowl, mix until your yeast is dissolved, then throw in the flour. Mix quickly with your hands; this will be wet and sloppy and you are only looking to mix it enough so that there are no wet bits and no dry clumps. Scrape your bowl down, cover it with a clean cloth or lid and leave somewhere warm to ferment. How long this takes depends on the heat of your home, your yeast, your flour, your hands. You are basically looking for it to have grown to almost triple in size and for the surface to be covered in little bubbles, roughly 2 hours. Use it before it begins to deflate and drop down the edges of the bowl.
Add the first water addition for the dough, and the yeast. It will separate and feel slimy; don’t worry, this is normal. Add your flours and mix thoroughly until everything is combined. If you are doing this by hand, it will take around 4 minutes, and if using a mixer with a dough hook, around 2 minutes on slow speed. Scrape your bowl down, cover and leave for an hour. This rest period (called autolysis) allows the flour to further absorb the water, which is important in this recipe as it uses nearly the same amount of water as flour. It should rise nicely and it may get a bit of a crusty top: don’t worry about this, it’ll all get mixed in.
Add the second water addition and Maldon Salt, and mix in with your hands (again, it will break up, but don’t worry, it’ll soon come back together). Once your dough is looking a bit more coherent, you will need to work it a bit. The easiest way to do this is to grab one side, stretching it upwards as far as it will allow you, then fold it back on itself, turn the bowl slightly and repeat, working your way around and around (keep the dough in the bowl; you will thank yourself when cleaning up later). The dough will start off shaggy and will tear easily, but will soon become elastic and silky. This will probably take you about 10 minutes, but don’t scrimp on the time here: you are building strength in the dough, which is the key to that chewy delicious bread. You can use a mixer – we do – for this, mixing for 2 minutes on slow speed, then 4 minutes on fast.
Check your dough for elasticity: does it stretch without tearing? If it’s still a bit weak and tears easily when you lift it, give it a couple more minutes.
Once mixed and silky and lovely and smooth and soft, take the dough out of the bowl, pour 2 generous glugs of olive oil into the bowl and replace the dough in the bowl. Cover and leave to rest for 1 hour, then fold and leave for another hour, before folding again and leaving for another hour (3 hours in total from mixing the final dough). To fold the dough, grab the edge of the dough with oily fingers and stretch it as high as it will let you, then fold it back over itself. Do this 4 times (north, south, east, west) to complete one fold.
After 3 hours your dough should be feeling pillowy, soft and silky, and bubbly. Turn it out onto a well-oiled standard-sized baking tray and fold it neatly into a square shape (don’t worry if this is much smaller than the tray as it will sprawl out and fill the tray) and leave somewhere nice and warm, and not too airy, for 1 hour. (If following the morning bake schedule, then this is when you would put it in the fridge – it can be in the fridge at this stage for up to 12 hours.)
Fold each side in to create a square and leave it for another hour, then do this one more time and leave for its final hour.
Give it a prod: if it feels like it will let you, gently slide oily hands right underneath and slowly stretch it out, pulling from the central underbelly. Be delicate here: it should feel like a wobbly, airy pillow (if it doesn’t leave it another hour). Ensure you do not tear the dough. It will relax and start to fill the tray. Heat your oven to its hottest setting.
Whisk together 200ml (7fl oz/scant 1 cup) olive oil and 100ml (3 ½ fl oz/scant ½ cup) water until cloudy and immediately pour all over the top of the dough – be super-generous here. Dimple the top of the dough with your fingertips – sharp hard dimples are better than little soft ones so don’t worry if you go right through to the tray or even make a little hole; this will move the bubbles around inside and help get that chewy, open structure we are all looking for. Because it is so oily and bubbly, and nice to touch, it is tempting to over-dimple which can knock the air out, so just prod it enough so the surface is evenly dimpled. Sprinkle with Maldon Salt and bake for 15 minutes or until deep and golden brown. Be super-careful taking this out of the oven as the oil is hot and there will be excess on the tray.
Remove from the tray straight away and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Make the classic whiskey sour with a flowery twist from the infused flavours of lavender and nectarine syrup to give a subtle sweetness to the cocktail…delicious!
Prepare the syrup the day before by mixing the water, sugar, a pinch of Maldon Salt and the cut nectarine in a saucepan. Let it boil for 5 minutes, add the lavender and remove from the heat. Cover and leave to cool.
Mix the ingredients in a liquidiser at full power until the ice has started to crush and a thick foam has formed.
Serve and garnish with a sprig of lavender.
Create the perfect pistachio ice cream, but make it vegan! The buttery, nutty flavour of the humble pistachio really is intensified when combined with the rich, creamy coconut milk as the vegan alternative to the ice cream. Sprinkled with a pinch of Maldon Salt and chocolate cocoa and you’ll want to go for seconds!
Put all the ingredients in a liquidiser and blend at full power until the mixture is a smooth cream with no chunks.
Pour the cream mixture into the cake mould, cover it with baking paper and freeze it for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.
Chop and toast the pistachios for the topping for a 2-3 minutes. Scrape one side of the chocolate bar with a knife to get chocolate shavings.
If you want, create balls with a special spoon or make quenelles with the help of two soup spoons. Sprinkle each portion with pistachios, chocolate shavings and a pinch of Maldon Salt.
