Celery Salt

PURPOSE

WHAT IS IT?

Salt, and celery seed, are milled down into a vegetal blend that adds a salty savory sweetness to all kinds of foods, and beverages.

EXPERIENCE

The salt allows the essential oils in the celery seeds to pass into your tongue faster, and with greater transmission. That’s what brings out the fresh garden flavor of the seeds making them taste more like celery than they would on their own. Celery seeds have high levels of sodium nitrate in them that, when combined with sea salt makes for a salt that’s perceived as both a tad sweet, vegetal, and then extra salty.

TRADITIONAL USES

• An excellent savory-salty base for sour cream dips;
• A seasoning in, and rim salt (with a touch of citric acid) for a Bloody Mary;
• Dry rubs, especially ones like Old Bay®;
• Frequently in cole slaw, potato salad.
• Fish fry batters, like for fried oysters, use it instead of salt for lift in the flavor that counters often strong seafood notes.

A FEW IMPROVISATIONAL RIFFS:

• My dry-cure beef rub;
• The salty savory for my porcini-panko roasted tomatoes;
• My rustic pasta has chopped sage, and celery salt with a little chervil, and olive oil;
• Steamed parsnips tossed in ghee and celery salt.

THE BACKSTORY

Celery seeds already have existing levels of sodium nitrate in them, when combined with sea salt you get an extra salty salt. Sodium nitrate is very valuable in preserving and curing foods. Next time you plan to season or dry cure some homemade sausages, be sure to add a pinch of celery salt for big herbaceous flavor.

HEALTH WARNING

If you have an allergy, or sensitivity to nitrates, Do not use celery salt, which is naturally high in nitrates.

Nitrates are a natural preservative. In limited quantities, they have been generally regarded as safe, and are, historically, a sanitizer and preservative for millennia.

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