How Spice Island’s New Line Inspires Global Cooking

October 2, 2018

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Our Norwegian herring, baby and champagne grape, gorgonzola, micro green salad with Spice Island Hickory Smoke Salt

(Gerry Furth-Sides) International spices have come mainstream. Just one glance at a supermarket spice shelf today reads light years away from even a year ago. Spice Island’s New Line of Seasonings Inspire Global Cooking with product plus a website filled with details and recipes, and most of the sources. It goes along with the wonderful current trend of local ingredients and international seasonings.

Spice Islands Telecherry Black Peppercorn (grinder), vintage Old Hickory Smoked Salt, Harissa, Chipotle Chili (grinder)

Spice Islands Pure Mediterranean Sea Salt

Spice Islands Old Hickory Smoked Salt adds just the right note to a Fried Chicken Salad with hard boiled egg, grated parmesan, and croutons

Spice Islands® Old Hickory Smoked Salt is designed to add the flavor spark of an outdoor grill to savory dishes prepared in the kitchen. We welcome back this seasoning, so famous in San Francisco and hard to find till now.

Fun Fact: Smoked salt dates back to the eighth and ninth centuries when Vikings evaporated seawater over wood fires, producing a salt imbued with a deep, smoky flavor.

Spice Islands Old Hickory Smoked Salt adds fresh highlight to the Smoked herring, baby heirloom tomatoes, grilled Brussel sprouts, mushroom and olive salad on mixed greens.

Spice Islands Old Hickory Smoked Salt adds a final outdoor grill spark to a Sun basket ribeye steak dish that already has raw ingredients delivered to the door

We loved making Hangtown Fry for Sunday brunch with Old Hickory Smoked Salt, which we couldn’t find until now. //localfoodeater.com/placerville-california-celebrates-hangtown-fry-food-history/

Spice Islands Old Hickory Smoked Salt deepens the flavors of the eggs and oysters in Hangtown Fry

Harissa is another spice we have recently have come to know, which become the darling of the culinary world. Let’s see how well Spice Islands does in its description: “Rich with notes of chiles, coriander, cumin, garlic and lemon, harissa enhances food with a complex flavor and mild kick. Very much like sriracha, it is used in stews, soups, pasta, and couscous, and rubbed on a variety of meats including goat and lamb.” … …Just as the flavor of sriracha maintains a severely loyal fan base, so too, does the bright and spicy harissa. The North African spice is a staple in Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria, and is widely used in Morocco, many European countries and in a variety of Middle Eastern dishes.” Excellent!

Harissa paste and peppers

Fun Fact: The cuisine of North Africa is known as Maghreb cuisine, which includes the countries of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. And within that cuisine, harissa is often described as “The National Condiment of Tunisia.” Yes, this is true although usually inaccurately described in other ways. Dishes that are enhanced with Harissa include:

Harissa restaurant’s cheeseburger with harissa aioli (made with olive oil, not mayo)

Spice Islands Harissa kicks up an Original Tunisian Sandwich

A Tunisian couscous is identified by the harissa flavorings

Ground Chipotle Chile. Ground Chipotle Chile brightens Hispanic and Latin dishes. To create the perfect chipotle chile, you actually start with a jalapeño. Once the jalapeño is ripened, it’s smoke-dried, transforming it into a chipotle. Chipotles have the same intense kick as jalapeños but with a deep and smoky flavor. Spice Islands® chipotle chile seasoning adds sweet red peppers, onion, garlic, sea salt and other spices for a potent kick of heat. The convenient grinder cap can be easily adjusted so that the grind moves from a table-ready fine to a more coarse setting for cooking.

Fun Fact: Chipotle chiles are 10 times hotter than ancho chiles. But about 5 times milder than a habanero.

The world’s most popular and frequently traded spice, black pepper is prized for its hot, biting flavor and pungent aroma. Spice Islands® sources their rich tellicherry black peppercorns from India’s Malabar region, where the fruit is still picked by hand. Large and uniformly sized, they’re noted for their superior aroma and robust flavor.

Spice Islands adjustable Tellicherry Black Pepper grinder enlightens dishes at the table or pots in the kitchen

The convenient grinder cap adjusts the grind from coarse to fine with an easy push or pull. A full description of the peppercorns is on the back of the bottle.

Fun Fact: Today, pepper is a common sight on tables all over the world. But a few thousand years ago, it was considered so precious that it was traded ounce for ounce for gold and welcomed as payment for rent and taxes.

Spice Islands Tellicherry Black Pepper heats up a grilled beef, sweet onion, and sun-dried tomato salad

Neela Paniz’s famous The Bombay Cafe cookbook, as every Indian recipe book calls for the finest Black Peppercorn

And we conclude this tour with pure Spice Islands All Natural Fine Grind Sea Salt. It is gathered in pans from the low waters of the Mediterranean and evaporated in the warm sun and gentle breezes for a fine grind. This makes the pure, all-natural salt flavorful without being overpowering in order to transform and draw out the flavors.

Fun Fact: Salt’s purity and simplicity have been appreciated by many throughout the years, including Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, who said, “Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea.”

Spice Islands Fine Mediterranean sea walt and a dash of Tellicherry Black Peppercorns – “gold” in a dish

As moderator of the Western Expo panel on international spices presented to professional chefs and intense foodies, I was happy to introduce the topic of where to find the best spices. Spice Islands was listed as one of these sources on all the event program announcements.