The food thread

Salt from the salt pans in Kutchh, Gujarat stills sells for 20 GBP a tonne, without iodine. As crystals, at times fist sized.

And here some shops sell it at about 8 Rupees (about 8 pence) a kilo, the most expensive brand is about 25p a kilo.
That is for powdered salt with iodine, and some anti caking agent (starch sometimes) added.
 
Added jaggery and peanuts to the solids left over after making ghee, also a single crushed cardamom.
Melted mix spread on baking parchment.
Yummy.
Jaggery is reduced sugar cane juice, it is very popular here.

This item is called chikki, many varieties are there, the use of milk solids was the distinctive part in my preparation.
 

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I only say this to make my good friend Cal Weldon a better and more informed person...

It is extremely unwise to argue with me on matters of Chemistry! I did, after all, win "The Tuttell Prize for Chemistry" at School!

Consider the matter of KP Peanut spread:

S7 KP Peanut Butter.jpg


What is special about this product, apart from coming from one of my favourite towns, Ashby de la Zouch?

S7 KP Peanut Butter Ashby, Leicestershire.jpg


I assure you the excellent KP company would not add Sea Salt unless it was special. There I will rest the matter. :cool:
 
I only say this to make my good friend Cal Weldon a better and more informed person...

It is extremely unwise to argue with me on matters of Chemistry! I did, after all, win "The Tuttell Prize for Chemistry" at School!

Consider the matter of KP Peanut spread:
I will only venture further into this to make our Friend Steve from Portsmouth a better and more informed person...

It is extremely unwise to deal with a person well versed in food and seasonings simply from a chemists’ perspective. I am aware of your talents in the kitchen. You put them on display.

It is extremely telling that you brought forth an example of advertising to strengthen your previous, ill advised, opinionated, and apparently under researched post. I am hoping you are doing research as I type this.
There I will rest the matter.
Then I too will follow and not continue with this gentle diatribe. I wish you the best. You are still the same good man diyAudio knows. I hope your weekend goes well.
 
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Does this refer to blackberries and salmonberries? If so, I feel your pain. For the last ___ years there has not been enough summer rain to give them any size or quantity. Too bad, we have so many of them locally that it's a real shame.
Yup. bushes are covered with ones that had gone over but swelled in the rain. Ah well always next year. And time to start checking the sloes out.
 
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggery....
Apart from South Asia, it is sold as these as well:
So I thought it was common, but the US price on Amazon is high, here it starts about 75 cents a kilo.

I can get a large variety from hammer hard to modelling clay consistency, organic, factory made (sugarcane derived) and also palm tree jaggery from the Kerala store near my house.
He even has banana chips coated with spicy jaggery, an ancient precursor to candy for kids, you suck off the coating then eat the banana chip inside.

But normal jaggery is prepared by reducing sugarcane juice in a wide pan, to about 200 C, and letting it cool. Texture is at most ice pick hard, it breaks up with a screw driver or ice pick.
Hammer hard is too hard.

There is an organisation here, they do a lot of traditional stuff, and they make jaggery by boiling sugarcane juice and purifying it with wild okra instead of lime, purely organic, in iron vessels, on a wood fire. I liked it.
 
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As for chikki, it is made with many main ingredients like peanuts, sesame, black sesame, roasted chick peas, puffed rice, and others, including almonds, raisins, pistachio, figs and walnuts.
Fennel seeds and shredded coconuts, among others, are added at times.
Jaggery, sugar, crude sugar, corn syrup are used as binders, and the famous Lonavala chikki sometimes has flavor added to the binder, a sort of sorbet flavored sweet.
 
It is illegal to use sea salt in edible goods here, except for traditional medicine prepared in a certified factory.
Edible goods must have iodized salt, from a certified plant, as 'edible common salt'.
Sea salt crystals are available from industrial supply businesses, and some shops do keep it.
Iodine was added as it helps fight thyroid deficiency issues.
 
I have found that Salt is a deeply complicated subject!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt

The literature is very vague...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_edible_salts

Some sources say your usual refined common salt (Halite) is 98% NaCl. Some suggest that Sea Salt is about 10% of other minerals. Especially Magnesium and Potassium.

I am a fan of Fizzy Lever Salts, which contain a lot of Magnesium, traditionally having a calming effect. It is most strange that too much Salt alledgedly raises blood pressure, considering your body has pounds of it already.

I really don't know, based on what I have read. Seems it is common in the USA and presumably Canada to Iodize common salt. :confused:
 
There is nothing healthier about sea salt, nothing.
Except the taste?
Neither of them is packed with any other than NaCl. The minerals you mention, along with a number of others, are in such trace amounts, so as not to count for anything resembling nutrition.
When you say magnesium, I think that's a typo, you mean manganese.
Na, I think he got magnesium correct?
Iodine is not present in sea salt nor rock salt. Iodine is added to table salt. It is such an important element, it was decided years ago, the best way to get it into our diets was the salt shaker. Strange thing is, they strip the other elements from table salt before adding the iodine. Go figure.

Seriously?
So there's not much else in it and then they take it out, Iodine is found in other food sources...

We had friends who lived in Spain some years ago and their local restaurant only used Maldon Sea Salt, if that's not a better recomendation for it's taste...
 
I only say this to make my good friend Cal Weldon a better and more informed person...

It is extremely unwise to argue with me on matters of Chemistry! I did, after all, win "The Tuttell Prize for Chemistry" at School!

Consider the matter of KP Peanut spread:

View attachment 1091592

What is special about this product, apart from coming from one of my favourite towns, Ashby de la Zouch?

View attachment 1091593

I assure you the excellent KP company would not add Sea Salt unless it was special. There I will rest the matter. :cool:
Why is there cocoa butter in that peanut butter? True peanut butter contains only peanuts and salt, like this fine example. Himalayan pink salt nonetheless ;)

peanut butter.jpg