Citrus

Pickled onions are the magic fix-it condiment in my refrigerator. You could serve me the worst dish ever, and if it had a few pickled onions on top, I’d probably say, “Hmm. Not bad.” Of course, that means that they can also take something that’s already delicious and make it spectacular. They’re a traditional partner with pibils, the banana leaf–wrapped, pit-cooked meats of the Yucatan. I particularly like them on tacos (see Cochinita Pibil Tacos with Habanero Salsa, page 95, and Tacos de Huevos, page 87), where they give an extra crunch and hit of acidity. I’ve made them all sorts of ways over the years—combining the onions with lime juice, salt, and cumin; blanching the onions first, then tossing in vinegar and Tabasco—but it wasn’t until my delightful friend Patricia Jinich turned me on to her method that I made it mine, too. Pati, who blogs at patismexicantable. com, experimented endlessly (well, sixteen batches) to find the right combination that would substitute for Yucatecan bitter orange juice before she settled on this one. It was worth it, but if you can find bitter orange (labeled naranja agria in Latin stores), use it instead of the juice/vinegar combination here.

This recipe started the way all jam recipes should: I came into a bounty of stunningly delicious, in-season fruit. It wasn’t from a blueberry patch like those in southern Maine my homesteading sister, Rebekah, picks from, but it was the closest thing I have to such: the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market. One of my favorite vendors there, Tree and Leaf, had blueberries one summer that were better than any I’ve tasted outside Maine. I paid a pretty penny for them, went home, and broke open Mes Confitures, the tome by famous French jam maker Christine Ferber. I found her take on a wild blueberry–lemon jam, and I took shameless liberties with it, as anybody working with much different fruit should. I used much less sugar (her wild ones must be very tart), and streamlined the process. The result is a celebration of the blueberry, brightened with slices of candied lemon, peel and all. Use it anytime you want good jam: on toast, stirred into yogurt, and even as the basis of such desserts as Blueberry-Lemon Tart with Toasted Coconut (page 165).

Preserved lemons can spike up the flavor of any dish, particularly something rich that needs the cut-through-the-fat talents only an acidic ingredient can bring. This method, which I based on a recipe in Tom Colicchio’s ’wichcraft (Clarkson Potter, 2009), drastically reduces the amount of time it takes to preserve lemons by slicing them first, allowing the salt/sugar mixture to penetrate that much more quickly. And that’s a good thing, because you won’t want to wait too long for these. They need 3 days of curing time, but they will keep in an airtight container in your refrigerator for a month. Use them in Smoked Trout, Potato, and Fennel Pizza (page 113); Roast Chicken Leg with Gremolata and Sunchokes (page 72); and Tuna, Chickpea, and Arugula Sandwich (page 126); or anywhere else you want a sharp hit of salty lemon.

Salt makes tart things taste sweeter (and, oddly, cuts the sweetness of sweet things to bring out their subtler flavors) and mellows the sharpness of alcohol. The salted rim of the margarita is iconic because it capitalizes on all the opportunities lurking within the sweet-tart-alcohol bite of the cocktail; because it is beautiful; and because it revives us with every sip. The salted rim allows margaritas to be served on the tart side, so this recipe calls for more fresh lime juice and less triple sec than is commonly recommended. As tempting as it may be to bring out the heavy guns and rim the cocktail with more massive flake salts, I often prefer the fine crystalline froth of Marlborough flakey. It gives a truly satisfying crunch, like the feeling of stepping on powdered snow—a welcome sensation when drinking a margarita in the waning heat of a late summer afternoon.

The true taste of a place is found in its little oddities, and northern India is no exception. Nowhere are the distinctive attitudes and sensibilities of a people better captured than in the lemonade of northern India. Jal jeera is Hindi for “cumin water,” but it’s the wild and unruly yet ultimately constructive influence of India’s famous, sulfuric kala namak salt that lends this drink its edge. It’s traditionally drunk before a meal, but any hot day provides a great excuse to duck into the shade, mix up a tall iced glass of jal jeera, and tilt your face up to the sun to offer a prayer to the sun god Surya.

Salting is a way. It’s the path you take. It lets you discover a passage through the brambles, defines the terrain ahead, sets you on a lost trail, and, toward the summit, reveals key ledges and handholds. The better your use of salt, the higher you can climb and the more enjoyable the ascent. And the view from up top is worth it. The Meadow Martini is a diamond-perfect expression of salt’s power to offer the clearest imaginable view of the most magical possible vista. Crushed Tasmanian pepperberries send blossoms of hydrangea crimson into the translucent liquid of the gin, unleashing extravagant botanical flavors. Tasmanian pepperberry (Tasmannia lanceolata) is sometimes used as a substitute for Szechuan pepper, though it harbors none of the heat and frankly bears no resemblance. If you can’t locate any, substitute a few petals of dried hibiscus or just enjoy your martini in its classic perfection, an arc of Shinkai Deep Sea salt as its only embellishment. Shinkai imparts to the lips the felicitous texture of confetti, and the unalloyed flavor of happiness itself.

The venerable Greyhound is made with vodka or gin and grapefruit juice, and if you salt that hound, you get a Salty Dog. So goes the logic. But logic is dull—or lonely. Vodka craves company. Its pure grain simplicity is receptive to a host of improvements that would wither under gin’s herbaceous glare. And who doesn’t love a peach, with all that it conjures—from climbing fruit trees to sipping Bellinis? And with the right salt—like a springwater fresh Bolivian Rose salt—the vodka and peach open up with a smiling opulence that quells the furor of even the surliest god.

Imagine strolling home along the long dusty road after a hard day in the fields. At the crossroads you encounter a gaggle of tow-haired youngsters sitting at a card table. “Sidecar, mister?” they shout. The sidecar is a lemonade drink for grown-ups. A touch of salt opens up the entire experience, makes it restorative. Citrus playing tag with sugar, chilled juice teeter-tottering with warming alcohol, the entire drink alloyed with salt’s wisdom and captured beautifully in a glass of coppery liquid.

Sauce is basically salt in liquid form, gussied up with any manner of delicious glutamates, lipids, acids, and aromatics. There are nuances, sure, but the nuances are, well, nuances. Sauces can be more than that. Mango salsa is an example of a sauce so succulent that it challenges the raison d’être of the food for which it was created. Tacos, empanadas, tortilla chips, hamburgers, pizza—all become mere delivery vehicles for the lush, tart, spicy salsa. All the more so when the salt is introduced as a distinctive ingredient in its own right. Confettied with onyx black or garnet red crystals of Hawaiian salt, this salsa brings a firecracker pop of festivity that celebrates saucing not just for flavor, but as visual and textural celebration of food. Use it atop anything from fried fish tacos to green salad to yogurt to steak.

One of the great pleasures of salting lies in not salting. Salt cure your lemons beforehand, cook and assemble your ingredients, serve, and let the lemon’s super-salted flavors hop around the plate like Taskiouine dancers. The citrus and salt goad each other on in a warrior’s dance, all white tunics and turbans and powder horns, and in your mind ring the bells of camels and the beat of rawhide tambourines. Simmer chicken in diced preserved lemon, olives, and fresh coriander for a superb tagine. Make a compound butter of minced preserved lemon, ancho or espanola peppers, and cilantro to serve over pan-fried fish. Chop preserved lemon with parsley, dill, shallots, and olive oil for a relish to top anything from rack of lamb to a goat cheese tart. And cut a strip of rind to garnish a negroni cocktail.

The Hindus paint a red dot, or bindi, on their foreheads as an ancient form of ornamentation that also indicates a focal point of meditation: the third eye, the site of the bright inner flame that burns in our mind’s eye. People living in the warmer climates of Latin America wear a bindi of another sort, a cucumber slice stuck to their forehead to keep cool on a hot day. This practice has always fascinated me. The sure knowledge that as the afternoon wore on the wearer’s sweat would salt that cucumber also made me hungry. The crisp, acidic rush of tsukemono, or Japanese pickles, brings focus and refreshment as an accompaniment to grilled fish, rice dishes, and sashimi. It can also be eaten on its own in a meditative moment.

This one is for the beet lovers out there. It’s also for the not beet lovers out there. I am not a beet lover, but this ganache is delightful.

Mascarpone cheese is a little fussy. It breaks really easily, so it is important here to make sure that both the lemon curd and the mascarpone are cold. Don’t even think about overmixing this!

Nut crunch makes a great pie crust! I absolutely love this pie, but it doesn’t fit into the composed dessert realm of Ssäm Bar’s menu and it isn’t quick and easy to pack like Milk Bar pies need to be, so it never made it onto a menu. It’s a delicious recipe you’ll only find here.

This cake was a bestseller at Milk Bar right off the bat. If you’ve had it, chances are you were hooked at first bite. Though the recipe calls for a few things that you’ll have to source aside from your normal pantry ingredients, remember that amazon.com can be the love of your life too, and that this cake is well worth the effort.

Passion fruit puree can be found in Latin grocery stores and online at amazon.com.

The acid from the grapefruit juice and citric acid will naturally thicken the sweetened condensed milk, which is one of the coolest things to watch happen right before your very eyes.

We fell so in love with the Ritz crunch that we decided to start recipe testing a few pie options using it as a crust. As we delved deeper into the world of pies, we became obsessed with both the concept and the technique of Ohio Shaker pie (a traditional Americana pie, where thinly sliced lemons are tenderized without heat in sugar and a little salt) and key lime pie (the South’s best use of sweetened condensed milk, which naturally thickens with the acidity of the key lime juice). We tried as many different citrus fruits as possible, thinly sliced and layered with sugar into a pie shell, or juiced and stirred into sweetened condensed milk. Grapefruit was the clear winner, and it turns out that combining the two pie methods made for our favorite recipe—though instead of thinly slicing the grapefruit and candying it, we make grapefruit threads so you get the same tangy grapefruit pop in every bite of pie. This recipe is a little more involved than others in this chapter, but it’s delicious and worth a few more minutes of your time.