Kelp salt at noma - In a project to try to harvest the natural salt and glutamine found in kombu, a hot dashi was drawn from the kelp, and the liquid was set to dehydrate slowly in a low oven; an effort to mimic the harvesting techniques used in salt flats around the world. Upon the success of that experiment, kelp salt quickly made its way to the noma menu, becoming a hugely important ingredient and staple flavor of the restaurant to this day. This would all change in 2015, after the test kitchen visited Japan on an extensive research trip prior to the Tokyo pop-up. Scouring the country for ingredients and inspiration, a visit to a seaweed provider would cause a seismic shift in not just our kelp salt production, but in how noma would use dashi from that point forward. Here, the qualities of the seaweed were sampled as a cold-brewed dashi. Cold brewing coaxed more flavor out of the kelp, and without risk the of heat corrupting any nuanced flavor. It also afforded a more consistent product; with hot-brewing, cook time was a variable, but with a cold-infused, that variable was eliminated. Noma began producing cold-infused dashi after that discovery, and the improvement of the dashi resulted in the improvement of the kelp salt. Today we use kelp salt not just as a finishing augmentation, but also to add a layer of flavor to a simple butter sauce or a component of a seasoning paste or fudge. While it maintains a crystalline state, once crushed or mashed, the salt forms a sandy paste, lending it a broad spectrum of versatility in the home kitchen. .. Have you explored the flavor of kelp salt before? 🙌