Fleur de sel is a delicate sea salt harvested in Brittany, France. It has a mild flavor and is often used to add texture and flavor to dishes. Its artisanal hand-picking process makes it more expensive than conventional salts. It can be used to season delicately flavored dishes and is often paired with sweets for unusual desserts.
Fleur de sel is a type of sea salt, mainly harvested in Brittany, France. In French, the name means “flower of salt,” and as that implies, it’s very delicate and fluffy. Many gourmet cooks work with fleur de sel, adding it to dishes after they’ve already been cooked to add a crunchy texture and distinctive flavor, and some gourmet salt fans have adopted it for home use as well. While salt might be dismissed as part of a larger trend of eating fine gourmet foods, it’s really quite unique and worth experimenting with.
Like other salts, including conventional sea salt, table salt, and kosher salt, fleur de sel is composed primarily of sodium chloride. What makes other gourmet salts unique is their impurity. Traditionally, it has a slightly gray color, due to minerals that occur naturally in the areas where it is harvested, and it also has a mild but recognizable flavour. Because of the way it’s harvested, it’s also less dense than table salt, so it tastes less salty.
Like other sea salts, fleur de sel is harvested by evaporating seawater. However, to collect it, workers gently skim the top layer of sea salt from partially evaporated pools, before it sinks back to the bottom. These salt crystals are very fine, light and delicate and must be handled with care and exposed to minimal humidity or they will clump together again. Due to the artisanal hand-picking process, the salt is more expensive than conventional salts, and the process seems unlikely to become mechanized, requiring a good eye and a delicate hand. Once packaged, the fleur de sel is exported around the world and can be found in most stores selling fine cooking herbs and spices.
Because fleur de sel doesn’t have an aggressive salty flavor, it’s often paired with sweets for unusual desserts. Caramels lightly dusted with it are popular in France and some consumers like to eat it on ice cream or with chocolate bars for an interesting taste experience. Fleur de sel can also be used to season delicately flavored dishes without overwhelming them with salt, and is often brought to the table in a salt cellar in fine establishments so that diners can season their foods to taste.
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