The right salt can add a quality finish to just about any dish. Halen Môn produces some of my favorites. Based in Wales they produce pure white sea salt that delivers a distinctive taste when sprinkled on top of foods.

They have a number of salts which give the cook lots of options on finishing dishes with finesse. My personal favorite is their smoked salt. It adds a rich smoky flavor to meats grilled over gas or in a pan (I even use it on meats grilled over wood.) Try sprinkling some of their vanilla sea salt on chocolate ice cream to create a real flavor sensation.

Why is their salt different? The answer lies part in process and part in location. Halen Môn harvests their salt from the living sea instead of mining it from long buried deposits. They explain the advantage of location best on their website “Our sea water also contains other things: mostly trace elements including gold, silver, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and iodine… Those elements are both essential to health and they impart flavour - in wine terms it has a terroir - sea salt tastes different from different seas. All wine is fermented grape juice but no two wines taste the same and this also applies to sea salt!”

Visit their website to learn more about the process of harvesting and this little company’s obsession with salt. It’s no wonder they have grown so rapidly in the past five years.