When you do a search for “flavored salts” online, a bunch of stuff comes up and most of it involves taking the said ingredient and placing in salt for a few days. Although this may work because the salt literally sucks the flavor out, I aim to think a little differently in order to really accentuate the flavor I’m looking for. Case in point, the most recent exploration of lacto-raspberry tajin as a seasoning agent for the Angel Dust.

When it came to fennel salt for Newton’s Revenge, I wanted to explore using scraps in the most thoughtful usage type of way. Fennel fronds for one. They seem to take up a lot of space in the walk in and are always available. There was also some fennel bulbs in there that had seen better days. I trimmed them up a bit, juiced them, added equal parts Maldon salt, and heated the whole shebang at the lowest setting on the trusty old bachelor hot plate. (140°). I wanted to put in the dehydrator for a day, but got too anxious for the results, and wanted to see if this could work. Next time it’ll be a slower situation.

It didn’t take long, but as you can see by the below picture, the edges got a little crusty.

Anyway, once this mess cooled down, I added a bunch of chopped fennel fronds (love saying those two words together) and a sprinkle of dried fennel seed. A little pollen would have been oh so choice but I didn’t think of that until just now…

Goddam, I love me some fennel. Thin sliced in a salad, roasted alongside pretty much anything. I’ve always been privy to the powers of anise. I was the weird kid in your elementary school that ate your black jellybeans when you didn’t want them. It goes so freaking well with apple and a number of other ingredients because it adds just a touch of anise (insert thinly veiled dirty jokes here ____). Not everyone likes anise. I would say it’s up there with cinnamon as the most divisive spice/flavor. Yes, you either hate anise or you don’t. There’s no real grey area here but that said, people will enjoy it if they don’t know it’s there.