Alaea - Hawaiian Sea Salt

Has anyone else noticed the recent salt craze in popular foodie media? Salts are haute!
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Truffle Salt is one thing I've been eyeing at the local William Sonoma. Especially since Sounding My Barbaric Gulp's planned wedding menu, where they will sprinkle it on popcorn!

One night while cutting up the spice aisle in the grocery store, something colorful and well packaged caught my eye.

Some haute salts!

Curious enough, I decided to purchase Alaea, Hawaiian Sea Salt. Can you really taste a difference? Or is salt just salt?

Online I discovered this about Alaea Salt - In ancient Hawaii, on the island of what is now Kauai, red volcanic clay sediment was washed into the ocean by heavy rains, and from this Alaea “met” sea salt.

A traditional Hawaiian sea salt used to season and preserve, it is non-processed and rich in natural seawater minerals (80+ unique minerals!) and naturally enriched with Iron-Oxide (from the clay).

In order to test whether or not this salt would taste differently, I kept my chicken rather simple and used Alaea Salt, pepper and a touch of olive oil. The salt looks like tiny gems!

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Additionally, since watching a high speed video of the bird de-boning process at Extreme Cooking Blog, I've decided I would like to know how to do this. Beginning with baby steps, I decided to start with a package of chicken thighs. For the most part this first attempt went pretty well, but there certainly is some technique to be learned here.
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I also decided to see how the Alaea Salt would work in other dinner components...

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...like salad dressing.

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Just a simple lime juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and dash of rice vinegar.
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I even used some in yet another version of brown rice (and perhaps my favorite yet).

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Beginning with the same process as in previous posts, I cooked up the rice in chicken broth and once nearly all of the liquid was absorbed, added some lightly sauteed baby button mushrooms, parsley flake, Alaea Salt, pepper and a touch of garlic powder.

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Holy YUM, was this some good stuff!

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The marinated chicked was grilled up.

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Salad dressed and rice plated.
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Our Alaea Salt Plates.

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The dinner was good and perfect for a weeknight.

Neither Hubs or I could notice any significantly unique flavor from the salt.

Hubs did comment the chicken was a bit salty, which was very likely due to me being carried away with sprinkling on those pretty little red crystals.

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Final Observations: Alaea, Hawaiian Sea Salt does not seem to have a specific taste or smell. It does offer an intensely crunchy texture (like in our salad dressing) and can add a vibrant color if sprinkled on when finishing your dishes.

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All in all, I feel these natural salt varieties are like fine wines.

You have to have a really sensitive, or well trained, palate to taste a difference.

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I will not rule these natural salt varieties out, but do think the flavored salts (truffle salt, basil salt, lemon salt, etc) are more up my ally to experiment with.

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Hmm...I do like where this one is going -

Haute at home!