Last night, I invited one of our neighbor's over to dinner. She has this dog, Annie Oakley which my grandma has kinda bonded with. She likes the dog because her family knew the real Annie Oakley back in the day. Every time she sees L.H. and Annie, she talks about how Annie got more money for her bird kill because she could shoot in in the head and not mess up all the good meat. So anyways, that's who came to dinner. Little did I know that L.H. does not eat SALT!!
WOW! I think most cooks would scream if they were not allowed to cook with salt. I mean, salt....everything has salt. Try and think of ten things that don't contain any sodium...or would not taste better without that addition?! I can really only think of a few things that I would never add salt to: strawberries, some alcoholic beverages. My list ends there because salt brings out natural flavor of other ingredients and cuts heaviness and richness of certain food.. It can be loud, as in potato chips, or you might not even know its there (as in a lot of chocolates).
So as you might imagine, I freaked out. That is, I looked at it as a challenge. I think a lot of times, people rely on salt as a crutch. It covers up mistakes or adds flavor to something bland. So my job last night was to create a meal completely salt-less that didn't make anybody miss the NaCl.
Here was what I cooked:
Green Salad- Romaine lettuce with cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots, croutons, and these pecans that I tossed in paprika, dried mustard, and red pepper (these make the dish!)
Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Blackberry Sauce- marinated pork in onions, garlic, rosemary, sage, pepper, allspice, olive oil, and lemon; served with a blackberry and port reduction.
Baked Potatoes -with the works
Pound Cake- with macerated strawberries and whipped cream
Nobody missed the salt!
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