Sooo, I got in the salt the other day. It came in a nice sturdy resealable bag. It was pretty dark in color, the crystals were fairly large, and, when tasted, had a very distinct alder smoke flavor. Since the crystals are quite large, and the smoke cannot penetrate the entire crystal, there is a small smoke:salt ratio here. What I'm getting at is that to get a really smokey flavor, you'd have to greatly oversalt the food. It was time to try it out! I put some crystals in my mortar and pestle along with some pepper corns, 1 garlic clove, and some fresh thyme. I smeared that paste onto a couple of pork chops. I pan fried the chops in a heavy cast iron skillet a few minutes on high heat per side then I dropped the temp to medium and cooked until I hit 145F on my digital thermometer. I set the chops aside and made a pan sauce with the drippings. Some dry white wine, some beef stock, some garlic, and a touch more thyme and pepper, reduced to a syrup. I served the chops with the pan sauce along with some garlic mashed taters and some quick seared red bell pepper seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.
The smokey flavor of the salt was virtually non-existent.
I'm sure it was buried deep within all the other flavors I had going on. The funny thing was, was that about 1/2 hour after dinner I had this smokey flavor lingering about that was definitely from the salt.
All in all, I think it probably did add a little something to the pork but didn't overpower the dish, for sure. I think I will try it again next time with simpler seasonings. Just the smoked salt and pepper. See if the smoke comes through more. It was a fun and tasty experiment and one that I will have to repeat many more times!
Drew