Celery Salt Will Make Your Seafood Sing!
Celery Salt is typically overlooked as an outdated retro ingredient. Its uses confined to old Betty Crocker cookbooks and the occasional Bloody Mary. But we’re here to change all that. Our mission: make Celery Salt cool again! It helps that Lafayette Spices carries perhaps one of the most gourmet celery salts on the market. Our salt comes in a beautiful glass jar with an included grinder top. The product itself is a luxurious blend of whole celery seeds and fine sea salt. It’s a far cry from the dusty plastic shaker your mom used back in the 70’s! Some of our favorite preparations involves the simple combination of celery salt and seafood. From oysters and lobster to shrimp and cod, a dash of celery salt take an otherwise ordinary spice and make it something absolutely extraordinary!
Let’s dive a little deeper into what makes this seasoning so special. Firstly, all the ingredients come from France – so you know it has to be good! The French don’t mess around with their food! Celery Seed is the spice made of the seeds of wild celery. The wild celery is more intensely flavored than conventional supermarket celery varieties. The seeds are very tiny, but they are in fact the whole dried fruits of the wild celery plant. Cool right?! The celery salt blend that we carry at Lafayette Spices is two parts fine sea salt to one part celery seed. While the mixture is classically used for bloody marys and Chicago style hot dogs – the uses for our gourmet celery salt are numerous.
One of our favorite preparations involves cod, well-seasoned with fresh Lafayette Spices black pepper and a generous sprinkle of our very own celery salt. The cod is seared over a high heat to achieve a deep gold brown crust. Then basted with butter until cooked through, about medium in temperature. The hot butter will activate the aromas within the celery salt and make them really sing. The fish can be served over roasted tomatoes, or carrots, or some kind of rice preparation like pilaf or risotto.
Another of our favorite application for Lafayette Spices Celery Salt involves a summertime favorite – the lobster or shrimp roll! Poach freshly cracked lobster in butter and scoop it into a toasted bun. Drizzle with a little crème fraiche and top with Celery Salt. The same could be down with a shrimp or even a clam roll. Heck, use just about any seafood you want and make it a po boy! Salmon, oysters, scallops…it’s all game!
Raw seafood would also be an incredible pairing to our Celery Salt. Imagine slices of fresh fluke or tuna with just a crack of peppery celery salt over the top. Or perhaps mixed into a bracing and slightly spicy ceviche? Whether the fish is completely raw, or cooked through, we think Lafayette Spices is going to really “bring home the bacon” when it comes to seasoning your seafood. While it may appear to be a rather ordinary spice, it has stunningly extraordinary results when paired with seafood.
At the end of the day, you can do whatever you want with your Celery Salt – but we’re urging you to give it a try with your favorite seafood. Ours has an abundance of flavor that makes whatever you use it on pop with savory celery nuances. It can make anything from seafood, to meat, to veggies, to cocktails one of a kind. It’s not hard to imagine your friends asking “What did you put it this? It’s so delicious!” You can keep it a secret if you want, but you really should share it with the world… Happy salting!