If you follow this blog or live in the Chicago-area, you may be familiar with an incredible food competition that Beyond the Shaker participated in on March 26, 2010 called “Odd Pairs“. We previously wrote about our culinary entry into Odd Pairs, but as a short recap, the event is sponsored by two local food companies, Bean & Body and Crop to Cup with the intent to match small midwest food companies (restaurants, suppliers, caterers, etc.) with each other to create a signature odd pair dish. Past combinations included Pre-Season Croatian Olive Oil from our friends at Fino Products paired with rich handmade vanilla ice cream from Nice Cream in Chicago. Sounds odd, eh? Well it tasted unbelievably great. This is the type of pairs that are unexpected and yet yield a delicious result, and it is exactly what the Odd Pairs evening is all about (ok, there is usually music and other stuff too, but the primary purpose is food).

The competition in the latest iteration of Odd Pairs this Spring 2010 was crazy-good (and I am not just saying that because we won – nice try though!). The participants included Ineeka Tea (Dearest Ineeka, love your tea. And your new tea beer product. Sincerely, Beyond the Shaker. PS, also dig your website), Glazed Donuts Chicago (name says it all – in Homer Simpson voice, “mmmm…donuts”), Swim Cafe (wonderfully original food), Das Foods (caramels and some stellar suckers), Great Taste Cafe (socially conscious and inventive – Beyond the Shaker is doing a salt tasting with them in April, so look out for it), Ginger Bliss (amazing ginger sodas), Goose Island (internationally known, Chicago-based brewery) and L2O Restaurant (nationally acclaimed, cutting-edge food featured on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations.”

See?! I wasn’t virtually (metaphorically) pulling your leg when I said there were some heavy hitters of the Chicago culinary scene at this event. And Beyond the Shaker was fortunate enough to be paired with FIG Catering, a Chicago-area caterer that I really cannot say enough about….our contact at FIG was Molly, and her creativity and ability to build flavor seems almost limitless. She is the brilliantly deranged inventor of our Odd Pairs entry- Beyond the Shaker salt infused, savory marshmallow croutons to be floated in a silky spring time carrot soup.

As you can see, it was a very FULL house for the Odd Pairs Event....

The trio of marshmallows included roasted garlic shallot (with Beyond the Shaker Garlic Shallot blend), ginger wasabi lemongrass (with our floral Everest Wet Salt), and bacon fumee de sel (with our Fumee De Sel)…uh, yeah, bacon marshmallows. In my informal observations, I think the bacon infused with smoked salt was the most popular marshmallow for people to try, but the Everest Wet marshmallow was the crowd favorite. People seemed to be drawn to it because the salty ginger and lemongrass paired so well with the springtime carrot soup.

Chris identifies the various savory salted marshmallow options to Odd Pair tasters.

Anyway, at the end of the night, after probably dishing out 100+ servings of this creation, Beyond the Shaker and FIG were announced as the favorite and awarded the highly coveted “Tastemaker” award. The judge was a personal favorite of mine, Cleetus Friedman from City Provisions in Chicago (and a former Odd Pairs Tastemaker). Yes, Beyond the Shaker is a Tastemaker and that is why I have that goofy smile in the picture above (goofier than normal at least). Fun evening and of course we thank everyone that screamed their hearts out for our Odd Pair. If you can get an invite to the next iteration of this event, you should beg and plead, as it is truly one not to be missed.

As a final note, to top it ALL off, we heard an amazing Russian folk choir (Golosa) at Odd Pairs, which just fit in perfectly with the night. These guys and gals are sure into their art, and it shows with incredible vocal expression. Great stuff.

Melissa’s salt was Everest Wet and she decided to create a delicious dessert – Coconut Macaroons! Here is her recipe:

2 3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
2 egg whites (whipped a little with a spoon)
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of one lime
1 tsp minced lemongrass
approximately 2 Tbsp Everest Wet Salt

Mix coconut, sugar and flour in a large bowl. Stir in egg whites, almond and vanilla extracts, lime zest and minced lemongrass until well blended.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. I like mine to have a nice round shape with some irregularities in the top to let the coconut get toasted a little unevenly.

I was pretty exact when adding my salt to the tops of my cookies because of the contest. Because I am certifiably insane, I actually placed grains of salt on my cookies to be sure I had even distribution. Generally sprinkling a pinch of salt over each cookie would give you pretty good results.

Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes until edges and a little of the tops of the cookie are golden brown. Move to wire racks and let cool.

Makes about 18 cookies using a tablespoon to scoop mixture up and place on cookie sheet

We are forced to ask the question, is the culinary world ready for savory, salted, marshmallows? This quandary arises as a result of Beyond the Shaker’s invitation to participate in Odd Pairs, a Chicago-based food competition. Odd Pairs brings together some of the most exciting, small scale, food producers in the Midwest by pairing them together with the goal to develop a single culinary dish that highlights, in an ‘odd’ way, the culinary specialities of each participant. The invite-only event is attended by restauranteurs, food bloggers, chefs, and other culinary folk in the regional food industry. The upcoming Odd Pairs event is on March 26th from 7-9pm with a special media/VIP mixer at 6pm at 2023 West Carroll Avenue, Suite 401, in Chicago.

Some of the participants in March will be Ineeka Teas, Das Foods, Goose Island Brewery, Fig Catering, and of course, Beyond the Shaker. At the end of the evening one team is awarded the coveted Tastemaker prize for having the most popular Odd Pair. During the October 2009 Odd Pairs, NBC Chicago’s DC Crenshaw was one of the celebrity judges.

Odd Pairs is hosted by two amazing Chicago companies, both of which are friends and business-mentors to Beyond the Shaker, Crop to Cup and Bean and Body. Previous menu items from the event included Smoke Brisket Slider with Fig Earl Grey Preserves (from Goddess and Grocer & Rare Bird Preserves) and Black Bean and Banana Empanada with Blood Orange Infused Olive Oil (from Simone’s and Sonoma Farms).

So what the heck does all this have to do with savory, salted, marshmallows? WELL, Beyond the Shaker was fortunate enough to be paired with FIG Catering and its wickedly brilliant Chef Molly. During our first brainstorming event, Molly uttered two words that might forever change how we view that fluffy little white confection – “SAVORY MARSHMALLOW.” There was no denying that this was certainly an odd pair; marshmallows in their natural state are the furthest from the savory as could be imagined. It was suggested that a successful odd pair would be one that captures the imagination by flagrantly defying expectations. In this way, we are expanding the culinary diction by forcing a break in the bounds of what can (and should) be combined to produce a tasty food item.

I met with Molly last week after she had a chance to explore some of the most popular Beyond the Shaker salts in the comfort of the FIG Catering kitchen, and WOW did she push the envelope. Although I had a dinner later in the evening, Molly slapped around my culinary expectations with savory marshmallows each made from avocados, garlic, tomato and ginger. Purely because we could, Molly also decided to torch the heck out of a avocado marshmallow to discover what flavors would emerge (as you can see, we did not have fire safety in mind as a first priority when this was done on a wood table, but it was all in the name of righteous flavor so that made it OK).

BAD MARSHMALLOW!

We also tried some delicious spiced aztec hot cocoa with a Hot Habanero Salted Marshmallow and freshly fried tortilla chips (seen in the picture above). But the overall winner was this amazing organic carrot soup that Chef Molly concocted. To this we added several different savory marshmallows based on the flavors that harmonized with the soup. The savory marshmallows would melt as they were stirred into the soup creating a creamy explosion of salt and yum (get your mind out of the gutter). Our goal in this tasting session was to derive a single menu item for the upcoming Odd Pairs event, and it was clear to us that a combination of organic carrot soup and savory, salted, marshmallows was the ticket. Our offering would include three different types of flavored marshmallow to allow the taster to experiment with the delectable culinary options.

And so, our final menu item is as follows:

Organic Springtime Carrot Soup With Trio of Savory, Salted Micro-Marshmallow Accoutrements including, Roasted Garlic Shallot Salted Marshmallow (based on the Beyond the Shaker Garlic Shallot Salt), Ginger Wasabi Lemongrass Salted Marshmallow (based on the Everest Wet Salt), and Smokey Bacon Fumee de Sel Marshmallow (based on our Fumee de Sel).

We are incredibly excited about this event, and will keep you updated as preparations continue as we take Odd Pairs by storm.

Chris in the new Beyond the Shaker t-shirt standing with some studly friends in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

What a weekend! In a crazy 28 hour window of time, I traveled from Chicago to Ann Arbor, Michigan to get dinner with friends on Friday, and then the next day attend a roller-coaster of a football match between the mighty University of Michigan and the (over-hyped) Notre Dame (for the Domers in the crowd I promise this is my last bit of gloating in this post. Here is a link to the synopsis of the game.).

There were a lot of adventures (culinary and otherwise) in this jam packed 28 hour whirlwind trip (6 hours of which were spent driving). Late Friday night, as we rolled into Ann Arbor, I got drinks with some pals from my U of M undergrad years at Arbor Brewing Company. Of course I had several Beyond the Shaker salt samples at the ready, and although everyone had already enjoyed a very large dinner only hours earlier, we decided the blended salts were just too enticing to simply look at…in the end we ordered a huge plate of hand cut french fries and a dollop of vanilla ice cream (yep, ice cream and our blended salts are a super YUM experience).

As a side note, the looks and stares I receive from diners and wait staff when spreading salt samples across a restaurant table never gets old. The little foil lined bags with colorful labels and compelling contents almost always draw a crowd. Surprisingly, in almost 2 years of toting samples around publicly, I have only been asked once by a suspicious third party if I was a drug dealer. At the time I was yearning for a witty retort, but unfortunately simply stammered something like, “well if flavor is a drug, than consider me guilty as charged.” Lame. UBER LAME. I could picture a brazen letter “L” burnt orange into my forehead as I mumbled my pitiful response.  Next time I will be ready with a snappy line or two, since surely this moment will present itself again in the future…

Anyway, back in Arbor Brewing Company, when the steaming hot french fries arrived, everyone grabbed an appetizer plate and began tearing into the various salt samples they had hoarded in their corner of the table. As I required plenty of samples to shower on folks throughout my remaining 24 and counting hours in Ann Arbor, I supplied our group with only a smattering of blended salts including- Hot Habanero, Chef’s Blend, Hickory Maple, Citrus Basil, Windy City Celery and Everest Wet Salt. What ensued was a veritable salt frenzy as everyone tried to taste every blend available before they all disappeared.  Of course the question that may be on your mind is, “which salt was the most popular?” As the blends were all gobbled up along with the fries, it would be difficult to say which actually was the biggest hit, but I can confirm that Hot Habanero seemed to be eaten the fastest. This may have to do with how well it paired with the hot and crunchy fries (which we ordered with no salt so as to not muck up our tasting).

A related question I get a lot is “which salt do you like the best?”….Seriously, this is a tough one because I ultimately picked these blends out of an insane amount of versions and revisions over a long period of research and development with our salt chef.  The blends available on our site are the best of the best of the very best as there was no way that Beyond the Shaker was going to offer up anything that was not up to snuff. However, I do have to admit there are some favorites. Even parents have favorites amongts their children (you know this is true), but the salt blend I like the best is my little “McVictories’ Secret” and so I guard that information closely (wow, that was lame too).

After we demolished the fries, it was time for the ice cream, which the salt-newbies at the table were a bit apprehensive about…however, when the cold vanilla taste of the ice cream combined with the kafir lime & spiced salinity of Everest Wet Salt, this unusual duo converted all that tasted its fascinating flavor. There is a reason salt is used in baking and most sweet applications as it tempers and enhances the richness of these sweet foods. After it became clear that mixing ice cream and salt was pretty darn tastey, we experimented some more and found that the other three blends that went well with vanilla ice cream were the smokey Hickory Maple, the spicy Chef’s Blend and the light/clean taste of Citrus Basil.

It was great to catch-up with these friends from undergrad, especially over some Beyond the Shaker salts. Later on Friday evening we went to my favorite Ann Arbor bar, Ashley’s, for one more drink prior to conducting a very late night/early morning tour of the campus. Walking into Ashley’s, there was a rush of feeling as I have so many amazing memories from this bar – heated conversations about life, literature, philosophy and all the other matters that are paramount to a slightly inebriated undergraduate student. I could recall almost every table I had ever sat in at that bar and the topics that were whirled around between us at such table. A decade & more later, and the place was almost identical except for better menus and superior music playing in the background.

While at Ashley’s, we discovered a great use for refined table salt as shown in this picture.

When it is a humid evening in the midwest and your cold beer is perspiring and sticking to the coaster on the table, why not use a thin sprinkle of table salt to act as a barrier so that the coaster will stay firmly planted?!  Genius.

As always, Ashley’s did not dissappoint and we stayed there until the bar closed at 2am.  We then walked around the campus, including the law quad and the new business school buildings.  I believe we got back to the hotel close to 5am ET and I had plenty of work to get done in the morning before we went tailgating, and so sleep was sacrificed.

All and all it was a great weekend with one more thing to note- If you look closely at the picture accompanying this post (and I know you will), you can catch a glimpse in the photos from that night I was donning the new, limited edition, Beyond the Shaker tee-shirt with an ultra cool design on the back that combined an overlay of our logo with a paragraph describing the impetus behind our gourmet salt line.

Close-up Photo of the Front of the Beyond the Shaker T-shirt

The Back of the Beyond the Shaker T-Shirt.

Here is a picture of the back of the t-shirt and then a close-up of the front. You know you want it! We plan to be selling these t-shirts shortly and also giving them away in contests that we will be hosting in the Fall. Until then, you will have to make due with your good ‘ole hanes undershirt.

A perfect match of salt and chocolate

But it’s not just the pretty little treats you find behind the glass at your local candy shop..what I really like are the new wave of chocolate bars that are gracing the aisles of our favorite grocery stores.  I usually get my groceries at Whole Foods, and they have this amazing ability to draw me in like a moth to light with their displays of fun chocolate bars and other chocolate fare.  The labels are like sirens on the rocks, calling to me: 80% Cacao, Hazelnut, Mint—but in my latest visit, it was one siren’s song that finally drew me in: Dagoba’s organic chocolate with hemp, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and a touch of fleur de sel sea salt.

I had to get it.  How could I not?  How could I resist something like that? No way jose!

Dagoba has so many enchanting varieties of chocolate, and this one was no different.  The perfect balance of salt to sweet—that touch of fleur de sel sea salt is not lost on you at all.  It’s definitely there, filling out the nutty, chocolaty flavors.

It’s not decadent, though—it feels entirely nutritious in the most delicious kind of way.

I took a look at their website, and sure enough, they feel the same way about this little delight: Dark chocolate with omega-rich hemp seeds, heart healthy pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and a touch of Balinese sea salt. An energetic combination of power foods for body and mind in a base of our delicious 68% dark chocolate.

We have experimented a bit with salt and chocolate here at Beyond the Shaker, and we have found that Citrus Basil is incredible when lightly sprinkled on dark or milk chocolate. The citrus notes combined with sweet basil, really highlights the rich chocolate. In our taste tests, the other Beyond Blend that really teased out interesting depth of flavor from dark chocolate was the smoky sweet Hickory Maple blend. Again, we recommend only using a a touch of salt on the chocolate as you do not want to overpower the sweetness of the dark chocolate.

Other salts in our Pure Foundation collection that seem obvious for chocolate experimentation include Murray River, Sel Gris or Cyprus Black Lava (for light salinity, grey color and crunchy texture). If you are willing to be a bit adventurous (and yes, we will be trying these options soon), the following salts from our Beyond Blends collection may make the perfect pair for chocolate – Everest Wet salt, Truffle Wet Salt (oh yes), or Hot Habanero (heat and sweet are a great combo).

Ok, time to go find some chocolates of my own…