Alaea red Hawaiian salt ✦

Sel rouge d’Hawaï (alaea)

What it is

The colour is alaea, an iron-rich volcanic clay stirred into sea salt, added as much to hold the salt through the wet months and to bless canoes and houses as to season food. The ponds at Hanapepe on Kauai are still worked by hand by a few families, and by custom that salt is never sold, only given.

In the kitchen

The clay dulls under heat, so keep it for the finish — a pinch on kalua pork, on poke or on raw fish as it goes out. It takes up water faster than white salt: store it dry and away from the stove or it sets into a brick.

Goes with

Pork Tuna Avocado Sweet potato Lime Coconut

Same species

Sodium bicarbonate Fleur de sel de Guérande Himalayan pink salt Kala namak (Indian black salt) Kansui Kosher salt

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