Salt & Peppercorn Medley
A surprisingly full-flavored seasoning blend for the daily grind, with a couple secret ingredients.
Why Burlap & Barrel?
- Single origin spices sourced directly from small farms
- Over 13,000 5-star reviews
- Guaranteed to wow you or we'll replace
Can a simple mix of salt and pepper take your breath away? This Salt & Peppercorn Medley might. Consider it your new salt and pepper both in the kitchen and around the dinner table, for seasoning everything from popcorn and buttered noodles to coconut milk curry. You’ll want to pass it around—the spheres of salt and black and white peppercorns look beautiful in the jar, which has an adjustable grinder top to select a coarse or fine grind.
We consider texture as much as flavor in our spice blends, and the wispy spheres of Tanzanian Pearl Salt here contribute both. Lemony-hot Zanzibar Black Peppercorns and umami-rich Fermented White Peppercorns complement each other while building a flavor greater than the sum of their parts, with layers of tropical heat and piquant funk. To pump up the wow, what's in this feeling, we added two non-regulation ingredients to the classic salt and pepper: floral Cloud Forest Cardamom and a touch of Wild Timur Pepper. The cardamom brings a menthol quality that makes you take a deep whiff, and the Timur pepper, a tingly Himalayan cousin of Sichuan peppercorn, delivers a buzz that sends you back for another bite. Both spices are super fragrant—a lot of what we taste actually comes through our noses—and they're surprisingly good with black and white peppercorns.
Ingredients
Large Pearl Salt, Zanzibar Black Peppercorns, Fermented White Peppercorns, Cloud Forest Cardamom Seeds, Wild Timur Pepper
Cooking tips
- Grind on anything and everything—this is your go-to salt and pepper!
- Toss a fine grind with popcorn for the ultimate popcorn seasoning.
- Mix into sour cream to dial-up savoriness for a delicious veggie dip.
Sourcing
The Pearl Salt in this blend comes from Bagamoyo Sea Salt, a sustainable, family-run enterprise that’s been harvesting sea salt in Tanzania for more than 70 years. Their solar production system uses the sun and wind to evaporate brine and form naturally spherical salt crystals from pristine Indian Ocean seawater, far from any human influence.
The salt-making process requires patience and planning. Aquamarine seawater is pumped into gravity-fed reservoir pans, where the sun and wind concentrate it into brine. The brine then flows into shallow crystallizer ponds and gradually evaporates, forming a salt crust on the floor of the crystallizer pond. The salt is hand-harvested and placed into small mounds outside the pond to air-dry. Once dry, it is sieved to the desired size.
Bagamoyo works with the local community on education, health, infrastructure and entrepreneurial opportunities, and they have created a network of pumps that provides fresh water to the nearby villages. They also maintain the main road, enabling access in the dry season. They are proud to have built three school buildings in the area as well, providing furniture, freshwater infrastructure and school supplies.
