Sel Rose

[wallie]

I thought I had posted in this forum an hour ago but cannot find it.
Maybe I had I had dreamt it.
My question was: What is Sel Rose?
I thought it was cure 1. until I seen a Heston Blumenthal recipe where he brines his belly pork before cooking it Sous Vide using 500g of Sel Rose and 100g of salt to 3lts of water for the brine.

wallie

[BriCan]

I thought I had posted in this forum an hour ago but cannot find it.
Maybe I had I had dreamt it.
My question was: What is Sel Rose?

Wallie, try this.

http://www.lepicerie.com/catalog/produc ... _Rose.html

[wallie]

Thanks Robert
Is there an equivalent, like either of the cures or saltpetre?

wallie

[wheels]

There's a spec on this site:

http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l ... _rose.html

This one doesn't appear to have nitrite/nitrate.

Phil

[Ryan C]

Wallie,

I have some in the store cupboard here at work. Not sure what it is used for but it doesn't seem to contain any nitrites/nitrates. The ingredients list reads like this: sel, dextrose,E300(ascorbic acid), E301(sodium ascorbate),E120(carmine)

Seems to me it is just salt, sugar, ascorbic acid and red dye.

Not sure if this helps

Ryan

[saucisson]

I think there may be two completely different versions of it, the one Ryan has, which is a coloured salt with some ascorbic acid in it to help prevent food oxidising and a curing pink salt with the usual amount of nitrate in it. Rather confusing and a bit worrying...

Not much help but I found this Q & A session rather funny:

Q: what is the difference between sel rose and saltpetre?

A: Sel Rose is used in cooking and Saltpetre is an ingredient used in making gunpowder. Don't get them mixed up now.

[wheels]

"Holy exploding Salami, Batman?"

[wallie]

Yes Dave I seen that one about the gunpowder and had a good laugh
.

[BriCan]

From what I can see after looking yesterday that depending where you are denotes different things.

North America links it to cure 1 (pink salt), Europe on the other hand links it to salt that is over 2000 (??) years old. Upon looking at the European sites most (if not all?) come back as being used as a (natural?) flavour enhancer.

HTH

[saucisson]

I think you might have pinned it down BriCan, there are naturally pink salts that are prized for their flavour enhancement, not their curing. Himalayan Pink Salt for example...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_salt