I remember my first introduction to weird forms of sea salt. It was a few years ago while watching Napa Style with Michael Chiarello; he sells grey salt via his show and website. It’s actually great stuff. From there, I’ve learned that there are several forms of more natural sea salts that include color from other things, like pink Hawaiian salt or more moisture like grey salt.

Fleur de sel (flower of the sea, I think) is a French salt that’s supposed to be the best of the best, and it’s tough to argue with that once you try it. It’s better as a condiment than to use just to salt a dish that’s being cooked. And it goes great with sweet stuff.

I love caramel, so I thought I’d try making some caramel with fleur de sel. I’ve found it all over the place on blogs and recipe sites, but I used a standard caramel recipe that I think I found in Gourmet. I just changed and added stuff to try something new. The original recipe called for kosher salt, just a touch, unsalted butter and white sugar. I used fleur de sel, French butter and turbinado sugar, along with some vanilla.

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