- That is a very, very angry block.
Ooh, crikey.
That is wonderful.
Ah! (Barry spits)
(dramatic instrumental intro music)
Hello everybody, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
Welcome to our kitchen.
Today, we're testing something that looks like this.
This is a chopping board or a chopping block.
Now imagine something that is fairly similar in size
to this, but is actually mined, it's salt.
It is basically salt, a salt block, if you will.
Almost what Salt Bae, when he goes to bed at night,
probably sleeps on.
But what is a salt block, I hear you cry?
I've got this as a gift for my birthday actually.
Look, that's just an example of it.
It is an extremely high temperature mineral, basically.
It's mined, I think this one is from Pakistan,
it's mined away and you can use it to barbecue,
you can roast, you can bake, you can put it in the fridge,
which is where mine is right now
to do that as serving or to chill things.
So by the end of this video,
I'm hoping to try and showcase, not everything,
this is not a sponsored video, I just got one as a gift
and I was like, ah, this is awesome.
We gonna do four different things.
We're going to do some chocolate,
we're going to do a pizza, we're going to cook steak
and potatoes and then we're going to try
and do a gravlax with salmon over three days.
I hope it all works. It can break.
You have to temperate it, which we'll come on to.
I'm not going to go too into depths
of like all the background behind it and things like that.
But I'm really excited to try this.
The first thing we're gonna do is chocolate.
So that is why it's chilling.
And I've got some dark chocolate here
that I melted in the microwave about half an hour ago.
So it's still melted, but it's at room temperature
just to give it a little bit of help.
It hasn't told me to do that,
but I just think it will make sure it sets
and that's quite important.
"In this combination, the fattiness and richness
of the chocolate are perfectly offset
by the heat of the chilli", well, not for me,
"the kick of the lime and the tang of the salt",
but only the bottom layer of the chocolate,
wherever the contact point is on that salt block
is what's going to get that little bit of saltiness.
And I think that's depending on the moisture level
of the ingredient that's put on there.
So if it's slightly wetter, you're going to get,
if I stick my tongue on it for example,
you're going to get quite a salty kick.
But if something more like chocolate,
perhaps more oily based as well,
it should, hopefully, be a little bit more subtle
because I do like salted caramel
so we're kind of down that route.
It doesn't stay looking pretty for very long
and it should possibly look like that
by the time we do our steak,
but the flavour will still be there,
that's the most important thing.
It can crack as well, it can literally break
when we do any of these steps,
so I'm trying to do it in an order
where it's going to hopefully least crack
so I can get the most out of it really.
Oh my gosh, that thing is heavy.
All right, so here it is.
Oh, putting the block on the block.
It is cold, but I'm going to move quickly.
Okay, we're going to do nice little puddles of chocolate
and apparently within three to five minutes,
it should firm up.
You can actually put it with dry ice
and go extreme temperatures in both ways as well,
which I find really cool.
You could sort of have it ice, ice cold,
and somehow maybe do some ice cream on it,
but in the polar opposite, because the way it's mined,
it can go beyond any sort of temperature
that I can achieve in the kitchen here.
It's kinda cool.
And I can now, instead of adding the chilli,
just let's go straight in with a little bit of lime zest,
which is actually a really cool thing.
I've never really had lime with chocolate before.
So now I'm just going to give it the full five minutes.
And as I say, if I'm feeling it's not worked,
just shove it in the fridge.
Little word, a salt fact for you whilst that chills,
Alexander The Great's horses, apparently,
this might not be true, but possibly discovered salt.
They licked a hillside and he was like what they doing?
And it turns out that they found salt.
Horses did. That might not be true,
but it's a good story.
Don't let facts get in the way of a good story,
that is a true story. Not a wrong fact.
All right, so it's been five minutes,
just sat here doing nothing.
And it has actually firmed up.
Not quite feels still a little bit
with the heat of my hands,
that if I put it on there for too long
it could go soft, but that is firm.
But what I've suddenly realised is I don't even need
the chopping block, I can just have this here
and just leave that like that.
Oh, let's just go for this one.
(metal scraping)
(Barry laughing)
Look. You see the lime in it?
(chocolate discs clanking)
That has worked.
I can wipe that down, but more importantly,
we want to leave this to get to room temperature anyway.
There is our lime chocolate, made on a salt block.
I just want to show you, if I just hold up like that look.
There is no traces of salt on there.
Alright, bottoms up.
(Barry chewing)
Oh wow. You can't even taste the salt, that's amazing.
Ah, if you lick it, you can taste, but it's not too much.
It's not overpowering whatsoever, I thought, wow,
that's going to just taste like the sea.
(Barry chewing)
Mm. There was a tip that Jamie Oliver said
about putting salt in with melted chocolate
and I do that from time to time and it works a charm,
but that is making, that's dark chocolate,
which I'm not normally a massive fan of,
the citrus and the salt has made that actually really nice.
Yeah. Just going back to the temperature,
freezing, it can be immersed in liquid nitrogen
at minus 321 centigrade.
That's pretty good.
Oh and it says it can be heated to beyond hot.
So between 400 to 600 Fahrenheit leads to stunning results,
but it can actually go beyond that.
It's volcanic. You know what I mean?
If you have a volcano in your garden just stick it in that.
So next up, we're going to do a pizza dough,
but rather than getting the oven blaringly hot at first,
which is what I want to do for pizza dough,
we are going to take it all the way up to 250 C
or 230 C fan, but I'm going to do that in increment stages,
just to slowly temper that block.
And the great thing is, 'cause the oven's preheating
it can slowly warm up the block with it.
I kind of wished I put it on a baking tray though,
because getting that out, is gonna be blooming hot.
And just to say, this is not a sponsored video
because I'm not going to mention the brand who it is
and there are a few different companies that do it,
it's just, I just never knew this thing existed
and I'm really impressed so far.
I think basically just 'cause I ate chocolate though.
I do wonder what was going to happen to the dough though,
'cause that's not as wet.
There's a little bit of moisture there,
but hopefully it'll just give it a subtle tang.
Now, unfortunately we're gonna have to try
and slide it off of this.
I don't have any corn meal 'cause that will just fly off.
Damn it. So it might not be
the prettiest pizza in the world, but we need that dough
to contact the salt.
So I'm just going to flour it
and just hope that it slides a bit.
Yeah, that is really starting to bother me actually,
like how the heck, am I going to get it from here?
'Cause that block is going to be insanely hot.
So I'm going to double oven glove up.
(oven gloves thumping)
(Barry sighs deeply)
All right, the oven is now preheated to 230
and that is a very, very angry block.
(Barry laughs)
Let's get it out and pray that I don't burn myself.
(dramatic instrumental music)
Oh my gosh. I can feel the heat in that,
through those gloves. Wow, okay.
(paper rustling)
Okay. (Barry laughing)
We can actually salvage this, oh my gosh.
Oh my, that is just too hot to handle.
I made it slightly too big, on the block, oh my gosh.
But here we go. Boom.
Couple of minutes, we should have a salty pizza.
Which sounds all sorts of wrong.
I mean, if you want a salty pizza,
just stick anchovies on it, right?
Yeah, that situation there, which is why
when you're going to some pizza places
you see the cornmeal on the side,
cornmeal, couscous, semolina, things like that,
if you put that down, because it's kind of like very teeny
but firm, it almost acts like little wheels
and it will just roll off straight onto there.
I didn't have that, but we kind of got by.
I can't open the oven with these double oven gloves.
Oh my word. Oh. Wow.
I can feel the heat coming off that.
From one block to another.
(Barry laughing)
You chill. All right, you just chill.
That is so hot.
I would say this is more aesthetically pleasing,
more natural, more organic, more rustic.
Ah. That is really weird.
(Barry laughing)
It is by no means heavily salted at all,
but there's just a real delicate, a real,
just like a dusting, almost like icing sugar
of salt along the bottom.
Having just the crust then,
I really got the difference then 'cause it wasn't mingled
in with the ham and the sauce and the peppers.
That's actually really stonking indeed.
Just subtle enough. Wow.
So that's been 35 minutes and it is sort of
room temperature now, which is fine.
And what we're going to do,
we're going to heat up the block.
We're gonna use it as a hot plate.
So if you see this, ooh, low flame for 10 minutes
apparently it's on the lowest heating,
just to drive that heat through,
it's probably at that level anyway,
then we're going to take it medium and warm to cook steak.
and potatoes on this surface. Bonkers.
I'm gonna fall over if I stay here for too long.
Okay, just to say, it is so,
don't sort of forget, it looks like a chopping board,
I nearly put my hand on it.
That is warming up a charm.
I'm just going to crank the heat up a little bit.
Ooh yeah. And we have got a ribeye steak right here.
Add some olive oil on.
(pepper grinder crackling)
And some pepper.
(pepper grinder crackling)
(Barry laughing)
There's going to be enough salt, isn't there, hopefully.
I mean the oil should really pull that out.
(pepper grinder crackling)
That is ready for our block,
but we're also going to cook some rosemary potatoes too
and fry them on there, little baby ones, chop them up quick.
I think I only did half a potato,
but just a couple of strips of that,
which we will put olive oil on the actual salt block
when it comes to cooking those, but steak first,
because that thing is blooming hot.
Wow. Yep.
That's pretty darn hot piece of salt.
Our oiled up steak.
(steak sizzling)
Did you hear that? Oh yeah.
"If hot enough, the block immediately seals in", baya,
"the deep and sweet flavour of the steak,
but also gives enough of a salt crust to cut
into its richness without being really salty to taste".
And apparently the salt will draw out some sweetness
from the potato, so maybe that's why they do that
on fries and stuff.
Okay, it's been about four minutes already
and it's definitely browned, but I'm not sure
if it's going to have that salty, crusty seal on it.
I want to get that, so I'm going to push it
a few more minutes longer, ow.
Ooh! Oil in my ear.
All right, here we go.
You can see it's almost got this golden crust
that's formed here on the outside.
That could be some of the olive oil that spilled off.
(steak sizzling)
Oh my gosh. It's beautiful.
(steak sizzling)
Yes. Check this out.
Look where the steak was sat.
We can cook the potatoes on those already juices
and what the heck was that?
It just shatters now.
The scorch marks of the block.
(block crackling)
Okay, for our sins, it's back on the heat.
Olive oil this time goes straight onto the block.
(oil sizzling)
Okay. And now we are frying potatoes
on a block of salt.
(oil sizzling)
And just turning them over.
Oh. But is it me,
or did is it starting to bow a little bit?
Now if I get a bit closer, it's sunk in the middle maybe?
I feel like these will probably be saltier than the steak
because of the moisture that comes out of them.
But it does say to sprinkle a little bit
of freshly chopped rosemary on.
I don't think that'll overpower the salty taste.
And in that time, our steak has rested.
And our block, can you see?
(Barry laughing)
Ooh. Salt Bae would be pretty annoyed about that.
Now this thing is angry, but it's done a great job.
Cool down my friend.
All right, let's try the steak first.
Self seasoned steak potentially.
(Barry chewing)
Mm. (Barry kissing)
That is wonderful.
Like everything in my mind,
I think the chocolate probably started off
with quite an extreme one, that's been the saltiest,
but still enough.
It feels like it's part of it, but then also taking
the taste just slightly up a notch, it is wonderful.
A part of me thought that was going to taste really salty
and I'm pleasantly surprised.
So let's try one of our potatoes.
(Barry crunching)
I can't taste any salt on that at all.
(Barry laughs)
No. (Barry laughs)
That is mouth, thought I might get a bit of steak flavouring
in there, I can taste the rosemary, but there's just no,
that little mm, that little spank, of salt on there.
I mean, they're delicious, they're really good.
But I think in terms of saltiness, it was the chocolate,
then the steak, then the pizza and then these potatoes,
which are just, I mean, it's not even there.
Well, there we go then folks,
it was just a birthday present
that I wanted to do in a video and I'm really glad I did.
That was really, really fun.
So thanks so much for watching.
Remember to subscribe if you haven't already
and have your notifications turned on
to be aware of all new uploads and fingers crossed,
you might see a bonus scene now of sawing this
and doing some salmon for three days. Wow.
♪ Check your level player ♪
♪ No matter what your style ♪
♪ The kitchen's for me ♪
♪ Sideburns, moustache, goatee ♪
♪ Maybe all three ♪
(upbeat rap music)
All right, one salt block,
which has taken two and a half hours
to get to room temperature, stuck it in my garage as well,
which is normally like a freezer.
So it's only just at room temperature, it's not even cold.
I've got a nice clean blade on my hacksaw,
I've got two chopping boards here
with a tea towel to stop me basically sawing
into my worktop and a little angle
to go straight down the middle.
Let's see if we can halve this thing.
(sawing block)
There's salt coming out.
I mean, what else is it.
(sawing block)
(banging block)
Back to the sawing board.
(block rattling)
Just off camera there, I just turned it over
and this just shattered off.
That's fine.
(sawing block)
(Barry breathing heavily)
(pieces banging on surface)
I just (Barry breathing heavily)
Let me just...
I've never made gravlax before and I believe normally
if it wasn't for our salt block,
it would be salt in here as well.
And sometimes this is actually known as the cure.
In here, we've got some sugar, fennel seeds and pepper.
Fully coat it and keeping the skin on is a good thing.
So the herb, dill, we sit the salmon on it
and we now place the other block on top.
All we do is wrap that fully,
in clingfilm, that will hold it.
There it is. It does just look like a massive sandwich.
So let's close the fridge and I'll see you in 72 hours.
Okay, rather than three days, it's actually been four.
So let's get it out the fridge
and it actually doesn't stink that badly to be honest.
Actually, over the last four days
with the other leftover thing,
I did some more of that chocolate, it was just so good.
Amazing milk chocolate with orange as well. Ah.
I was a bit worried though that this might not
be heavy enough, but it does look, oh my gosh.
(Barry laughs)
I'm just going to, (Barry laughing)
it has squished it massively.
Ooh, crikey!
So we've kind of got a fish jerky basically.
And this apparently is all edible.
That feels like a lot of dill.
Bottoms up. (Barry chewing)
Ooh that is strong.
Ooh. Blimey.
Okay, that is the most saltiest out of all of it.
I mean, I'm not surprised it had four days
just absorbing that salty flavour.
It's just about bearable 'cause the sugar kicks in,
oh, yeah, definitely the most potent.
It feels like I am actually swimming in the sea
and I've just gulped some water by accident.
It really does have a tougher texture, like jerky though.
Just one more bit with the dill on.
Ooh. Crikey. Ah.
Oh, it's getting worse.
Oh my gosh. Alters your voice.
Well, that was a thing.
It's just really surprising
'cause I'm looking at something,
oh that's quite delicate and it's like, boom.
It's actually okay though, but I generally would like
to try standard gravlax now I've done that,
I might have to do that in a future video
if you guys fancy it.
And as for this, I thought I can get the fishy layer off.
I can, I suppose, give it a little scrub
and a wash and reuse it.
But I think my favourite, if you get one of these,
a hundred percent, try the steak, try the chocolate.
The pizza was okay, I think I could have probably
got the block a bit hotter and this,
if you like the sea, give it a try. Ah.