Chef Stefan Czapalay has travelled the world. As a food consultant and Pinnacle Award winner from Food Service and Hospitality Magazine Restaurateur of the Year in 2000, Chef Stefan's international recognition as one of Canada's leading chefs is helping to forge a new brand of Canadian cuisine. Through his journeys, he discovered the unique tastes and uses of salts from around the globe. "I have identified that all chefs have philosophies and practices they strongly believe in when it comes to seasoning, but they all agree on one thing, a pinch of salt will always properly finish a dish."

So, Chef Stefan went to work and assembled two salt collections. The first collection, contains 10 different salts such as Fleur De Sel, Korean Sea Salt, South African Sea Salt, Portuguese Sea Salt, Kosher Salt, Hawaiian Red Clay, Celtic Sea Salt, Maldon Salt, English Organic Sea Salt, and Sel Gris. The second collection has a substantially larger quantity of the these salts plus five additional salts including the highly prized Hawaiian Black Lava Salt. The Chef's Salt collection retails for $29.95 and the larger of the two, the Epicurean Salt Collection retails for $79.95. Both were recently unveiled at the Toronto Wine & Cheese Show.

The salts are not meant to flavour large pots of boiling water, but are for finishing foods at the last minute so you can get the independent texture of the salt as well as some of the its unique mineral characteristics. Along with each collection comes a few of Chef Stefan's suggestions on how to use these pristine minerals, but he also highly encourages everyone to do a simple tasting to identify their own preferences.

The collections are currently available at Pusateri's on Avenue Road and also at The Cheese Boutique & Delicatessen on Ripley Avenue.

Recipe: Tasting Spoon of Digby Sea Scallop with Minted Pineapple Lime Beurre Blanc, finished with Hawaiian Black Lava Sea Salt

Ingredients:

1/4 cup jet fresh pineapple, small brunoise
1 lime
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1/2 cup white wine
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 pound unsalted butter, kept cold
10 scallops
10 attractive spoons
Hawaiian Black Lava salt
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 Tbsp fresh mint chiffonade

Directions:

SautŽ shallots in olive oil at a medium heat until clarified. Do not brown them. Add the white wine and pineapple and reduce until almost dry. Add the cold butter slowly and mix gently to incorporate without splitting the sauce. Set aside off the heat while you prepare the scallops.

Bring a sautŽ pan up to medium high heat. Add canola oil. SautŽ scallops until lightly caramelized on each side but still only cooked medium rare. Deglaze scallop pan with juice of half a lime. Set aside to rest for 2 minutes. Add sauce to beurre blanc with the mint and stir in.

Place a small amount of the beurre blanc, in the ladle of the spoon along with the pineapple brunoise and a mint leaf then place the scallop on top and add a generous sprinkle of Hawaiian Black Lava Sea Salt to garnish.

Servings: 10

Chef Stefan Global Gourmet Inc.
1 Research Drive
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
www.ChefStefan.com