Dazed and Infused: Herb-Infused Sugar and Salt

I sadly don't have an indoor rosemary plant, so during the Winter months I need to buy fresh rosemary if I want to use it. But the other week, after doing just that, I found myself with a surfeit of the fragrant stuff. I wanted to save it, store it, make it last forever!!! And then I had a scathingly brilliant idea: just like that vanilla sugar I keep going on about, I would make its savory counterpart—ROSEMARY INFUSED SALT. I was feeling exceptionally unique and amazing for quite a few seconds, but a quick Internet search revealed that it had been done, pinned, tweeted, posted, and pretty much plastered all over the place.

My bubble was somewhat deflated but not altogether burst, so I carried on and mixed my ingredients, using the proportions that seemed to be most common on the web. And while I was at it, I thought back to that vanilla sugar, and made a batch of rosemary sugar just for fun:

Things started smelling like a Christmas tree farm after breaking apart all those rosemary sprigs, but I was pleased to be making the most of my purchase. I've been dutifully shaking the jars vigorously each day since then, to ensure the contents don't clump and to keep the rosemary evenly distributed. I definitely plan to start using them soon (in place of regular salt and sugar) wherever a touch of rosemary would go nicely!

Notes: I used roughly 1/4 cup rosemary sprigs to 2 cups kosher salt, and about 2 Tablespoons rosemary sprigs to 1 cup granulated sugar. I used very clean Mason jars with a larger capacity than required to ensure I had enough room to shake them thoroughly. I store the salt and sugar in a cool dark cabinet, right alongside the vanilla sugar.

>o<