About
Three things in the jar and nothing else: salt, chilli and real olive wood smoke. It gives you the rounded smoke of a barbecue without lighting one, plus a hint of fire and the crunch of a flake. Gluten free, and a finishing salt rather than a cooking one.
The salt comes out of the Murray Darling Basin and stays in flakes rather than being ground down. Pukara smokes it over real olive wood and works chilli through it, and that is the whole ingredient list. The result is a spicy smoky aroma that reads as barbecue.
Pukara Estate is a husband and wife operation, Steve and Racquel, more than twenty five years in. The base is the olive grove on Denman Road outside Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter. Olive oil and vinegar are the main game, and the finishing salts come off the same bench.
Use it at the end of cooking, where the flakes keep their texture. The house trick is to mix it with lime zest and butter and spread that over grilled scallops or scampi. It is also good over rich chocolate ice cream or through peanut toffee brittle.
Producer note
Steve and Racquel have run Pukara Estate for more than twenty five years from their olive grove near Muswellbrook, and are best known for Australian extra virgin olive oils and vinegars. Tasting rooms in Pokolbin, Muswellbrook and Newcastle.