Citrus Sugar and Citrus Salt

When Jamie and I made marmalade last year, it dawned on us after we made this mess that we should do something with the peels that weren't going into the marmalade:

 

This year, I thought ahead and took a vegetable peeler to the tangelos, blood oranges and grapefruit before I segmented them.

I ended up with quite the peel yield.  I knew I wanted to do something sweet and something savory.  I settled on a small batch of citrus salt and a small batch of citrus sugar.  The peels not used in these batches went into the freezer and are hanging out until I determine their future.

Of course, the citrus salt recipe I was inspired by called for Maldon Sea Salt, which I did not have.  I have been curious about it anyway, so I picked some up, even though I could have made do without it.  When I got home, I became curious about how many types of salt we have.  I knew it was a sizeable amount but hadn't taken stock before.  Well, folks, I pulled them out of all of their hiding spaces.  The verdict: we have an obscene amount of salts. What harm would adding one more do!?

salt and minced citrus peels

I blended the salt and peels together in a spice grinder in about a 1:1 ratio and then baked it at 225F until it was dry.  I let it cool, blended it up again and then mixed in a little more salt.

We've been enjoying it as a finishing salt with our weekend breakfasts and over greens.

I made the citrus sugar by blending minced peel and sugar in a spice grinder with half of a vanilla pod.  That also went into the oven along with the salt, separated out on parchment paper, like Heidi did here.  I blended it again after it baked as the chunks needed to be broken up a bit.

This has been delicious mixed in with black tea.  The zest and bean pod are noticeable in the end result here, so if I wanted to avoid the larger parts in my tea, I could put it into the steeper with the leaves instead of mixing it into my individual cup.

I look forward to playing around with other spin-offs with the rest of my peels.  This post on Local Kitchen has a lot of ideas that are worth exploring. 

Have you used citrus salt or citrus sugar?  If so, I'd love it if you would share your favorite uses in the comments.  I could use some more ideas!