Roast Salt and Pepper

• 8 Tbsp. black, white, or Sichuan peppercorns
• 4 Tbsp. sea salt

This is the basic coating for all those wonderful Asian dishes, Salt and Pepper Prawns, Salt and Pepper Squid, Salt and Pepper Pork Chops, and so on.

It is entirely up to you which kinds of salt or pepper you use—use something you like. Just use 2 of pepper to 1 of salt.

Place a sauté pan over lowish heat and pour in the peppercorns. You will dry-fry them for about 15 minutes, shaking the pan to turn them every so often, keeping the heat low enough that they don't burn, until they smell wonderful.

Remove the peppercorns from the pan and set them to cool in a bowl while you give the salt the same treatment, watching for it to change colour from white to pale yellow.

When both the salt and the pepper are cooked and cool, place them in a spice grinder and grind them to a coarse powder. If you don't have a spice grinder (I use an old coffee grinder—clean the coffee out of it by grinding raw white rice in it two or three times, wiping it out with paper towel) you can use a mortar and pestle, though it's a bit more work.

Now you can put the result in a nicely labeled jar and use a spoonful or two whenever you need to. I do recommend using a shaker to dispense this, as it is realy hard to get an even distribution off of a spoon.