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Ready? Hit it, sister!
I'm Samin Nasrat. And I'm Rishi K.
Shirwe. And we're home cooking.
This is episode 10 of our four -part series where we help you figure out what to cook with what you got at home.
And in this episode, we're joined by the delightful and hilarious actor Jason Manzoukas.
You know Jason from The Good Place and Parks and Recreation and his podcast, How Did This Get Made?
Or you might have seen him in literally anything else because he's actually in everything.
But first, before we get to Jason Manzoukas and before we answer some questions, Samin, what's the best thing that you've had to eat recently?
Well, this week was a little bit different because I went on a little trip, so I haven't been cooking as much. Have you traveled much this quarantine period?
No, this is the first time I went anywhere.
This is the first time I slept not in my own bed.
Oh, wow. Okay, so this is exciting.
Yeah, it was very exciting.
I went on a COVID road trip to officiate my friend's tiny wedding.
Oh, that's so sweet.
Yeah, it was really wonderful.
And her now husband is a salmon fisherman, And so as part of the wedding, the meal was mostly seafood towers, beautiful seafood towers in honor of his profession.
I'm not familiar with those two words being put together.
Oh, really? I'm really just imagining a plate where there's a bunch of shrimps that have been speared together with toothpicks to make a jenga.
Shrimp jenga, basically, is what I'm imagining.
No, it's not shrimp jenga.
It's more like three plates stacked on top of each other with lots of ice.
It's like cooked shellfish and raw things.
Okay, yes, I see the picture now.
Okay, got it. Yeah.
But shrimp Jenga, million -dollar idea, you can have that one.
I'm going to let our listeners run with that.
I think that's going to be a thing.
Shrimp Jenga is a thing.
Hold on. I'm buying the domain shrimpjenga .com, but go ahead.
Okay. Anyhoo, we had a really delicious spread.
And one of the fishermen who has worked at this fishery for 40 years is named Dexter.
And Dexter has a tiny little amount of salmon that he cans every year.
It's like the most precious gift. So he gave, I don't know, maybe 20 cans of the salmon salmon to the bride and groom and they gave some to the cooks who cooked the wedding and they turned that salmon into a dip for the delicious bread that I brought down for the tables.
It was so good. I was just like slathering the salmon dip on the bread and it was so good.
It tasted like some magical chefery had been done.
And I was like, what is in this?
It's so good. Everybody, I was like taking pictures of it.
It just was like, what is in this?
Oh my God, it's gotta be pictures of it like you took a selfie with it yeah yeah you're like can i get a picture with you yeah it's so good and then i afterward i went in the kitchen i was like oh my gosh can you please tell me what you put in that salmon dip and they're like no we literally opened the can of salmon dumped the whole thing including all the oil and then mixed it with cream cheese it's brilliant i was like oh my god i love that recipe and i'm totally gonna make it the end so that's my new favorite recipe that's great what's the best thing you made this week uh i'm making it right
now and i just finished it is the domain name for our website which is shrimpchanga .com it works Awesome.
$9 .99 well spent. Okay, on to questions.
Okay, so we have a question that comes from Vanessa.
I bought a bamboo steamer the other day to cook dumplings.
And I'm wondering whether you have any other suggestions for what I could steam cook.
Bamboo steamer. Love it.
Do you have one? Have you ever used one?
I've definitely used one.
I don't own one, but boy, do I have an idea for you.
What's your idea? Sweet potatoes.
Do you have to do anything special to them?
You can cut them any way you like or not cut them at all.
But steamed sweet potatoes, whoo, baby, they're good.
How did you first learn about steaming a potato?
Not a potato, a sweet potato.
Oh, I am so sorry for getting that wrong.
What is the origin story for you and a sweet potato and a bamboo steamer?
I wrote a column last year about steamed sweet potatoes.
I found a recipe for them in a cookbook called Where Cooking Begins by Carla Lally Music.
She has a really beautiful recipe for steamed sweet potatoes that are spread with tahini butter and sprinkled with sesame seeds and drizzled with lime juice.
and I was pretty skeptical at first. The picture's really like enchanting.
So, I was like, that looks good.
I guess I'll try that.
But I've always been a sweet potato roaster.
And so, I've historically not really been into steaming vegetables just because I'm always like, I want them to be brown and I want to work salt into them.
And when you steam vegetables, you can't really get salt into them because they're not in water absorbing salt from the water or they're not absorbing salt through the skin as they're like roasting and they're not browning so i just was like why would i do this but something does happen some magical textural thing does happen when they steam it's like all of the fibers absorb the liquid from the steam and the condensation and they fluff up in this really delightful way and this tahini butter that she makes is so delicious.
So we can link to the recipe.
I wrote a column for it.
That's incredibly delicious.
But I've been transformed into a believer.
What do you like to steam?
Do you steam anything?
The only experience I've ever had with a bamboo steamer is in the video game Overcooked, which is my favorite video game.
Oh, you've tried to make me play this game so many times.
It is the most fun game.
I would totally play with you if I had a remote situation.
Uh, it's great. And there's a bamboo steamer that figures prominently in many of the levels.
Oh, it sounds delightful.
Oh, you know, another thing I think you could steam, inspired by Rishi's game, actually, Vanessa, is I think you could steam little banana leaf packages of things.
So whether they're tamales that you buy or make in banana leaves or fish that you wrap in banana leaves and steam.
And I think you said that your parents use a metal steamer for fish.
But the nice thing about a bamboo steamer is I feel like it's a little bit more gentle.
And I don't love putting raw food, you know, things like raw fish directly on the bamboo steamer.
But if it's wrapped in the banana leaf package, it does really well in the bamboo steamer.
And I do feel like the heat is so gentle that that's kind of like a nice little touch. So one recipe for like a banana leaf wrapped fish that I love is yet another column that I wrote.
Sorry, just tooting my own column horn a lot over here.
So this is a recipe called patra ni maki or patra ni machi.
And it's a Parsi recipe that comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, which is called My Bombay Kitchen.
And it's almost like a pounded or you could use a little food processor paste out of like coconut and serrano peppers and cilantro and mint and cumin and sugar and lime.
And then she spreads that all over the fish, wraps it in banana leaves, and then you can grill it or steam it until the fish is all the way flaky.
So you could use any flaky white fish, any sort of lingcod or snapper or sea bass and just cook that until it's cooked all the way through.
And if you've never used banana leaves before, they're really fun to work with.
They're really easy and they have a shiny side and a less shiny side.
So the way you kind of loosen them up is you take the shinier side and you pass it over a flame, like over the gas flame of your burner to soften it.
And then you can kind of fold it around the fish.
Well, I hope that helps, Vanessa.
And have fun with your bamboo steamer.
Shrimp Jenga. You can't say shrimp Jenga to that.
That's not a sign -off.
Why not? Dot com. There you go.
That was what I was missing.
Next. Hello, this is Charlotte from Germany.
I bought some sumac for a fattoush recipe where you just sprinkle it over, which was delicious.
But now I'm left with a whole lot of sumac.
I would love some suggestions if you would give me some what to do with this amazing spice that I just bought and that is now sitting in my spice rack laughing at me.
Greetings from Germany.
So Charlotta's sumac is now in her spice rack laughing at her.
Is there anything you can do to help her get out of its mockery?
It's sumacery. Sumacery.
Ay, ay, ay, ay. Just walked right into that.
So for those people who don't know, sumac is a wild berry that's quite sour.
And it's used a lot in Middle Eastern cooking.
In Iran, we just use it sort of dried and ground up.
we don't really cook with it so much as use it as a garnish at the table.
Almost exclusively in my experience for kebabs.
And it's this sort of sour thing that we add every single time.
It's like on every single table in a shaker.
So in my worldview, it's a garnish to be added to grilled meats.
And for those people who don't know, I don't know if like you got exactly what fatouche is, But fattoush is a Middle Eastern bread salad.
It's kind of like pita version of panzanella.
So it's like dried pita salad with tomatoes and cucumbers.
Yeah, that's a great place to use sumac too.
So I think, Charlotta, one great resource for you, a person who I think uses sumac really beautifully and quite often is Yotam Odolenghi.
Right. So if you want to refer to his cookbooks, he is a prolific user of sumac, and I think really popularized it with people around the world in the last 10 years.
He's definitely the reason why I have sumac.
the classic sort of otolenghi recipe is a sumac grilled chicken it will stain you know if you marinate your meat with sumac it will stain it so you can sort of sprinkle it on right before you start cooking if you're not interested in getting that like pinkish tinge all over your meat although who cares maybe the pink is nice also sprinkling it on your fish would be really nice but to me you could also go full persian and just keep the shaker at your table yeah my My recommendation is like go full court press.
It sounds like you have a lot.
So just start sprinkling it on top of everything.
Thanks, Charlotta. Hi, Samin and Rishi.
My name is Annie. Since the pandemic started, I have been cooking almost every meal for myself at home.
And I'm a pretty good cook, but I find myself craving crunchy foods.
And the only one that I have come up with to make is just croutons, which I make a lot.
And I can eat a lot of, but it's kind of boring.
So I'm looking for something that has that like full mouth crunch where you like bite in and the whole thing is crunchy.
And like, if it's salty, that would be great.
Thank you. Bye. i i'm really into annie's question yeah to me i feel like the answer is somewhere in the realm of frying or like heavily oiling and baking at a high temperature things you know who uh loves frying actually without oil is my dad oh my god do you think we can call your dad my dad has been been talking to me about his air fryer every chance he gets he's gonna be thrilled hi hi dad hi sumesh uncle hi hi how are you oh i'm so happy to see you so you did a good job on uh bay leaf oh thank you we use that in biryani oh yeah all right enough about the bay okay so dad the reason why we're
calling is because we got a question from a woman named annie who has been craving crunchy foods.
And then I told Samin that you have this air fryer that you've been excited about.
Yes. So what are you making in your air fryer?
Well, today I heated up samosa.
Oh, in the air fryer.
Right. Have you made anything from scratch in the air fryer?
No, nothing from the scratch. Well, question over.
Good night. Okay, French fries.
You know, the one we get the fries.
To get it crunchy, you have to go like 15 minutes.
In the air fryer? Yes.
You're just using it to heat up things?
It's an egg, but it's frying it up.
Instead of like toaster, I'm using the air fryer.
Can you use the air fryer to make things that are thin and crispy?
Yes. Like what? The one I just gave you, the easy one, is French fries.
French fries, okay.
But if French fries are thin and crispy, those sound like bad French fries.
Well, listen, Rishi, different people have different kinds of French fries that they like.
Okay. One thing, there's no oil you're using it.
Uh -huh. Oh, right. There's a basket.
You put it in the basket.
So air from the side gets in there and then it makes it crunchy.
Air makes it crunchy.
Yeah. And it's much better than doing the, using like toaster oven.
I love that. Hey dad, have you ever made papad?
Yeah, papad I use microwave. But how do you make papad?
So you, you, you know, you get the ready -made papad.
step one of making poppad by poppad no no but that's how even nillifer buys the poppad and you just like toast them over the fire yeah everybody buys the poppad if you go into the indian restaurant they usually fry it in the oil right yeah but you put it in 30 seconds in microwave and it comes out very crispy very nicely i think you're on to something though I think that's definitely that crispy texture that she wants.
And you're not using any oil.
Yeah. So, Annie, I think a pop -but could definitely work.
And pop -but are made out of lentil flour, I think, right?
Right. So as Sumesh uncle is saying, you can put them in the microwave and puff them up.
But you can also just pass them over like a gas flame, like the gas burner of your stove or like over the grill until they puff up.
Yes. or you can deep fry them and they get really, really crispy all the way through.
And that's a really, really wonderful texture.
So that's, I think, going to give you that same sort of satisfaction.
Yeah. And if you haven't had the Indian snack of bappad before, it's just delightful.
It's really fun. And like the puffing up is really fun to witness.
Yeah. And if you overdo it, then it burns up.
Yes. Okay. But we're focusing on the fun part, dad.
Okay. The other thing on the air fryer I've done is muffin.
Muffins. Muffins are not crunchy.
No, but, you know, outside.
We have to solve Annie's problem here.
Wait, why would you put a muffin in an air fryer?
To warm it up, rather than in the toaster oven.
Oh, oh, oh. Annie, we know you asked about crunchy foods, but if you would like the opposite of a crunchy food, try putting a muffin in an air fryer.
This is what happens when you call a food scientist at 11 .30 at night.
Well, this is fun. Let's do more Zoom meetings.
Okay, great. Okay, bye, Dad.
Say hi to Mom. Good night.
Take care. Good night, Sumesh Uncle.
Bye. That was incredible.
I mean, the papad is not a bad idea.
Well, I hope you get to try some papad.
Step one, buy papad.
Step two, put it in the microwave. but either way, I hope it'll satisfy your craving for crunchy food.
It's really good if you haven't had it before.
And then also what I would recommend is while you're at the Indian store buying the poppins, maybe buy yourself some mango chutney, mint chutney, some other chutneys to eat with your poppins.
That's right. The chutneys are essential.
Yeah. Thanks so much for the question, Annie.
I hope this helps. Now we're going to talk to the wonderful Jason Jason Manzoukas, actor, writer, podcaster, someone who we absolutely love and we're so thrilled to have on the show.
He told us that his cooking experience is super limited, but we also thought that might make for an interesting conversation.
So here it is. Jason, thanks so much for joining us.
I am thrilled to be here.
Oh, we're so excited to talk to you.
Oh, thank you for having me.
This is, and I can confidently say will be, the only show that I am a guest where a guest was also Yo -Yo Ma.
There is unquestionably no piece of media in the future that is going to happen where both Yo -Yo Ma and I are part of it.
Same. Jason, what's your quarantine cooking life like?
Unlike a lot of your other guests, my quarantine cooking life is like pretty much nothing.
nothing i am quarantining alone i have not had human contact in about seven months i'm pretty much losing my mind but one of my greatest kind of challenges especially as this was starting was i'm not a cook i'm not not only not a cook i don't even have like the basics of cooking knowledge yeah you know i've got the time i've got you know certainly a beautiful kitchen in my house in la Like I could have. But instead, it was really like kind of panicking me because I felt like more often than not, I was putting together what I like to call lovingly slop bowls, which is just I don't know.
I'm going to make like a can of lentil soup and I'm going to put some something else in it.
Like and that's it.
Like I felt like I was it was not nutritious.
I felt like I was being unhealthy and it was stressing me out.
So my solve has been in this kind of embarrassing, this is going to be an embarrassing kind of Hollywood kind of thing.
But I hired a friend of a friend who's a cook to make me clean, healthy meals.
So he makes me like a week's worth of meals at a time, drops them at my house one day, and I just eat pretty much those meals.
You know, those, you know, it's a very kind of healthy, clean fish, chicken, all this stuff.
And then I will, my contribution is I will make a sweet potato or I will make some rice in an Instant Pot or I can, I do get a vegetable box.
And there are things that like I can very basically roast some Brussels sprouts, you know, very basically.
And I can do about the same for like a sweet potato or something like that.
But it's all very plain.
None of it has flavor.
I have a very complicated relationship to food in general.
How so? I have an anaphylaxis level allergy to eggs.
Oh, wow. And so anything that has eggs as an ingredient, uses eggs, touches eggs is literally fatal for me.
And so I grew up very afraid of food.
That has continued throughout my adult life.
My relationship to food is one of, it is a threat.
New things are dangerous.
New restaurants are dangerous.
Like to go to a restaurant is to have to put implicit trust in the people that I'm talking And I grew up talking to that they're going to believe me and convey this severe allergy back to the kitchen.
And, you know, and then I end up in the hospital every once in a while.
And it's a it's a mess.
It is a very palpable awareness of my own mortality every time I sit down at a new restaurant to kind of have a meal, if that makes sense.
Wow, that is so big.
I grew up feeling around food very fragile, very breakable, and in many ways continue to feel that way.
Samin's look is amazing.
You're breaking my heart.
As I'm talking, I wish the viewers could look at the contortions of heartbreak and pity that are going across Samin's face.
Well, given all of the restrictions that the egg allergy has given you and sort of your cooking experience as it is right now, is there a dish or even just an ingredient that you'd like to cook with at home yourself that Samir might be able to coach you through?
well okay so like i said i get a box of vegetables right and what will then happen is i will unpack that box of vegetables and there will be a number of things inside the box i don't know what they are i will take pictures of them and i will send them to my friends uh ravi and connie who are like very like incredible home cooks like the best and they will be like okay this is this this is this Usually it's leafy greens and stuff like that, that I just am like, I don't know what this is.
And they'll tell me what to do with it.
So this week, my box came and there's something inside of it that I didn't know what it was.
And I was like, oh, you know what?
I'm not going to text this to Connie and Robbie.
Oh, did you save it for us?
I'm going to save it for Samin and Rishi.
And I'm going to ask you what it is.
Okay. Give me a minute.
I got to go get it.
It's in the fridge.
Okay. Okay. Let's take a quick break.
Hey there. Hello. This is just a quick PSA to let you know that super soft home cooking sweatshirts, shrimp Jenga forever t -shirts, and less soft home cooking magnets for your fridge are still available at homecooking .show.
Just click on the merch button to check it all out.
Or if you want to type the whole thing out, go to homecooking .show slash merch. If you're a fan of home cooking and the way it's all put together, but like me, you wish it had a little less Rishi in it.
Let me recommend Rishi's other podcast, The Brilliant and Magical Song Exploder.
Rishi is the host, but he cuts himself entirely out of the interviews he does with amazing musicians like Janelle Monae, Robin, Fleetwood Mac, U2 and more.
So you just hear them talking about the creative process behind the making of one of their songs.
I was actually a fan of Song Exploder way before Rishi and I became friends.
Two of my My favorite episodes are the ones with Solange and Sylvan Esso.
The show is so carefully and thoughtfully made, and it's just really inspiring for anyone who creates things.
Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
OK, so this arrived in my box.
I unwrapped it and I was like, what the is this?
OK, so here we go. What is this?
Oh, I don't know what this is.
it's got like a bulb at the bottom of it and then long green stalks that have like um leafy kind of things coming off of them like light leafy not leafy things but like like you know i don't know hair yeah like it's a hairy this sounds appetizing it's stalks with hairy green appendages um it is okay here is my guess before you tell me okay is this leaks no it is not leaks it is god damn it i really was like i bet it's leaks i'm gonna guess leaks that was a great guess thank you sometimes you put this with leaks it's fennel oh this is fennel okay yeah that's a fennel bulb and then those are fennel fronds.
Wow. And you can use both parts.
Huge reveal. Huge reveal.
Also, very disappointing for Jason Manzoukas, I don't like fennel.
But if you can figure out how to make me like fennel by making me cook this, I will do it.
Well, are you like an anti -liquorice anise family person?
It's not my favorite group of flavors.
Yeah. I'm like an anti -liquorice anise person too.
Yeah. But I've definitely grown to love fennel.
And sometimes you might not like the taste of raw fennel i mean sometimes it's so mild you don't even taste that anisey -ness so you can just shave it and toss it with um like a lemon vinaigrette or you can also cook it and if you cook it and caramelize it like really really really dark that anisey -ness goes far far away that's just take the fennel add caramel and then bring it to a boil exactly and then you with some ice cream call it a day totally yeah again i need to really stress to you when you you say caramelize something?
Yeah, sorry. My mind says, I got to order caramel from Amazon.
One thing that I love to use fennel in is slaw.
Okay. And so if you're getting fish as sort of your main dish, one thing you could do is chop up that fennel and combine it with cabbage or something like that if you want to break it up a little bit.
The thing that's really nice, it's like so bright and crispy and crunchy.
Yeah, I think the way that I'm used to having it, it is like soft and mushy.
That sounds terrible.
Exactly. So it does not have those textures that you're talking about that does sound okay.
Yeah. Okay. But what I think you could do, remember back when you were saying you know how to make Brussels sprouts just one way by roasting them.
Yes. So when I said caramelizing the fennel, that was just a, another fancy word for saying roasting the fennel until it's almost burnt.
Okay. So just in like a pan.
Yeah. And I would do it.
You could do it in a saute pan, like a pan that you would use on the stove, as long as there's not a plastic handle or it's not nonstick.
So as long as it's either cast iron or completely stainless steel.
Okay. Or you could use a baking sheet.
I have. Yeah. Yeah.
And I would cut that fennel.
See where the white ends and the green begins?
Yeah. So where the bulb ends and the stalk begins.
I would cut it there.
The stalks you would save for if you are ever going to make like a veggie stock or chicken stock, that's where it would go into your compost. And the bulb is what you're going to roast. And you're going to cut it in half crosswise through the root, through the bottom, and then into wedges.
Okay. Okay. And probably I would do it into maybe sixths or eighths.
Okay. And then you'll have these beautiful wedges, and then you're just going to coat the wedges in olive oil and salt and roast them like you roast your Brussels sprouts or your sweet potato.
Yep. At least 400 degrees.
Yep. Until they're almost burnt, but not burnt.
Oh, all right. Which is probably 25, 30 something minutes.
Okay. I can do that.
And that's what caramelized means is brown, but not burnt.
Okay. That's all it means.
All right. and and maybe i'm really gonna like uh fennel for the first time yeah and then you might like if you have at your house balsamic vinegar i do balsamic vinegar might be nice to drizzle on top of that when it comes out of the oven or even before it goes in the oven it would actually help it caramelize better because it's kind of sweet okay now here's a question i've thought of a couple of times because there have been times when i've had in the box let's say sweet potato potato, Brussels sprouts.
I know where you're going.
Can you do them together?
Samina is shaking her head.
No. Okay. Okay. Okay.
You one could do them together.
Cause I was like, why don't I just chop all these up, throw them in and, and roast them all together.
Squash. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Let's do a compromise, buddy.
Let's do a compromise.
Oh no. She called me buddy.
That's okay. She calls me sister.
her. Okay. I discourage people from mixing different vegetables on the same tray for a few different reasons.
One is they have like different qualities.
So they have different amounts of water or starch. And so they're going to cook at different rates.
So some are going to brown, some are going to burn, some are going to caramelize, some are going to still be raw.
And you're never going to, you're going to pull it out of the oven and you're just going to eat this thing that some things are going to be undercooked and some things are going to be be overcooked.
Samin, welcome to my life.
So what I think is going to help you have a better and more delicious result is if you use different trays, and if you don't have many different baking sheets, what you could do is just even keep them separate on the same tray.
So keep the sweet potato on one side, keep the fennel on the other side, keep the broccoli.
Samin is pro pro -segregation.
This is a little known fact.
I'm in favor of bussing the sweet potatoes into the squash section.
You can buss the sweet potatoes into the squash after they're cooked.
Separate but equal, but separate.
Listen, post -cooking integration.
Did you ever know about the famous case that Samin was involved in?
Browning versus caramelization versus the Board of Education.
vacation. Oh my god, those you guys.
A long road, Rishi.
A long road. And I bust you in.
Oh no. It really is.
It really is. He moves quick.
It's really for Cocteau.
It's like an assassin.
It's not fair. Well, you brought something up, Samin, that I now I realize a second question I have, if you don't mind.
Please. At the beginning of quarantine, I bought a cast iron skillet.
Oh, great. I have not, quote unquote, seasoned it.
But what color was it when you bought it?
Oh, black -ish. Black, okay.
Yeah. Well, these days, most of the ones that you buy come pre -seasoned.
So they come black.
If it comes black, it's already seasoned.
This one, it told me that I was supposed to season it.
How much did it cost?
Over $100. Oh, it was fancy.
Okay. It's fancy. Yeah.
Oh, well, you're a fancy L .A.
Hollywood guy. I'm a fancy boy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a fancy L .A.
Got it, got it, got it.
I'm a Hollywood bad boy out here, guys.
You're a guy who doesn't know what a leek is, and you're buying a $100 cast iron.
Yes! Yes! Now you get me, Simi.
Now you get me. so you've never used your very expensive pan because you you don't know how to season it i'm worried i'm gonna ruin it at the beginning i'm gonna ruin it and then i'll have messed myself up for future cooking let me tell you something about cast iron pans you basically cannot ruin them oh great even if you kind of mess one up the worst that can happen is you will get it kind of rusty probably okay and you can always fix that you can de -rust it and re -season it i am the queen of messing mine up mine have gotten to rusty so many times and i have then just re -season them i am a notoriously
bad caretaker yeah of the cast iron but we'll send you a little video about how to season and there are so many different ways to season but i actually am a fan of the fast way to season which is a little bit scary for people and involves opening all the windows in your house.
Okay. It takes about 20 minutes, maybe a little bit longer, but you just essentially like crank the heat under the pan and incrementally add oil and you're just working oil essentially into the pores of the pan.
I mean, I'm using definitely non -scientific language here, but you just want the pan to absorb oil until it becomes like essentially non -stick.
and that is how I think of it and there's a great video on a website of this really wonderful pan maker that I love great that we will link to that shows how to do that that's my preferred way because it's the quickest way a slower way that involves a lot less work and won't create like a smoke bomb in your house is to do it at a much lower temperature in the oven but you do it for like 12 hours.
So you just like set the oven at 150 or 200 degrees and you just like leave the pan in there.
You could do it overnight or something like that.
I see. I see. And how much oil is required if you're doing it the oven way?
It's not very much oil.
It's like a few tablespoons of oil.
And like there are different people have different opinions about which oils are better.
You definitely want to use an oil that's good at high heat.
Some people feel like coconut oil is good.
Some people feel like flax oil is great.
But to be clear, not motor oil.
Not motor oil, not face oil.
Not oil of Olay? Not oil of Olay.
That's if you only want to make Mexican food.
Oil of Olay. Oh, Rishi.
Oh, no. It is like, I should have, it's like, wow.
I should have been able to predict that that's, and not, I should have sacrificed my own joke just to not lead to Rishi's joke.
It doesn't. I mean, sometimes you just really kick yourself.
really it's really tough stuff it is it's exhausting tell me i don't know how lindsey lives like this trust me that's what i ask every day she has tuned me out entirely she's like don't you have a podcast to be doing somewhere yep i have a question again are there recipes or are there foods like categories that you think would be good as a straight, like, true beginner that are either things that are good to start with because they utilize the basics, or they are less likely to be, you know, messed up.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean, I definitely think you're already on a road.
If you feel comfortable using your oven and roasting vegetables, I do think getting really good at that is a great skill to have, because that's an important thing to be able to do all year round and feel comfortable with you know all the vegetables of the year.
When you said you didn't know how to do anything and then you're like but I feel okay making Brussels sprouts I was like oh actually you do know how to do something.
Well that's I mean that's just I cut them in half I put olive oil and salt on them and I put them in the oven.
Well there you go that's something.
And just the process of taking a vegetable cutting in half putting olive oil and salt on it and roasting it that can be applied to so many many different ingredients that you could really have an incredibly diverse diet just with that one application totally sure yes okay good and then the other thing i think one could like if you know how to do that if you feel comfortable using your toaster if you really can make a good piece of toast i mean i can't make bread but i can certainly make the bread yeah yeah totally there you go great and then and the like number three if you get comfortable putting
a pot of water on the stove and boiling various things be them making a pot of beans making a pot of boiled like all sorts of different boiled vegetables you know like all the green things that come in your box really should get boiled in in like rolling boiled like heavily salted right water at a boiling boil until they're great like like spinach greens like like kale that kind of yeah or chard or kale or green beans or broccoli or cauliflower.
You would boil that until it's like al dente.
Pull it out with a sieve or something and then put it on a plate and drizzle good olive oil and put flaky salt on it.
Even that is just really delicious just like that.
I think another thing that maybe you already have and you haven't told us about is stock up on the condiments in the fridge.
Yeah. I've got some things, but it's truly haphazard. Yeah.
I would say bulk up the The condiments.
Perfect. Yeah, I can do that.
Because that's basically how I eat here.
And once you feel comfortable making yourself a pot of rice, a pot of beans, and some boiled vegetables, some roasted vegetables, yeah, that's basically what I eat probably four nights a week is some combination of those things and some various boiled noodles.
Like, it's not that complicated.
The way you're saying it sounds super simple.
I'm trying to picture it in my head.
And I'm like, I think I can do that.
Because none of these things require you to take one thing, do this to it, then do that to it.
You know what I mean?
It's like that's where I start to get nervous.
No, and I think the difference is, I think what has been a, sounds like a really long and arduous journey in your life around food.
In a lot of ways, it sounds like your relationship to what you consider to be good food is somehow restaurant food.
And restaurant food is often complicated and does often involve many steps and many garnishes.
But home cooking, at least what I eat, is very simple.
I don't do a lot to it.
I do just have a boiled thing, a roasted thing, or a chopped up raw thing.
And so I think for a big part of what my mission to explain to people is, you don't have to be a restaurant chef at home.
Chickpeas on toast and broccoli could be dinner.
Something super simple can be dinner.
A bowl of pasta with just a little bit of Parmesan and spinach can totally be a super satisfying meal.
You're not trying to impress anyone.
It's not about Instagram.
It's about nourishment and joy.
Totally. I will say one of the true victories during quarantine was they, at one point in my box, put three avocados in it.
And I, for the very first time as a 47 year old man made avocado avocado toast. Awesome.
And it was delicious.
And I was like, I get it.
I get the hype. I'm not on social media.
I know that this was a big thing with young people.
But guess what? I f***ing did it.
I made avocado toast. That's awesome.
So, you know, this is very inspiring.
I will say this is inspiring because what I hoped to hear coming out of this and what I am now understanding is there are very simple ways to make very tasty dishes.
Yeah. And also I live by myself.
So like you, I've definitely reduced my idea of what dinner is.
Oh, my God. I'll be often like, well, I did have that banana at four.
Does that count? Maybe I'll add a piece of beef jerky and then call it a night.
Yeah. Can I tell you about the dish that Lindsay and I make probably more often than any other?
Yes. It's really good, but it's also incredibly quick and and simple.
It comes from this cookbook called Feast. It just has a few ingredients.
It's broccolini, kale, and chickpeas.
We just use canned chickpeas.
You slice up some garlic, and you combine all of that together in a bowl with olive oil and a little bit of salt and pepper and red chili pepper flakes.
And this goes against Samin's segregation rules, but you then transfer everything from that bowl.
It's such a regressive philosophy, Samin.
I know. I mean, like, I guess, you know, you're sticking with it.
I get it. I mean, as someone who's in an interracial marriage, I got to speak my truth.
As someone who grew up in Boston, I mean, what you're saying is… Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Jason from Nahant and me from Peabody, look, we've lived through the aftermath.
Oh, right. Oh, my God.
North Shore representing the North Shore.
How did I become the… How did I become… The face of racism?
Gosh. oh i'm sorry simeon i mean it when i say i was coming on this podcast to be your ally against rishi and now how the tables have turned somehow the alignment is off yeah tell me about it yeah he's fallen under my spell okay but uh yeah go ahead so the rest of this thing it's so simple you just you put it on a tray you set the oven to high broil the highest heat that you can possibly go you put the tray in for five minutes comes out it's delicious yes it's not only cook through everything's like kind of it's actually the thing that samin was complaining about is part of what makes it so good
the different ingredients i can't tell listeners more that this should be a video podcast because Because while Rishi is describing all of the steps, the faces and the movement from Samin is like, is without a question derisive about everything that Rishi is doing.
It's fine. I'm used to her judgment.
Wait, Jason, you're like really ruining the spell of my character as like a totally supportive and loving.
I just don't know if listeners know.
I don't know if listeners can hear quite the eye roll that's why I don't say anything and it's only a facial expression thing is because you're ruining my whole secret identity as a totally huge judgmental person yeah so you're saying you're saying everything is medium cooked but but you think it's delicious?
Some things are burnt.
Some things are totally raw.
Yeah, exactly. The kale is a little bit, is kind of crispy and the broccolini is just a little bit tender and it's fantastic.
All right, I'll try that.
The whole thing takes about, you know, five minutes to prepare and then five minutes in the oven.
You take it out and you just squeeze some lemon on it.
It's really good. So, but you're not afraid to put all those ingredients together and roast them together all as one.
That is, wow. Wow. True food integration.
Yes. Yeah. It's interesting.
That recipe, by the way, comes from the Feast cookbook.
It's called Feast, Generous Vegetarian Meals for Any Eater and Every Appetite.
It's by Sarah Copeland.
And I'll try and see if that recipe is online and we can link to it.
I will find it. I will order the book.
Jason, on another related topic here, have you ever lived with somebody or have you always lived alone?
No, I lived with someone, but I lived with a woman for 10 years.
I was in a relationship for 10 years in Brooklyn.
And she was an incredible cook.
She used to make something that I still think about all the time, which was a pasta dish, because you can get store -bought pasta that is egg -free, which was a pasta dish that what was on top of the pasta was like garlic, red chili flakes, chickpeas, and maybe kale or something green.
And that was it. It was was like super simple but absolutely delicious no tomato sauce or anything like that no tomato sauce no saucy sauce kind of nothing you know it was very um it was a very kind of clean pasta dish does that sound like something that you could i do that totally i mean that basically sounds like what i was talking about but with pasta added to it totally yeah but samin said your thing was gross i want to do i want to do i want to do a good version of it that's a pretty classic like pasta combination that sounds pretty delicious.
So what I would do is get your can of chickpeas or your cooked chickpeas that you make at home and drain them.
Maybe even save a little bit of that chickpea water because it's pretty magical.
I love magical things.
Yeah. Magical things.
Very important. Chickpea water is a magical thing.
Do you know about it?
It's called aquafaba.
No. They gave it a Latin name and it's used actually as an egg substitute.
Institute. Great. Because something about the chickpea water, like there's some similar proteins in it to egg whites.
You can use it to make mayonnaise instead of eggs.
You can use it to make meringues instead of egg whites.
You can totally like as an egg averse person, you should familiarize yourself with chickpea water.
Cut to me hoarding chickpea.
Oh, 100 percent. When I was when I ran kitchens, I told all my cooks, I was like, bean water is as precious as gold.
I was It's like never waste a drop.
And then when you walked away, they were like, you know, she still believes in segregating vegetables.
This crazy segregationist is trying to pay for things with bean water.
It's not currency. She said we have to all give her our bean water, but that's our goal.
She's trying to pay us in bean water instead of money.
You know, I went and tried to buy groceries with bean water.
She's been lying the whole time.
It has no value. You know, to me, friends of chickpeas in the green family are, I think, broccoli, Rob, broccolini, broccoli, kale.
All of those things are good sort of pairings.
Oh, wild nettles are really good with chickpeas.
You could use also if you had spinach or chard, you could use that.
But I think the hardier things stand up to chickpeas a little bit better.
OK. And if you are using something like kale or broccoli rabe or broccolini, you do need to pre -cook it a little bit.
Sure. And you could just use the boiling pasta water to do that.
So when you add your pasta in, you could also add your green things in.
It's OK to add it with.
Yeah. And depending on what kind of shape of pasta it is, if that takes 12 minutes, your greens probably will take fewer minutes less time.
So you would stagger them into the water at some point later so that you could pull them both out at the same time and go into your pan, which would by then have a little bit of garlic that you would have sizzled in some olive oil, maybe with some chili flakes.
And then you would have added your chickpeas that you would have drained and sort of sizzled those and gotten them all olive oily and garlicky and chili -y and then added the pasta and the greens.
So now at this point you're using some combination of pasta water.
if you have it a little chickpea water and olive oil to create a starchy oily emulsion so you i would crank it up to the highest crank your pan crank it up on the pan that now has these things in it yeah crank your pan up because you want it boiling because that boiling action and that hot temperature that's going to be mixing this like starchy water and oil mixture is going to create like an emulsified, a thick sauce, but you really need it to be boiling hard in order to happen.
Okay. Because what you're describing does sound like the dish I'm talking about.
So that sounds perfect.
Awesome. And then if you need to help it along, you could even smush a few of the chickpeas to break down a little bit, even more of the starch. Okay.
To make it thicker.
Yeah. To make it a little bit creamier.
Exactly. Ooh, that's great.
Okay. That's perfect.
I'm so glad this this happen because this is the dish that I feel like would be comfort food for me you know like organically we have found it because it was that dish that was the dish that my girlfriend at the time would make often and was so and it was delicious and I was always it was such a again because I don't get to have a lot of pasta it was my I get to have pasta and it was great I love that yeah that this is awesome I love that Jason thanks so much for talking with us I could do this for hours.
This was so fun. Thank you so much. A blast. Truly a blast. Jason Manzoukas is not on social media anywhere, but you can catch him in John Wick 3 on Brooklyn Nine -Nine or the Netflix animated series Big Mouth.
So, I mean, before we wrap up, I wanted to play you one very special message that we got in our inbox from someone who was very concerned.
This came in between our second patch of episodes and then this new batch of third episodes so during the long stretch when we were uh on a break this is from karen and i love her where are you we miss you how do we find out what's going on with you the last time you had a podcast was over a month ago Oh, you have to come back.
Where are you? She sounds rough.
I'm sure I'm not the only one leaving voicemail messages.
Can someone call back?
Is that all possible?
And let us know what's going on, please.
God, I go to sleep with you at night.
I listen to you during the day.
I told all my friends about you.
They just absolutely love it.
What is the problem?
here um can someone leave a voicemail message and let us know what we're supposed to do here to get you back on the air thank you so i'm sorry we didn't call you back but thank you so much for this message i think this is maybe the my favorite message that we've gotten yeah there is no advice needed but i felt like we had to respond karen wow the level of concern wow we're okay we're we're back we're okay we're back and we really appreciate it yeah we do appreciate it and we're back and we'll be here basically till the end of the year yeah we're gonna make episodes every two weeks until the end
of the year maybe we'll take a little bit of extra time after thanksgiving yeah but we'll we're gonna coast through the holidays with you my favorite part is what is the problem here oh karen you were great oh my god and what was the part where she said she's like i listened listen to you at night and then during the day she's like god i go to sleep with you at night and i listen to you during the day uh that really made my day thank you so much for that message wow and that's it for this episode yeah thanks for listening we make this podcast with the help of margaret miller zach mcneice gary lee
and casey deal and mamie reingold does the illustrations for our episodes we're a proud member of the network radiotopia a collective of independent independent podcasts.
You can learn more at radiotopia .fm.
Let us know if you have any cooking -related questions.
Just record a voice memo and send it to us at a littlehomecooking at gmail .com.
Our website is homecooking .show and also shrimpjanga .com.
Go to shrimpjanga .com to find recipes and transcripts for all our episodes.
You can follow. Oh, my God, this is what happens when we make a show at night.
You can follow Rishi on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway.
And Samin is at Ciao Samin.
Stay healthy, eat well, and take care of each other.
We'll be back in two weeks.
Until then, I'm Samin.
And I'm Rishi. And we'll be shrimp jenga.
Radiotopia, from PRX.
