I'm Samin Nasrat. And I'm Rishi K.
Sherway. And then you say...
And we're Home Cooking.
This is now a podcast that I guess we make once a year.
And so this year, we bring you episode 17 of our four -part series.
Oh my god. Everyone's like, oh, you're recording again?
I'm like, well, Rishi made me.
i had to set up this audio stuff that was all rusty yeah yeah i do like the look of your podcast cave my real it looks like a game of thrones cozy back here it does it yeah you are ready for winter between all the blankets and also the fact that you're sitting on is that an an Aeron chair made entirely out of knives.
It is. Well, Samin, it has been a year since we talked in a way that was recorded.
But how's your 2022 been?
This is, by the way, should we tell people that this episode and our lives have entered a new chapter, the chill era?
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yesterday, Rishi and I decided that the two least chill people have ever walked the earth.
Walked the earth? yeah we've entered the chill era of home cooking and then he promptly sent me a google calendar invite thereby canceling out i was like that's not chill dude like yeah maybe you should go first tell us how your year has been maybe we should narrow it down remember how we used to do this oh what's the best thing you ate this week yeah yeah what was the best thing you've eaten this year is that too much pressure this is gonna really um bring the tone of everything down But I'm just going to talk about it.
Okay, sure. It's a safe space, right?
Yes. So this has been a truly hard year for me.
My dad passed away after four months in the hospital that were really excruciating.
And toward the end, he wasn't able to swallow, but he could still taste things and that could bring him some joy.
boy. So I kind of became focused on giving him whatever he wanted to taste during these last days and driving all over Southern California to try and find things that were soft enough for him to swallow.
Near the hospital, I was really excited because there was an H Mart, like the Korean grocery store.
And it was truly the most amazing grocery store I'd ever been to.
It was was just like heaven.
And there was a bunch of fruit and it was like peak summer.
So there was tons of watermelon, like pre -sliced and packaged watermelon, which normally I never buy.
But I was like, oh, that actually kind of looks good to me.
And I thought, oh, maybe my dad would like this.
Like Iranians are really into fruit.
Like they eat crazy amounts of fruit.
Like there's not a lot of like dessert in Iranian culture.
There's just more like it's a fruit eating culture.
So then back in hospital room I'm like trying to like eat this watermelon it's so sweet and perfectly like crisp in that way there's like no mealiness it was just really really good and I looked at my dad who really wasn't like interested in eating much or drinking anything and I said oh dad like do you want some watermelon and he was like yeah I'll try it and so I mashed it up and I like made him watermelon juice and he loved it so that became this like nice ritual for the last few days of his life was the watermelon.
That was sort of how I nursed myself back to health.
That's the only thing I can think of.
Because other than that, for the last six months, the main thing I've been eating is Barbara's cheese puffs.
This is unfamiliar to me.
Is this a health food store thing?
It's a health food store snack that tastes not healthy and is not actually healthy.
Oh, okay. So how does it sneak into the health store?
Because it doesn't have bright bright orange like cheeto artificial color and it looks like they put like some pictures of some out -of -focus trees in the background on the packaging i've not really examined the package because i'm too busy just eating i'm looking at it right now it's like presented like it's on a picnic table it's outside but you're really saying they're just bamboozling everybody yeah yeah it lies in deception but like let me just tell you there's a hierarchy of barber's cheese puffs Oh, okay.
But I think not very many people agree with me.
About what? So there's the people who believe that the top of the hierarchy is the jalapeno cheese puff.
I believe those people already.
But the problem for me with that is that the jalapeno cheese puff only comes in one texture and it does not come in my preferred texture.
I like the puffy texture, you know, like not the Cheeto texture, but like the super puffy kind, you know, like the puffy Cheetos.
Like the cheese curl as opposed to a Cheeto.
Yes, exactly. I like the cheese curl versus the Cheeto.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I prefer the kind that's basically like you're eating a piece of styrofoam, like a biodegradable styrofoam that's melting on your tongue.
Yes, yeah. And the cheese puff you're saying is going to be like a skinnier, more harder.
Like denser, denser, more crunchy.
Like more likely to scrape the skin off the top or the roof of your mouth.
Yes. Yes. And the jalapeno, for some confusing reason, only comes in that texture.
But both products are called cheese puffs.
Yes, but one's called baked.
The one I like is called baked for some reason.
Oh, I see. Okay. But what I do believe is that white cheddar is inferior to original because original has blue cheese in it and blue cheese has more like cheesy, umami, funky goodness.
And jalapeno is basically the original plus jalapeno. Oh, gotcha, gotcha.
you want that blue cheese stinkiness yes it's not even so stinky it's just like umami yumminess you can't even tell it's a blue cheese you just miss it when you're eating white cheddar interesting okay so if you cut me open right now i'd be like mostly a barber's cheese puff a little bit of watermelon residue and maybe some ice cream this makes me want to jump right into a question that that we got oh we're not even going to hear anything about your life we'll come back to it because it's just too perfect of a segue here's a question we got from two listeners calling in together i mean rishi isn't
maureen and caitlin we need your help caitlin thinks that crispy and crunchy are the same thing no wait i don't think they're the same thing i just don't understand stand.
I just feel like they just seem like little things that are in your teeth.
No, like a nice airy oyster cracker is crispy, but it's not crunchy, and like a hard cereal or granola is crunchy, but it's not crispy.
I don't know. Like, I could tell something is neither crispy nor crunchy, like Velveeta cheese, but honestly, it's the same.
Okay. Tell us, is there really a a difference.
We need to know your thoughts.
Yes, I may miss you.
Okay. And we love you.
Bye, guys. Oh, my God.
This is so funny. I like that there was clearly like many conversations that preceded this phone call.
I like that Maureen didn't even know which position she took it originally.
Do you have a gut reaction to whether crispiness and crunchiness are two two different qualities that food can have?
I think they're different.
Okay. How would you characterize the differences?
You can think about them as happening in different parts of your mouth.
I was like, yeah, granola is crunchy.
Like the crunch comes from my back teeth.
Whereas crispiness, it's a little bit more delicate.
And so I can put a, like a chip that's crispy on my tongue or even between my lips or my front teeth.
I don't have to go all way to like my back teeth to get it.
There's also things that you can get to be crisp that don't even necessarily give you that sound.
I think crispness, like when we say we crisp up the chicken skin, you know, a really perfectly crisp chicken skin on that first few bites actually will give you a little bit of a, like a little, will actually kind of break snap a little bit.
I don't have to go and do that huge work in the back of my mouth.
I think crunch happens in the the back of your mouth.
My first thought was in music terms or audio terms, I guess, crispiness is more of a treble sensation and crunchiness is more of a bass sensation.
I can get with you on that.
And I think that that kind of corresponds with what you're saying, right?
Like front teeth, treble, back teeth, the bass.
Just to circle back to Barbara's cheese puffs, The like baked fluffy ones are crispy and the like denser Cheeto -y ones are crunchy.
Did you know that there's a magazine called the Journal of Texture Studies?
I am sure I have cited it.
Well, let's cite an article from January of 2007 by Z .M.
Vickers who writes, It's crispness versus crunchiness, a difference in pitch. I found an article that actually— Oh my god, you found like, that uses the music metaphor.
Yes. Here's the abstract.
Initially, two groups of foods were selected, one containing foods that were more crunchy than crisp, and other containing foods that were more crisp than crunchy.
So already, in the opening sentence of this article from the Journal of Texture Sciences— They're acknowledging that they're two different things.
Exactly, yes. Yes. Subjects then compared each of the crisper foods with each of the crunchier foods and selected the product producing the higher pitched sound.
More crisp than crunchy foods nearly always produced higher pitched sounds than the more crunchy than crisp foods.
That makes sense. When the pitch of the eating sound was altered, lowered, by changing the eating technique from a bite to a chew, judgments of crispness were depressed.
Totally. Wow. We're both both right.
We basically wrote this.
We're both basically food scientists.
I was going to say we should call Sumesh uncle, but we don't even need him.
But maybe we should anyway.
This is really his area of expertise.
He'll be offended if we don't consult him.
Hi, Rish. Hi, dad. Hi, Sumesh uncle.
Hi. All right. So, dad, is there a difference between crispiness and crunchiness?
And if so, how would you describe the difference?
Okay, so crispiness, it will be on the surface.
So you are making, say, for example, fried chicken.
The chicken has got a breading and all that.
So that makes the surface of the chicken more crispy.
Okay? Then you are saying crunchy.
Crunchy means you have to chew with your teeth.
Uh -huh. Is it possible for something to be crunchy without being crispy?
Yes. Like what? Like, say, potato chips.
You know, they're crunchy.
Do you know what a potato chip is called in England?
A crisp. Yes. But you're saying potato chips aren't crisp.
You're saying they're crunchy.
Crunchy, right. Because you press it.
You just insulted an entire nation and their entire packaged potato food industry.
He scored that. No, it shouldn't be.
One second. I have to look for the book, which I can tell from there.
He's going to cite.
According to me. According to me?
Wow, is that your citation, Dad?
Yeah, what you call experience, learning, and all that.
Okay, okay, okay. Okay, okay.
Crunch means you put it and you bite it with the teeth.
That's crunch. Okay.
Crispy is like a texture, but it won't make a noise.
It's a little bit more than chewy.
It's crispy. be and then i do have a textual book but you guys are in a hurry if you give me time i can look it up and let you know too okay sounds good yeah yeah if you find it later then let me know you can phone it in okay okay we gotta go okay bye thanks for throwing a fastball at me you're welcome you did You did a great job.
You did a great job.
Thank you. Okay, bye.
It sounds like basically crispy is on the surface and crunchy is all the way through.
I think that's another way you can think of it.
Look at that. We answered a question.
Thank you so much to Caitlin and Maureen for sending us a question.
Yeah, I hope to settle something between you.
Should we go back and answer what your favorite thing that you've eaten all year has been?
Oh, well, you know one thing, actually.
I was in San Diego, and I was driving back to LA, and you told me a little while earlier when you were driving around in California about this place, Wholesome Choice.
Tell everybody what Wholesome Choice is.
Wholesome Choice is a grocery store in Irvine, California.
And I don't know if it used to be like a Safeway or something, but it's a full -sized Iranian slash Middle Eastern slash brown people grocery store.
So it's like kind of this amazing place to visit.
And one of my favorite things about it is they have like the white people yogurt area, like the Yoplait and the Danone and stuff.
And then they have the brown people yogurt area where it's like.
In the 64 ounce tubs.
An Iranian or an Indian person would buy like a gallon of yogurt.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But the true draw of wholesome choice is right as you walk in, there is a bakery that bakes specifically a type of bread called sangak, which in Farsi, the word sang means stones.
And so way back when this type of bread used to be baked on an oven that was lined with like pebbles from a riverbed.
And the bread is like a whole wheat flatbread that has a really wet dough.
And so it's almost like poured out into this oven into like a long maybe two or three foot long flat bread and sprinkled with nigella seeds and sesame seeds and they're just so delicious and this is this bread that when I grew up when I was little like my mom and my aunts and uncles everybody was always like sangak sangak sangak and I never really got it because you couldn't really get great sangak until Wholesome Choice opened and it was such a draw that we would drive like the 88 miles from from our house.
88 miles, can you imagine?
And my mom would pack all of us, me and my brothers, in the car, because Wholesome Choice used to have a limit to how many Sangaks each person could buy.
And so she would drag us all in there and make us all buy, like, I think everyone could buy either two or three.
So then we'd each have to get the two or three, then we'd have Sangak for, like, the next number of weeks.
Now, if I'm ever driving between LA and San Diego, I always stop, it's like just about halfway and I get sanggak and some snacks from the prepared foods and it's just a really, really great place and so when you guys were driving home, I said, oh, you should go to Wholesome Choice and you'll really like the sanggak.
Yeah. And they still have the two sanggak limit.
Oh, they do? Okay. Yeah.
At least in terms of if you want to get warm ones, you know, because you can buy it and it's all packaged.
But you can also get it right out of the oven and it was so good.
I was just just eating it in the store as I was going through.
Yeah, but yesterday, I was at a car dealership, looking for a car.
And the guy who was helping me was Persian, we were talking and he was asking me where I'm from.
And you know, he was asking me about India and my parents and stuff.
And then I asked him, I was like, Oh, by the way, you know where I went the other day that was so good.
I went to wholesome choice.
And he just put his pen down.
And he looked at me.
He put his hands on his his lap.
And he said, you know, wholesome choice.
And I said, I do. I said, well, my friend had told me about it.
And so I had to stop there so I could get the warm sangak.
And then his whole face lit up.
It was just like, he was like, you know, sangak, you must be Persian.
Even though he already knew I wasn't.
It was just an incredible bonding moment between me and my car salesman.
And actually, I'll take this moment to do a little shout out.
My cousins have a bakery in LA where they make really delicious sangak.
If you want to try it, it's called House of Bread.
I would say theirs may even beat out Wholesome Choice.
Yes. My new friend Amir also told me that the Johns in Burbank also bakes sangak.
Oh, I don't know what Johns is, but we should go there next time I'm down there.
Yeah, Johns is, I believe, an Armenian grocery store.
We should definitely go there.
I'm really, as you can tell already, it's like just mere several minutes into this episode.
And we've already talked about H Mart and Wholesome Choice.
So I'm really into like a particular community's grocery store.
The other thing that I had that was really tremendous was while I was on tour earlier this year.
Tour for what? For my music.
Oh, okay. I don't know if you're golfing or something.
Well, maybe the audience wants to know.
I think you just buzzify.
Okay, okay. Earlier this year, when I was on tour playing concerts, playing music, I played a show in Portland, and while I was there, I went to the headquarters of Salt & Straw Ice Cream.
Yeah, I know. I'm very jealous.
And while I was there, I had my first tastes of a new limited edition ice cream that they and I and you helped bring into existence called Mom's Mango Pie.
That's so awesome. It's so awesome.
Can you tell us about the whole experience of developing the ice cream?
Yeah, okay. So we've talked about the mango pie on home cooking so much, maybe too much. No such thing.
Okay, much like the mango pie, there's no such thing as too much. so this is i guess part two of our two -part sad parents have died food stories welcome back guys so this is my mom's mango pie recipe which samin you wrote about in the new york times in 2019 in 2020 my mom passed away and i did not make mango pie that year it was the right before for Thanksgiving and people might remember that from for us.
It was two years ago, but for you, it might have been just three episodes ago.
But then last year, I decided I was going to make mango pie again.
Oh, I remember this.
And I tried to make it vegan.
I tried to make a vegan version of the mango pie, which I had not done.
I was using like a coconut -based Cool Whip type product and vegan cream cheese.
This is my favorite thing is like when someone takes a recipe that works works and then changes everything about it yeah exactly and so it didn't go exactly as planned if the plan was to make a pot i put it all together i put it in the self -compassion if i ever heard it i put it in the fridge you know to set overnight and then we had our thanksgiving dinner and then i brought it out for dessert and it had a nice sort of glossy shine on the top and And I was like, okay, here we go.
And then I cut into it.
And it spilled everywhere.
Just liquid filled the gap where the knife was.
Filled the wedge. Yeah.
It hadn't set completely.
Been there, done that.
Yeah. So I ended up, instead of serving it in plates, I had to serve it in bowls.
It basically had the consistency of melted ice cream.
But all of my friends who were there all still loved it.
They were like, this is delicious.
And it still tasted like the mango pie.
It was just in the wrong, you know, state of matter.
And because it reminded me of melted ice cream, it made me think, what if there were actually mango pie flavored ice cream?
Yeah, which sounds delicious.
Yeah. And so I brought that idea to the folks at Salt and Straw, who are wonderful, lovely people who I'd met from interviewing them for my podcast Partners.
So I texted them a picture of this pie failure.
Pie failure, but ice cream success.
But ice cream success, maybe, question mark?
And I sent them your article, and they got excited, and they said, should we do a collab?
And I said, oh my gosh, yes.
And so in the spring, they had made their first batch of the mom's mango pie ice cream.
And so I got to taste test it and give them some notes and some thoughts, and then they made another round, and then they sent that to me in LA, and I got to give them some more thoughts and then they made the final batch which is part of their thanksgiving menu this year as like a limited edition flavor what you're saying is people should buy the salt and straw ice cream or if they don't have access to salt and straw ice cream they should make the mango pie and leave out the gelatin or agar agar either go buy this delicious ice cream or make the mango pie poorly and maybe like freeze it a little
bit and then it'll be the same thing yeah Yeah.
Okay, I'm going to read from the press release.
Ready? Okay, ready.
Okay. Like many families throughout the U .S., the Hereway family Thanksgiving menu combined flavors from their Indian heritage with classic American favorites, blending flavors to create dishes like stuffing bhaji, which is stovetop stuffing with onions, garlic, and Indian spices, which I'm pretty sure we've talked about in our past Thanksgiving episodes, and serving a full vegetarian Indian Indian dinner alongside turkey and mashed potatoes.
Amongst all the incredible food on the table, the standout dish every year was Rishikesh's mother's mango pie.
It's a perfect amalgamation of American pie and Indian flavors, and it features a bright mango pulp filling made tangy with the addition of cream cheese and a Keebler graham cracker crust. Wow, they mentioned Keebler in the press release.
Yeah. Now, though Rishikesh's mother passed away in 2020, the cherished mango pie recipe lives on making its debut in ice cream form.
Noting that his mother's mango pie might translate really well as an ice cream, and wanting to memorialize his mother's beloved recipe, he turned to one of his favorite pastry chefs, Tyler Malick of Salt and Straw.
Tyler was immediately drawn to the recipe, and soon after developed what is now the mom's mango pie ice cream flavor.
The ice cream has a kulfi base made with mawa and just a touch of mango.
What's mawa? Mawa is, it's a Indian cheese.
cheese. Oh, uh -huh, uh -huh, what Kulfi's made with.
It's just, it's so smart that Tyler decided to pull that into the recipe.
So rad. Mango pulp, cream cheese, and Kulwip is swirled into the Kulfi base and mawa, and then all is mixed with Keebler Graham Cracker crumbs.
Ah, that's so rad. It's so delicious.
Oh my god, I can't wait to taste it.
So you can buy it at Salt and Straw through Thanksgiving, and then if you're not anywhere near a Salt and Straw, you can just order it, And it'll ship to you.
Or like I said, you could just make a bad mango pie.
Yeah, exactly. But that ice cream is definitely one of the best things that I have eaten this year.
Well, also like there's so much story and personal emotion built into taste.
Yeah. And so it could be a watermelon or it could be this like wonderful thing that's bringing back all of this memory and honoring your mom.
Um, also you've had your own share of being a food scientist, honoring your dad.
It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool.
We got a question from Lachlan about something that happened on this podcast earlier.
When we first talked about ice cream, we talked about the ice cream store that you always wanted to open.
Oh yeah, uh -huh. The Emperor of Ice Cream.
Emperor of Ice Cream.
And then we started talking about dream ice cream flavors.
But Lachlan said that in that ice cream segment, here's the question.
Samin said her second favorite ice cream flavor was mulberry.
And I don't know how this happened, but Rishi didn't ask what her first favorite ice cream was.
Wait, is mulberry ice cream something that exists in the world?
Have you ever had that before?
Yes. It's like one of my top two favorite flavors ever in the entire history of the universe.
It's like the special flavor of Chez Panisse restaurant where I learned to cook.
And I don't know how that happened either.
Neither. If mulberry is your second favorite, what's number one?
Well, it's a complicated answer because I have a bouj answer and I have like the grocery store everyday answer.
Is the bouj answer the salt and straw mango pie ice cream?
No, I've never had it.
How would I know? You know, we're just trying to be on my side here.
No, sorry. My regular everyday, like probably take it to the grave answer is mint chocolate chocolate chip doesn't it melt after it goes underground no it's like pretty cold down there oh i see i see and then my bouj answer which is like so this is probably why i didn't say it's like it's embarrassing you know what i mean oh it's the i know which one i know what it is yeah it's the one that's made from the blood of peasants yes that one it is really bougie stop stop i can't right now okay okay it's burnt caramel no yo so i know well there you go that's why i couldn't say it it's like rishi's eyes
just rolled so hard they basically like fell to the back of his brain yeah yeah and then that's my actual friend quote unquote like i can't even can imagine.
Oh, my God. Like other people.
That's why I can't say it out loud.
Yeah, I can. I now I understand.
Yeah. But I will say like ice creams that are flavored with what Noyo is, it's the French word for the apricot pit.
It's like the kernel inside of an apricot pit, which produces this like incredible almondy flavor.
I can't remember if we've talked about it on the podcast before.
We haven't actually.
I wrote a column about apricot jam and Noyo and and how it's like the secret ingredient to like my favorite apricot jams, including the one that I make.
I just learned this recently when I went to the farm where I pick up the apricots for my jam, but some stone fruit kernel is actually where they get one of the flavorings for Coca -Cola.
It's a very specific sort of like almondy flavor, because all of those things are related, almonds and cherries, apricots, nectarines, all the stone fruits.
They're in a family called, a botanical family called drupes.
So if you steep like the cream or the ice cream base with the apricot kernels, it releases its aroma into the ice cream base and it's so good.
And then there used to be a really like wonderful ice cream shop here in Berkeley called E .C.
and she would just make these seasonal flavors.
And honestly, the best flavor I ever had was burnt caramel noyo and I've never forgotten.
It was probably like 12 or 15 years ago.
And I just I've never forgotten how delicious that was so it's your favorite ice cream but you've only had it once wow okay it was so good i think it was just like a special like really really special thing that i knew would probably never happen again everybody needs to know that like even though i've been through a life -changing trauma like rishi has still not given me any break from the puns like it continues you don't know the amount of restraint that i have shown no no i mean even in this podcast after you explained what the apricot pit was i did not say and now you know yo but i will say
like this is to what lengths he goes to is i left twitter like 90 to get away from rishi and now he just screenshots the bad puns and texts them to me yeah i'm gonna be like six feet underground and i'm gonna hear like a clawing at my casket and i'm gonna be like can Can I have some mint chip ice cream, please?
I'll be like, yeah, it's perfectly frozen down here.
It's perfectly frozen.
She's like, by the way, here's a screenshot of my latest tweet.
If you like home cooking and you want to hear more from the two of us, I wanted to tell you about a new episode of my series, Key Change, where I interview guests about a song that changed their life.
It's a new part of my music podcast Song Exploder, and I had Samin on as a guest. She told me about the impact that the song Untouchable Face by Ani DeFranco had on her.
Here's a little clip of our conversation.
Oh, I've bleeped out some of the words for this because we don't swear on home cooking, but it's a pretty important part of the story.
So when you go to listen to the full episode, you'll hear the uncensored version.
So we went and the concert was Ani DeFranco.
Had you heard Ani DeFranco's music before?
before? No, I had no idea who this person was.
And she performed this song, Untouchable Face, which in Untouchable Face, she swears.
She says, you and your untouchable face.
And I had no idea what the song was about.
I just heard the, you know, which to me was so scandalous.
Like I'm just like, you know, good brown kid.
Like I was like, ooh, I was sort of scandalized.
What was the reaction of the other people in the room?
I mean, everyone else knew all the words and was singing it along and like they were this was like hardly scandalous music for them people were listening to way more intense stuff and so not only are you in a room where the singer is dropping an f -bomb everybody around you is singing along with it oh yeah totally and so you know you you kind of probably by the end of the song i was also singing along yeah so that's the clip i actually think it's a really moving story and shows a side of samin that you might not know.
To hear the rest of our conversation, look for Samin's episode of Key Change on Song Exploder wherever you get your podcasts or go to songexploder .net slash key change.
I hope you listen. Thanks.
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 you too 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 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.
Okay, let's turn to another question.
This one was a voicemail that we got, but the caller did not identify herself.
Hi, Samina Rishi. I just discovered your podcast, and I just also discovered that I have COVID.
So I'm hunkering down with my boo, and we just roasted a chicken, which was delicious.
And now I have all this leftover chicken fat in the pan.
And I hate figuring out what to do with the leftover fat from chicken that I cook.
I'm newly eating chicken.
It just pains me to like throw away oil.
So I'm wondering if you have any recipes to use up leftover like meat fat.
Thanks. Oh my god, I love this question.
And I have been thinking about chicken fat a lot because Because I just made chicken soup, and I feel like it's becoming chicken season.
Like, I don't eat a ton of meat anymore.
Well, also because I'm on a Barbara Cheese Puffs only diet.
Also because the phrase leftover meat fat just isn't the most appetizing thing.
But I guess because I also have leftover meat fat that I'm pondering what to do with.
I have leftover meat fat that I'm also pondering what to do with.
but that's why i have a gym membership oh my god why why why why why why why why is her wait is her name rachel is that we don't know her name but you can call her rachel okay i'll just call you rachel i don't know okay dear rachel you know how they sometimes how like people will be like sleepless in seattle and then the advice columnist will be like dear sleepless oh right yeah i'll be be like dear leftover meat fat yeah exactly but okay here is a short list of things that i've been thinking of doing with my leftover rendered chicken fat to begin with you don't feel pressure to use it immediately
you can just tip it out of the pan strain it through a strainer and into a glass jar and refrigerate it and it'll keep for i don't know a few weeks you could also freeze it it for, you know, up to, I don't know, I honestly have one from last year, but maybe what's safer is just up to like six months or something like that.
Jewish folks call rendered chicken fat schmaltz.
So that's how I like to label it in the fridge.
That's a word I think in Yiddish for it.
And so a classic use for schmaltz is in matzo balls.
If you don't feel like up to making matzo of balls some much easier ways to use it up is roasting vegetables like tossing your vegetables that you want to roast in it like a classic delicious thing is just potatoes like cut up your potatoes toss them with like warm liquidy schmaltz instead of olive oil or another fat or sweet potatoes is great carrots are also good truly i mean any potatoes cooked in chicken or duck fat are just so so so extra delicious i was thinking actually putting that in my next book That's how much I love them.
Another thing that I really love doing is making rice with some chicken fat in it.
And this came about because of a mistake I made once where I was making a pot of chicken stock.
And I love making chicken stock rice where I use stock instead of water to cook my rice.
And I had the pot of stock on the stove, and it was like, you know, still cooking or almost almost done.
And so instead of like doing the normal skimming of all the fat at the top and then putting the measurement of stock into the pot of rice, I just like took, I was lazy and I took it from the top, thereby bringing accidentally a whole bunch of the fat from the top of the stock into my rice pot.
And then I think I like went to take a bath or something.
I like somehow ignored the pot of rice for a little too long.
So once all of the liquid was absorbed into the rice.
There was then fat left in the pot at the bottom of the pot and the bottom rice sizzled in the chicken fat turning into like a chicken fat tadig, a schmaltz tadig.
And it was truly so delicious.
So now I almost always will just put a little bit of schmaltz in my rice cooker or in my pot of rice if I'm making chicken stock rice to try and get that.
Or like you can make fried rice.
If you're making chicken fried rice, you can use the schmaltz for that.
Helen Rosner, who writes about food for the New Yorker in probably 2020, I think early pandemic times, she came up with like a viral recipe for chicken with schmaltzy cabbage, where she would like roast a chicken.
and I don't know if she just let the schmaltz drip down onto like slices of cabbage underneath the chicken in a cast iron pan, but that's a great way where like you could, I mean, honestly, just the cabbage and schmaltz is a great idea.
I don't know. Is this enough schmaltz ideas?
You want some more?
That's great. Okay.
So we got a question from Emmy about salting and marinades.
She said she's been learning a lot about salting foods from from salt, fat, acid, heat.
But one of the things she's wondering about is how much you salt a protein when it's going to be in a marinade.
I know from talking to you and from reading your book and from just, you know, living life adjacently to you, you love to put a lot of salt on meat to tenderize it and also make it delicious.
But the question is, do you take a different approach when it's going to be in a marinade?
Should there be less salt?
Do you put But the salt in the marinade itself?
I guess it depends on what is in the marinade and to exactly what type of meat or what size of meat you're marinating.
So if we're talking Thanksgiving or a chicken or a big piece of meat on the bone, you can kind of like go for a whole day or even two days.
I mean, a turkey, I would do two days in advance, but like a chicken, I would do a day in advance.
And if you do it and then you end up having to go out to dinner, it's fine for that second day.
But if it's a smaller piece of meat, like a steak or chicken breast, a turkey breast, you know, something not on the bone, less time is better because it will start drying out.
And that same thing applies to marinades because marinades tend to have acid in them and acid works differently on meat.
Acid has kind of a more, I would say, hard time limit than salt does.
With salt, things are a little more forgiving And it's like a little bit more of a gray area.
If you're going to make a cell gray joke, insert here.
I was going to say, if your meat is exhibiting a gray area, probably don't salt it at all.
I'll just throw it away.
Okay, there you go.
But what will happen with acid is you'll put it on your meat and it will start to tenderize, but then at a certain point, it will dry it out and cause tough, dried out meat.
And so you want to marinate the bigger, tougher things because that's what needs that help and that flavor infusion and that tenderization that comes with the acid.
So marinating, you do it mainly for the tenderizing and less for the flavor?
I have opinions that nobody else needs to follow, but I don't necessarily think like...
See burnt butter caramel and noio and the blood of peasants ice cream.
Yeah, that's why I keep those opinions to myself.
Exactly. That's what I'm saying.
Was I out here telling everyone what my favorite ice cream was?
No. Just my second favorite, which already...
Just your second favorite.
Honestly, Persian mulberries are like, you know, snooty enough.
yeah so like i couldn't very well in the same breath tell you two fancy ice creams let me give you a scenario okay give me a scenario what's the scenario it's chickadee choco the chocolate chicken okay so we're talking mole chicken mole here chicken mole say you're making chicken uh -huh and you have the same chicken, two chickens, and you want to have the same flavor.
One of them is going to go in a marinade.
One of them is not going to go in a marinade.
Between the two, which one requires more salt?
Like in your recipe list, which one is like, you need this many teaspoons or tablespoons?
It depends if there are other salty ingredients in the marinade.
So if there's soy sauce in the marinade, if there's, I don't know, brags liquid aminos.
Let's say there aren't any other salt ingredients in the marinade.
Then I would still use the same amount of salt.
It also depends how much, quote unquote, marinade.
Because for example, in the buttermilk chicken that I have in my book, one can think of the buttermilk as a brine or some people might think of it as a marinade.
I think of it more as a brine.
What's the difference?
I was thinking of them interchangeably in my mind.
Brines tend to be that you put meat in when you're brining your meat.
there's like much more volume of it.
Whereas marinade is just enough to coat the meat because all you're trying to get is like a flavor interchange and a salt and acid interchange.
So it's just enough to coat.
It's not like necessarily needs to be submerged.
So if I were making a marinade out of like expensive ingredients, like vinegar and olive oil and I don't know, pounding garlic and putting ginger and chili pepper, I wouldn't put enough that it's It's like, so my chicken's being submerged into it.
I would just want it to cook.
I have found that if I put zero salt and thinking that like my marinade will take care of it, that that doesn't ever work.
Right. I always need to put a little bit of actual salt on the meat and usually give it a little bit of time, like a 30 minute heads up for that to start getting absorbed before adding the marinade.
One question that Emmy also asked that I think is an interesting one is how much flavor do do you find the marinade should have?
Should a marinade taste perfectly seasoned before you add the protein in?
If you were to just take a sip or whatever, it should be like, ah, that is super tasty.
Your marinade should taste perfectly salted, even maybe a tiny bit more, just on the edge of saltiness.
Much like Samin on this podcast. Yes, I am definitely on the edge of bitterness and saltiness, 100%.
when it comes to the puns i'll say with all of the nature foods that you eat you're also i would say on the edge of crunchiness it's true you know the last time i had mentioned that we were still taking questions for home cooking theoretically was back in august and we got two questions back to back that both dealt with parsley if you can believe it this one comes from andrew Andrew says he has a, I'm just reading this more closely and appreciating.
He says, I have a two -partsly question.
Oh, no. Andrew, you're fired.
One, do you prefer flat leaf or curly, and if so, why?
I will say I prefer flat leaf, also known as Italian, because of brainwashing, because that's what I've always used both as a kid, my mom bought it, and also in all the restaurants where I've worked, that's what we've used.
That's interesting because you also prefer your hair curly.
Yes, hair curly, parsley flat.
Correct. But I will say, I've had different forays into juicing because I really like green, fresh things.
And I think curly parsley produces more juice than regular parsley so i i will buy curly parsley for juice purposes okay but i have found that italian parsley aka flat leaf parsley is way easier to um chop up and if you're biting on it it doesn't get like stuck in your teeth it's just not quite as like fibrous and hard okay so these These are the things that we have learned that you prefer curly.
Juice? Parsley. No, not parsley.
Oh, juice parsley. Juice parsley.
Hair and Barbara's Cheez Puffs.
I don't know that they're, are they curls?
They are curlier. Okay.
But they're not curly.
They're just a little round.
They're like fluffy and round.
I'm going to say I have to, oh God, I can't promise to send you anything because then you'll just hold.
Okay, well, here's the second part to Andrew's question.
How do you keep herbs fresh if you don't grow them?
He says, I feel like I waste a lot of what I buy at the store, which mostly translates to I don't buy them, even though I like fresh herbs.
I know. Isn't that so horrible?
Some people say that you should, like, cut the root off and, like, put it in a glass of water and put it on your windowsill or your fridge.
Like a little vase of flowers.
Yeah. But I have not actually found that that keeps them alive and fresh.
same with flowers by the way it's like a little change of the water oh look and they still have a lifespan of one day yeah i guess i mean that's just you i think they're dying because they don't like me they'll get me out of here but what i like have always done in restaurants and what i do when i'm being my best cooking self at home is i'll wash the bunch of herbs and i don't even even bother to like unwrap it from the bunch so if there's like a rubber band holding it together i'll leave the bunch in the bunch and dunk it in my salad spinner and a big bowl of water or the sink or something and to
get as much dirt out as i possibly can and then let it drip dry or spin it a hole and then wrap it in a dish towel can i just also give a plug for my favorite dish towels right now like truly life -changing awesomest this is not a sponsored no not not sponsorship, but just like, they're so good.
I buy these like 12 packs of flour sack kitchen towels, just white, soft flour sack towels that are so absorbent and so soft and so inexpensive.
And I'm like constantly using them, washing them, using them, washing them.
I'm really trying to cut down my paper towel usage.
So this is a great use to like wrap your herbs and then just like put them back in the plastic bag and keep them in the plastic bag sort of with as much water taken off as possible, but a little dampness is nice and helps with the freshness.
And that way, depending on the herb, you'll be able to keep it for maybe even up to like 10 days.
But so don't dry it completely.
I would say get as much out as you think you can, but it's like you don't need to be out there like potting each leaf.
It's okay if it's partially wet.
Oh, no, you didn't.
It's okay if it's partially wet.
Okay. But the herbs I'm referring to in this lesson are parsley, cilantro.
I wouldn't do this for thyme or sage or any of what, like, are the woodier herbs.
Because they're woodier, they're like, they last a lot longer.
Basil is the worst because I get really excited about basil.
Oh my God, my basil dies in a second.
You look at it and it's dead.
Oh, should we turn to our brand new segment that may only last for this one episode?
episode but we've been watching so much television and there's been so many great food scenes and so many of the things that you and i have watched i thought we would have a little segment where we could talk about some of these scenes it's a segment called tv dinner so i mean could you maybe improvise like a little jingle for what is the theme song for the tv TV dinner segment.
And now, here's our TV dinner.
Perfect. Okay. Oh my god, what are you going to do to that in post -production?
Nothing. Can you auto -tune it, please?
No, that's what it's going to be.
Oh my god, oh my god.
Okay, yes, I'm very excited because, per usual, you told me to watch something and then I ignored you for two years and then when I watched it I was like, I discovered the best thing in the world i'm sure also the entirety of our audience feels the same way and they also have watched this show it's called better things that it had its final season this year it was written produced directed made starred in by the wonderful like incredible pamela adlon and it's clear pretty much from the first episode that pamela adlon whose character is named sam both in real life and in the show like knows how
to cook and has like kind of a sacred relationship to cooking I think for her the kitchen is a place where she relaxes and so when I got to season four there's this scene and she's kind of like in the kitchen wearing her underwear and a t -shirt and socks and her kids have just gotten off to school she's just gotten off the phone with her agent and she's She's making this like spring lamb dinner, like a rack of lamb.
And she's wrapping all the bones in foil and she's roasting asparagus and she's not looking at any recipes.
She's so comfortable in the kitchen and she's cleaning up as she goes and washing the dishes and wiping the counter.
And at one point she starts like making the Julia Child voice.
voice you can tell there's kind of like an ease for her in the kitchen and also there's something sort of bigger than her that's guiding her in her cooking because it's for the people that she loves they could show up at any moment and she'd still be wearing her underwear and it would be fine And I was like, oh my gosh, this encapsulates everything that I aim to think about as I cook and what I try to convey to people.
This three minute scene is like, this is me.
It's me. I'm in my house all the time cooking in my underwear.
Whether it's for myself or somebody's coming over and I'm behind and I haven't set the table.
But I don't want it to be stressful.
I want it to be joyous and i want it to be for a larger purpose and like i want people to know there's value in cooking for someone you love even if that someone you love is just yourself and sometimes it's also all the people you love coming together with you around the table and like it doesn't have to be this huge deal where like you've dirtied the whole kitchen and like you've pulled everything out and You're doing all the recipes and the 19 cookbooks are out.
It can just be this kind of like clean up as you go and make a mess and have fun and not take it too seriously kind of thing.
It was just so, so special and so beautiful.
And I was like, underwear cooking, underwear cooking.
That's my motto. Underwear cooking.
That's it. We're not yet ready to unveil our new line of merch of home cooking underwear.
underwear but coming soon for the holidays you still can get home cooking sweatshirts and the home cooking magnet do you remember the address samin homecooking dot no i have no idea shrimp jenga dot com slash slash merch yeah or our regular address is homecooking .show slash merch march all right i mean i think that's it for this episode and i guess maybe for this year i'll talk to you in 2023 thank god any final thoughts before we sign off samin well i will say these last couple days i've been cooking a little more in the kitchen because i'm i'm finally sort of home for a little amount of time
i made rice pudding yesterday and i did fry some bread in olive oil today so depending on how thickly i slice it to be determined if it's crispy or crunchy can I tell you something that I ate that was also one of the best things I've eaten recently that is both crispy and crunchy yes yes yes so I was back on the east coast recently and I was with my sister and her family one of her kids will only eat one thing which is raisin bread toasted with peanut butter and that's all he wants to eat and I've never had it before but while I was putting putting together one for him.
I made one for myself.
And I was like, oh, I understand.
He is a genius. Why would you eat anything else?
You could have raisin bread, exactly.
And peanut butter. And it was so good.
But why is it crunchy?
Does it have crunchy peanut butter?
I think I would say toasted bread is both crispy and crunchy.
Depends on how hard you toast it and how thick the bread is.
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah.
Well, in their house, their bread toasts all the way through.
Okay. Once you told me about that ever since then, which I think was probably close to a month ago, I've been on a cinnamon toast kick.
My preferred one, which I found on a fluke, but I have since found out is many people's preferred one, is Trader Joe's.
It's very thick, super soft, like perfect white bread texture.
Oh my God, it is so good.
I can't even tell you.
All right. Again, not sponsored.
there you go thanks for listening to our home cooking episode with renowned james beard award chef samin nasrat who tells you go get some bread from trader joe's and toast it barbara's cheese and the mint chocolate chip ice cream mint chocolate oh do you have a preferred brand of mint chocolate chip ice cream i'm not gonna say right now okay i'm already too boosh for everyone it's fine it's gonna be like tiffany's tiffany's platinum But you can't get that everywhere.
Just let me believe it's Tiffany's.
I don't know what Tiffany's ice cream is.
I'm just guessing that Tiffany's, you know, when you go to get your diamond tiara, you can also stop and get some of these.
Oh my God, stop trolling me.
And that's it for this episode.
Until next time, whatever that's going to be.
Can I please ask everyone to write in with their opinions about the Chilera?
do you know how chill it was it's as chill as ice cream under the grave ice cream six feet under we make this episode with the help of margaret miller zach mcface reese lichtenstein and mary doling and may me ryan gold makes our episode artwork we're a proud member of radiotopia a collective of independent podcasts you can learn more about all the radiotopia shows at radiotopia .fm our website is homecooking .show or shrimpjenga .com which is honestly better come on we pay for it so use it please either one is where you can find recipes and transcripts for all of our episodes you can follow rishi on twitter
and instagram at rishi hereway samin is on instagram at chow samin sometimes, not very often, and pretty much never on Twitter.
But she's also technically at Chow Simeen there.
Or you could just take screenshots and text them to me.
Yes, the address to send your screenshot is six feet underground, care of mint chip ice cream.
Ay yi yi yi yi. Stay healthy, eat well, and take care of each other.
Thanks for listening.
I'm Simeen. And I'm Rishi.
And we'll be home cooking.
and eating Barbra's cheese puffs.
Ha ha ha!
