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That's odoo .com. I'm Samin Nasrat.
And I'm Rishi K. Sherway.
And we're Home Cooking.
On our show, we're taking questions from folks who need help figuring out what to do with the ingredients they've got on hand.
And later in the show, we're going to be talking to actor Josh Molina about some beautiful latkes he's been making at home.
But before we get to all of that, Samin, I first wanted to ask you, what are you cooking?
cooking? Well, I'm actually having an amazing time trying to figure out how to use what I have to make something good.
While most days I love sort of planning what I'm going to eat next or even the next day.
Last night, I found myself really hungry and with no plan.
So I just kind of opened the fridge and opened the cabinets and tried to figure out what I could make in less than 10 minutes that would taste good.
This is, by the way, this is the only way that I know how to cook.
And it's pretty, I mean, it's not a bad way.
It's not a bad way.
Okay, sorry. So what did you actually make?
I made some toast. Okay, good start.
And then I had like this weird little piece of Havarti cheese, which I'm strangely into Havarti.
I love it so much. So I smeared Havarti cheese all over the toast. And then I made scrambled eggs, like buttery scrambled eggs that I put over the Havarti cheese.
So it got like kind of melty.
tea and then I put basil that I picked off of my new brand new Trader Joe's basil plant that's in my windowsill and then I put some chili crisp which is often in like the Szechuan cooking aisle but this one's actually it's just chilies and garlic and peppers and onions that are cooked down super super slowly and so they get really dried out and crispy and then they come in a a little jar with oil.
So I drizzled that on top.
Oh, and then I had asparagus.
So I made boiled asparagus and I ate a big pile of boiled asparagus.
So it was just like, I really felt like I was treating myself like a customer at a fancy French trattoria.
Wait, there is no such thing as a fancy French trattoria at a French cafe.
But it was so unexpected because I knew that the chili stuff would be good on the eggs.
But this crazy thing happened where it somehow simultaneously tasted like pizza and scrambled eggs and Chinese food, but not in a bad way.
To me, it sounds amazing.
It was just so good.
And then I had this big, beautiful pile of fresh spring asparagus.
I think cooking and eating right now feels a little tied up with panic and anxiety for a lot of people.
Just like, how are we going to make it through this?
And I love this idea instead, though, that right now you might have a better opportunity to use your cooking to actually pamper yourself.
Oh, totally. I mean, to me, I'm just like, for people who've been wanting to become better cooks, this is the opportunity that everyone's been waiting for.
Because what makes you a better cook is practice.
And it's all of that experimentation and how do I combine these things.
And those are the things that we sort of will save in our culinary filing cabinets of the mind.
which will help us, you know, for the rest of our lives.
With that in mind, I mean, I think before people even start to cook, you know, because of this feeling of anxiety, especially at grocery stores, and leaving your house and whatever, just making sure you have the right stuff on hand in your house, if you're going to have to hunker down for a while, what do you think people should be shopping for right now?
Well, first of all, I'd like to say there's really no need to hoard, because if we all sort of by the right amount there will be enough for everyone so that's first yeah secondly i do think i'm a champion of having a well -stocked pantry whether or not we're in self -isolation so i do think this is a great opportunity for people who maybe historically have not had very well -stocked pantries to start investing in that because the like richer your pantry is the more flexible you are and the more sort of directions you can go to on a moment's notice which I think is what's going to make things interesting
and exciting and delicious rather than boring and repetitive for people.
And then we'll also put up a basic shopping list for things that you can buy to really sort of spice things up.
Sorry, but I do think it's important for everyone to start with a variety of oils and vinegars, really start bulking up on those.
The more fats and acids you have, the more flavorful things will be.
Parmesan cheese or any hard grating cheese won't go bad for a very long time.
And that is going to be a really useful way to make things delicious.
And also you can use the rind to make a really tasty stock to cook with.
I just made a huge, huge pot of chicken stock the other day.
I don't have a ton of room in my freezer.
So I reduced it by half.
I just boiled it till there was only half of it left. And then I put it in smaller jars to put in the freezer.
And I feel like having chicken stock in the freezer is like, that's my superhero cape.
I do bullion paste.
Oh yeah. Which brand do you use?
Better than bullion.
Oh, do you have the chicken one?
No, the vegetable one.
Is it delicious? It's really good.
Okay. So I've never had better than bullion.
I've heard that it's so good and i've been trying to get a jar of the chicken one for weeks and it's not available anywhere it's like sold out at every store and it's sold out online i've been doing this uh savory breakfast in the mornings because i have been trying to figure out how to curb my sweet tooth which is you know my biggest uh that is your signature you know and it's a dangerous signature to have especially as a indian person where i have a really high risk for diabetes so So I've been trying to figure out ways to cut down on that.
And one of the suggestions I had heard was to not start off my day with a sweet breakfast. So my wife, Lindsay, and I have been eating savory oats in the morning.
Ooh, tell me more. You cook your steel -cut oats with a little bit of vegetable stock.
Ooh. And then we put in some beyond meat, like fake meat crumbles, and put all of that into the pot.
And then when it's done, I like to throw in some seaweed furikake.
Ooh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that.
I hoped you would say that.
Yeah, you know, it's got a good amount of protein, and it's a nice breakfast in the morning, and that's where that vegetable stock has become in.
It's just literally something we use every day.
Well, that's awesome.
So if people want to check out this shopping list, go on our website.
It's homecooking .show, and we'll have all the resources up there.
So, Samin, we got a bunch of questions sent in to us already, and I wanted to turn to some of them.
Let me play this question from Lily.
Samin, it's Lily. Okay, first question, beans, to soak or not to soak?
Can you explain the chemistry behind both scenarios?
And what's your favorite bean recipe for the current time?
Okay, thank you. I love you.
What about me? No, she doesn't love you.
She's my friend. That's my friend Lily.
Hi, Lily. Oh, you know her.
so fun to start off with someone i know and i love this question i just am a dork i'm a bean dork be this is my moment to shine you've been waiting for this your whole life i've been waiting but here's a disclaimer i'm not a chemist okay i'm a cook so feel free to call in if you're a chemist and correct me but that would be my dad yeah and this is a this is an epic to soak or not to soak.
And there's a lot to be said about it.
So I'm so excited to get the opportunity to answer.
You're so excited. I'm so excited.
So excited. All right, answer the question.
Oh, my God. Okay, so here's the thing.
I am in the soaking camp because I think it helps create a more evenly cooked bean that will cook in a shorter amount of time.
However, there are a lot lot of exceptions to soaking.
You really don't need to soak if your beans are from the current harvest, which might seem like a real niche thing to say.
But right now in these bean times, a lot of people are buying really beautiful heirloom beans from people all over the country.
So a favorite, my favorite is Rancho Gordo.
Wait, how do you know if your bean is from the current harvest or not?
Oh yeah, if you're buying from Rancho Gordo, you do.
Because, okay, here's the a thing that's kind of mind -blowing for people ingredients like a bean or an onion or a potato they are from plants right no no I'm with you so far okay okay and those plants are only harvested once a year which is why I typically don't love buying beans from like a bulk bin at a store that's like not super busy you know regular sort of your health food store that's like constantly being shopped at by the hippies, that's going to be fine because they're buying all the beans all the time.
They're getting refilled.
One place that maybe you would want to be careful is if you're going to your discount grocery store, which I've been to many times, and you see like a bag of beans that has the old logo, you know, that's been discontinued years ago, that might be a hint that those beans are old.
So if you've got old beans, and if you don't know whether your beans are old, I think you should assume that they are old, then I would say you definitely want to soak.
Because what's happening as they age is they're just continuing to dry out.
Ah, okay. Well, that brings me to a related question that we got from Jim.
Here it is. Okay. A few years ago when I was in Spain, I bought some of these Fuentes Soco garbanzos in their little burlot bags.
I bought probably like three bags full of them because I read that they're probably the best garbanzos on the planet.
And I did cook with them and they were amazing for sure.
But it's been a few years and I've got two bags sitting in my pantry and I'm just wondering if they've gone bad and do I need to do something with them now or is it too late?
Can garbanzo beans go bad?
No. I mean, maybe in like 40 years.
But not in the few years that Jim has had his Fuentesalco garbanzos.
No, and I've never heard of said garbanzos, and I cannot wait to go read about them and learn about them.
Here's what I do know about any dried bean.
Also, this doesn't have to be exclusively a bean podcast. We did get a lot of— I know, it's because I promoted beans.
In your initial Instagram post, you announcing our show, you laid into the beans, and we have a lot of bean -related questions.
It's cool. I got to just let everyone know they can ask us other questions, too.
Yep. Okay, here's the thing.
The beans don't go bad.
They just, you have to think, what is a bean?
A dried bean is a seed that if you put it in the ground, just like jack and the beanstalk, it will, in theory, send out a whole plant.
And what is a seed?
It's just a ton of energy and nutrients for that plant, you know, all packed in a tight little package under a pretty thick skin so that it can be preserved.
So the older a dried bean is, you know, after, let's say, two years in your pantry, it might just never cook up perfectly evenly, or you might have such a hard time penetrating that thick outer skin that like it takes forever for water to go in.
They might cook for many hours and start to fall apart, but they're not bad.
And like a fallen apart chickpea to me is perfect for either a soup or hummus.
So I don't think it's gone bad at all.
This is actually a really beautiful time to talk about what we gain by cooking with the constraints of isolation.
If you think about it, you know, in general, one of the greatest limitations in our cooking is time because we're in a hurry to get stuff on the table.
The kids are going to lose their mind.
You're hungry, whatever it is.
You don't have time.
Yeah. That's why Simon and Garfunkel sang about it as one of the most important ingredients in cooking they did along with parsley sage and rosemary time is just of the essence oh god don't do this to me what did i do to deserve that no not that time okay the time that you don't have on your regular day -to -day basis in your regular life while there may be many other constraints on your cooking when you're trapped at home and unable to shop regularly.
You have all day to simmer that pot of beans.
And so if you think ahead, you actually can start soaking those beans, which is kind of like an inactive cooking that gets you on your way to as tender and creamy and inside as possible.
I just put them in the same pot that I plan to cook them in.
And then you want to cover them with three times as much water as bean.
So three cups of water, if you have a cup of beans.
Exactly. And because they will absorb that much overnight.
As long as your house is not too hot, you can leave them on the counter.
If your house is too hot, you can leave it in the fridge.
And at that time, I take the opportunity to work in a little palmful of salt into that water and a generous pinch of baking soda.
And what those are for, I should say, is at the same time that water is working its way inside of the bean, salt will work its way inside of the bean and start to season it.
And what baking soda does is it creates an alkaline cooking environment.
Okay, so given that people's dried beans are of different ages on their shelf, whether you have three -year -old beans from Spain or beans that have been recently purchased, what is it that people should look for in the finished, like, how do you know how long to soak it for if there are these variables based on how old it might be and how tough it might be because of that?
Like what's the finished soaked beans supposed to look like or feel like?
There's no cue. Sorry.
So I would say the least amount of time I would like to soak my beans is overnight.
And the most amount of time, the greatest amount of time, which I would only do for chickpea.
I think chickpeas are like some of the densest things.
They're just take forever to cook in my experience.
So they always benefit from a two day soak.
And if your beans are old, old...
That was my stomach growling.
If your beans are old, they would also...
So either old beans or chickpeas, they can take a two -day soak.
But if you have little beans like cannellini or just regular black beans or pinto beans, they will start to fall apart if you soak them for more than a day.
So if you just want to be safe, just do it for overnight.
And I just want you to know, you don't have to do this.
You do not have to soak a bean.
It's been proven. They will just take longer to cook and they may or may not cook perfectly evenly.
But should I just give the quick three sentence how to cook a bean recipe?
Yes, please. Okay. You take your soaked beans.
I don't even bother changing the liquid.
You can, if you want.
I've heard that there's farts in the liquid.
Okay. But there's also flavor in the liquid.
So you can keep the farts and the flavor, or you can get rid of the farts and the flavor and change the liquid.
Make sure you put some salt in there.
I like a bay leaf or other appropriate spices, depending on the country whose cuisine I'm trying to evoke.
Which doesn't have to necessarily correspond to the origin of the bean.
Absolutely not, because pretty much every country in the world has got a bean.
Bring it up to a boil, turn it down to a simmer, and cook it until the beans are tender.
My friend Tamar Adler says you have to taste five beans and they all have to be creamy in the middle.
So if you taste five and one's still crunchy, they're not done.
In my opinion, you cannot overcook a bean.
Keep going, keep going, keep going.
You want them to be like so silky and creamy on the inside.
And depending on the variety, you know, it maybe has a snap to the skin.
Oh, there is still the second half of Lily's question, which was, what is your favorite way to cook a bean right now?
It's a real weird one, but bear with me, OK?
Okay, I have some beans that I cooked and I've drained them.
I have some farro that's been cooked and drained and I heat up a pan like a cast iron pan or just any frying pan really hot.
Add some olive oil, add your drained farro and your drained beans.
I like to add some powdered cumin and a little bit of chili flake and salt.
Just fry it until things start getting crispy and then it's just this like crispy bean and farro deliciousness.
If you have some leftover roast chicken, you can shred that and add that in.
And this is kind of like a dish from El Salvador that I love.
Now, as I talk about it, I realize it's called casamiento.
But it's just like you mix up beans and rice and you fry the crap out of it until it gets crispy.
And so that is kind of this amazing vehicle to have if you have a dollop of sour cream, if you have any cheese to grate, if you have like a jar of salsa, you could put some chopped cilantro on top.
You could put an avocado on top.
eat that with an avocado would be so good.
It's just sort of like a beans and rice dish, but a little bit crispier and chewier because the beans and the farro are chewier.
They're whole grains and it's just like, I'm obsessed.
I don't know. I'm a monster.
If people don't know that already, I can confirm you are a monster.
Another bean related question that actually goes back to the farts you were talking about earlier in terms of the bean liquid here's a question from anthony what do you do with the simmering liquid once you're done and i'm supposed to keep it but it has on my freezer and i don't want to do with it do you save your bean simmering liquid well one time i very clearly remember telling a cook who worked for me like almost scolding him that bean liquid was more valuable than gold and this is in the full chain of the bean this is for you at least this is still the the same liquid that you originally
soaked the bean in?
For me, it's the exact same liquid, the original liquid.
Also, as I take it off the stove, I might add a glug or two of olive oil.
That bean liquid is super valuable because there's been this beautiful exchange of starches right outside of the beans as they start to break down.
And so it's just this like thick, starchy, unctuous texture and flavor.
And that's why I think it's worth a lot of money.
But what I don't think is that you should be saving 9 ,000 quarts of it in your freezer.
Like I would probably never save bean liquid beyond my pot of beans unless I decided right then that day to make a pot of soup.
It's just that you definitely don't want to discard it before you're done eating the beans because you should always store your beans in the fridge covered in liquid because otherwise otherwise they'll start to dry out.
And know that it's a really flavorful thing that you can use for, say, if you wanted to make a warm bean salad, I would use some of that liquid and mix it with olive oil and vinegar to make like a really sort of slurry vinaigrette, like a thick, starchy, yummy vinaigrette.
I think it's a fantastic base for soups.
Even if you're not making a bean soup, you could make like a nice, rich sort of Tuscan cabbage soup and have that starchiness from the the bean in there I think ribolita which is one of my all -time favorite soups ribolita just means reboiled and it's kind of classic Tuscan peasant food where they used whatever they had they had beans they had cabbage they had potatoes they threw it all in a pot threw it in the old stale bread and it turns into this like thick delicious rich mess so you always need more liquid for that so that's a way to use it up what I like about this is that it really feels
in the spirit of quarantine cooking, not only cooking with what you've got, but also using every part of it.
Yeah, using every part and then just extending it into the next meal.
Yeah, it's a smart way to cut down on food waste.
Yeah, you could probably like yummy up your bean broth with some herbs and even a poached egg and, you know, turn that into a delicious breakfast. Here's a question that's related to grocery store shopping that is not about beans, but about vegetables, frozen vegetables.
Ooh, awesome. Yes. Yes.
Hi, Samin. I'm Daniel from Chicago.
I'm wondering what kinds of frozen vegetables you think freeze especially well, what kinds you think don't freeze so well, and also what sorts of dishes you think frozen vegetables are best in.
I'm going to play another question just back to back.
Oh my God. Double header.
Double header. Here we go.
I have tons of spinach that I don't want to spoil, a lot of celery, carrots.
And I'm wondering what you might recommend is the best method to freeze fresh vegetables to prolong their life and reduce waste at a time like this?
Thanks. Oh my God, I love these questions.
And one more. A triple header?
My name is Laura and I'm from Burlington, Ontario.
My question for you today is, what is your ride or die frozen vegetable for each of you and how would you prepare it, especially with pantry items, given that a lot of people are in quarantine right now?
People want to know about frozen veggies.
I'm so excited that we're not talking about beans anymore.
You know, I always have a pretty well -stocked pantry, but in pretty short order, we're all going to be eating really aged stuff and we're going to come to miss the taste of freshness.
And chief among that is vegetable taste.
So really, to me, the first thing I did and basically one of the only measures I took was to go buy as many frozen vegetables as would fit in my very small freezer.
My favorite is maybe not the most, let's say, sensible choice, but I do love peas, English peas.
I think they're really delicious.
And one of my favorite things to make with them is this super simple soup.
We'll put a link to the recipe up, but it's so, so incredibly simple.
It's just peas. I used chicken stock, but you could use veggie stock cooked together until until the peas are done and then a spoonful of tahini in there and then puree that until it's silky silky smooth oh you could put any herb that you have in there i did it with dill but it would also be so good with cilantro and just puree that and then thin it out until it's like drinkable texture and you can make a use a little more tahini and some chili flakes and garlic and cumin if you want to make like a little drizzle on top but it's just a really sort of luxurious pea soup And do you have to thaw
the peas out before you throw them in to cook?
No. The general rule for me in my experience with frozen vegetables is you go from freezer to pan, or from freezer to pot of boiling water, or from freezer directly into soup or stock.
I think that's going to save the integrity as much as possible.
So to answer the question about how you turn your own fresh vegetables into frozen vegetables, on the massive industrial scale, they're usually like very very quickly boiled or blanched and then as quickly as possible cooled and then chopped up or frozen and so the way that they don't freeze into one huge ice cube because if you just took all your peas or spinach or celery or carrots and cut them up and blanched them and put them in the freezer it would turn into an ice cube if you just put it all in a ziploc bag the way to make sure that that doesn't happen is you have to freeze everything until
it's solid in a single layer.
So say you're doing celery pieces or spinach, you cook it down, you lay it out in a single layer, you would drain it of all water, as much water as possible for the spinach, that would mean like squeezing it out into balls, chopping it up, spreading it out on like a cookie sheet that's lined with parchment paper, freezing it for probably 30 minutes until it's solid, and then putting it in a plastic bag in a freezer bag, so that then it could be compressed.
I'm so touched that Laura asked me what my ride or die of frozen vegetable would be.
So what is your ride or die of vegetable?
I love the Trader Joe's organic frozen sweet corn.
I throw it in everything because it's like, they're so sweet.
They taste so good.
It just automatically makes everything better.
I agree with that. I think corn is a good one to have. I have a lot of broccoli and also broccoli rabe, spinach, peas, corn.
And then I had a crazy impulse buy and I bought some artichokes.
Frozen artichokes? Yeah.
And what are you going to do with those?
I don't know. Unclear TBD.
Have you ever done anything with a frozen artichoke?
No. Sometimes I just eat canned ones, like sort of just straight out of the jar because I like that strange, weird citric acid brine taste.
But I feel like you could make make a nice pasta or a risotto with frozen artichokes.
It's a lot less work than a fresh one.
I will say that. Another way to just work vegetables into stuff is I make a lot of fried rice with like all sorts of variety of vegetables and an egg.
But I also think with as far as the carrots, as far as the broccoli, if you have cauliflower, all of those things would lend themselves really well to going straight from the freezer into a bowl where they get tossed with salt and olive oil and then roast it in a really hot oven until they're nice and brown oh that sounds good yeah i mean your writing mentor michael pollens said eat vegetables what does he say eat food mostly vegetables no you've really ruined it i want to get it right i've eat food not too much mostly plants plants.
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
There we go. I'm going to throw in yet another question that relates to all this.
This is from Peg. This is Peg in Seattle.
Hey, I have a big container of split peas and I kind of like split pea soup, but I've had enough and I would like some ideas on how to use it.
Thanks. What else can you do with split pea?
Do you want to talk Can you talk about what a split pea is versus a regular pea?
I don't know what the true botanical difference is, to be totally honest. I think a split pea is closer to a lentil.
It's been peeled. Is it a pea though?
Is a split pea a pea?
It's a green pea. Are you Googling?
How dare you? How do you know this?
I'm looking it up on Wikipedia.
I never agreed. This is not part of our contract, this amount of puns.
sorry if i knew this was gonna be part of the thing like i probably would have not signed the contract you would have split i would have split you're right it is dried okay this is so weird but then what's a yellow split pea because let doll is sometimes made out of split peas this is where i'm getting confused so let's talk about doll for a second i've never had doll that was made with anything other than a lentil, a red or a yellow lentil?
Interesting. Because last night, just last night, my friend, I made a doll out of a mung bean, which I bought specifically for a particular recipe from the Dishoom cookbook.
Dishoom, a restaurant in London that I love, with a delicious black doll.
My mom has actually made dishes with mung beans.
Yeah, doll is just...
Well, you're the browner of the two of us, so what's a doll?
This is your flavor of brown.
Oh, I mean. What's dal?
If you had asked me before this recording, I would have said dal is, you know, Indian lentils.
Yeah, but it also can be made with all sorts of other kinds of legumes.
And that's because India is a huge country with many regions and many peoples and many cuisines.
This was all a very, very, very long side conversation, but crucially related to the answer to peg's question about what to make with her split peas oh are you going to tell her to make a doll yes i think she should make some kind of a doll and there are absolutely i am sure if she looked hard enough and we could probably find one and post it a traditional doll recipe from some part of the subcontinent that is made using actual split peas but also i think she could just just cook the split peas as if they were lentils or mung beans, you know, which is all to say simmer till done and season them
in an appropriate way.
So what I would do is start with a little bit of a ginger and garlic paste using, you know, just some like finely grated or pounded ginger and garlic in equal quantities that you sizzle.
If you have ghee, I would sizzle it in ghee, otherwise like some sort of a neutral tasting oil or butter until they get really aromatic you could add any of the spices that you like that remind you of the Indian subcontinent I just have a little bit of a masala that I usually add a little bit of I simmer that till it's done and then right at the end I make this thing which maybe your mom has a word for I feel like different parts of India have a different name for this but it's a technique called called tempering.
A lot of people call it a tadka.
Yes. Where my family's from, we call it fudni.
Where you take different spices.
Fennel seeds and mustard seeds.
Nigella seeds, cumin seeds, and you just kind of pop them in hot fat for a minute and until they sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
And then you just pour that directly into the pot or like use that sort of right on top of whatever you're going to serve.
And so you get this like really really fresh sort of spiciness.
And I don't mean that necessarily that it's hot, just like all of the yummy spices get worked into the dish that you're going to have. Oh, you know, I would also probably put a good amount of turmeric, powdered turmeric, into the pot of peas as well.
By the way, I have in the meantime confirmed with my sister and my dad that my mom has actually made dal with green split peas before.
Look at that! My dad said she did it once.
Just once. well he wouldn't lie he's scientist yep so peg i encourage you to like go a totally different flavor route and i think that'll give you a little bit of relief from your classic split pea with ham hock soup that you're probably really bored of samin sorry to interrupt can we ask my dad directly he's calling in oh yeah okay hold on hi dad i'm recording with samin and we're talking about Dal.
Hi, Dad. Hi. So we have a caller with a question about what to do with her split peas.
She has an overabundance of split peas and Samin is suggesting that one of the things she could do is make Dal.
Right. But I always thought of Dal as only being made with lentils and that's why I was asking you if Mom had ever made it with split peas.
Mom said she never did.
Oh. Oh. She said once she did but with a regular yellow split peas.
Yellow split peas, not green, not green ones.
But one thing I did remember is mung beans, right?
Mung beans were a thing that I used to never want to eat, that mom would cook with.
Right. You want me to give you the recipe?
Yeah, give us a recipe.
Yeah, we'll take a recipe.
I'll write to you later, and I'll get it from you later.
Okay. Okay, thanks, dad.
Okay, bye. Bye. Wow, rejected.
I thought what she was going to say was, I made it once, but it was terrible.
i mean if she only made it once you might be able to uh deduce yeah it's true but maybe someone else will find a way into it that my mom wasn't able to crack so i still say it's worth a shot i think it's worth a shot i think the other thing i would say peg is and maybe this is like a nice way to sort of come back to everyone and their bean hoarding is we probably all have in our pantries right now, way more beans than we could eat in the next six years.
Yeah. And so it's a pot of beans is a really great way to share and take care of other people.
Even just last night, I was trying to use up random jars of things that I have before I open all of the new packages that I've hoarded.
So hence this pot of butter doll that I made.
And it's a lot of butter doll.
It's a lot. And I live by myself and I could eat it every meal for the next 12 meals and still have some left. And I would probably want to then punch my eyeballs out, much like Peg and her split pea soup.
So I immediately wrote to my neighbors and I said, hey, if this can help you, if you know anybody else in our neighborhood who would like some, just come by with a container and please take some.
That's awesome. But I won't have to eat them for that many days.
And now everyone owes me a meal.
So it's pretty good.
That is pretty good.
Okay, final pulse -related question for the episode.
What can I do with all these lentils that is not curry -based?
Well, I mean, this is a complicated conversation because curry is a whole can of worms. Maybe we'll get there on another episode.
But I think probably what this caller is talking about is just Indian spices, let's say, as she wants to go a different direction.
She wants to go in a non -doll direction.
Doll -free. Yep. So here are some of my favorite things to do with lentils.
doesn't matter what color they are but i don't think i could do these with split lentils or split peas like the little the little red lentils they cook up a little too soft and a little too quickly so i'm talking brown black or green lentils these are things i could do okay go if you have your cooked lentils you could go persian and make adas polo which is lentil rice where the basmati rice gets par cooked and then stirred with cooked lentils and then steamed the rest of the the way.
So it's sort of like Iranian version of rice and beans.
And traditionally this is served with fried raisins.
So as a child, this was like my favorite possible thing because it had sweet things in dinner.
So I was really into that.
And then also just some classic sort of European style dishes.
You could do like a warm lentil salad where you have gently warmed cooked cook to lentils that are then tossed with a shalloty vinaigrette, let's say, that you make with sherry or red wine vinegar and a whole bunch of herbs.
And then you could put little pieces of bacon in there.
And then you could put a poached egg on top.
That's a pretty classic kind of combination.
My favorite thing in the world is double starches, as I just explained by the lentils and rice.
So I do think you could make, and I have made this totally in a pinch when I I thought I had nothing in the house.
I've made bread salad out of stale pieces of like crusty bread that I remove the crust from or just like sort of trim most of the crust from, toss with olive oil and then toast into big torn croutons and then mix that with gently warmed lentils.
Any sort of herbs would be really good.
Dill would be great here.
Parsley, mint, and then you definitely need like a little punch of acidic onion.
So I would take a red onion and slice it thinly and put it in a bowl with some vinegar, maybe red wine or white wine vinegar for 10 or 15 minutes.
That's called macerating.
And then add those onions into the salad.
So that, I think, is pretty satisfying and delicious.
delicious can i throw one in there go for it bro the easiest no cooking trader joe's lentil dish that i know of which is you just take a packet of the refrigerated lentils that they have black lentils they have a jar of bruschetta sauce okay and you take the bruschetta sauce and you have these refrigerated black lentils and you just put them in a bowl together and you mix them up and then you eat them with chips oh it's the best dip oh and it has what you're saying it has the tomatoes and it has the onions from the bruschetta sauce.
And then it has the lentils soaking it all up and giving it some like hearty protein.
It's great. Oh, that sounds good.
That sounds really good.
And you don't need to do anything else to it.
Well, yeah, that's your style of cooking.
That's good. That reminded me of like a couple other things that are classic to go with lentils are beets.
So if you have some beets that you roasted and then tossed with some vinegar, olive oil and salt they're sort of lightly pickled and then maybe like a half of a hard -boiled egg beats hard -boiled egg lentil that's a kind of a classic southern french sort of um you know like a antipasto style thing awesome thanks jill 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 still available at homecooking .show.
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okay next up samin we got a question from shana that i really wanted to play you listen to this thank you both so much for putting this podcast together i am in philly and my extended family is in iran and i have been very nervous and anxious for their safety and their health and it's also just such a strange time because it coincides with noroo's persian new year and it's hard to get in the spirit of cooking all the delicious foods that come with this time of year.
And so I just wanted to know what kinds of things you cook to bring you comfort.
Thank you so much. I didn't know that it was Persian New Year.
Yeah. Nowruz is my favorite holiday for sure.
And definitely as a kid, it was my favorite holiday.
It starts on the first day of spring.
And it's a time when you clean your house and you put together this beautiful table called a hafzine, which means seven S's.
So there are seven symbolic items that begin with the letter S in Farsi that we collect and put around this table, kind of like an altar to symbolize New Year, rebirth, prosperity, sweetness, you know, all the good things that you want to begin a new year with.
There's hyacinths on the table every year and rosewater.
And so it's just, it makes your house smell like spring.
It smells floral and fresh and clean.
And it's a time for gathering.
It's a time when children get presents.
Just this year, I was supposed to go and visit some friends nearby who were having a big Norse party and going to serve all the foods.
And visiting is probably the heart of the holiday.
And with every visit, there are sweets and teas and meals that we we share.
So it does feel really weird, not only for me to not have them, because I've had some years where I'm traveling or working and not able to do it, but just to feel like nobody else is doing it.
So it's really intense.
It's a real loss. So I feel for you, Shana.
I do. I do. So is there a Nodus food that you would make, like a comfort food for you?
For me, I think probably the most comforting food in my life is rice.
And traditionally for Persian New Year, you make sabzi polo.
It's herbed rice. Sabzi means herbs, but sabz is also the color green.
And it's so fragrant and green and fresh and delicious.
And I probably would never make it for myself, but I have to say all this talking about it is making me, maybe i should go make it for myself i support that i think you should okay i'll send you some just kidding yeah i want some the problem is i live by myself so when i make like a banana bread a pizza mail it to me mail it to you yes you can definitely mail me a banana bread okay i can mail you banana bread i could probably could not mail you pizza or sabzi below you can try i could try We'll report back.
If you don't make it to the next episode because you got food poisoning.
But so what else is in it besides the rice and the sabzi?
The sabzi. Oh, I love it.
You're saying it Indian style, sabzi.
Oh, sorry. No, no, I love it.
I love it. I love it.
I love that we have all the same words.
No, I wasn't judging.
It's very cute. So sabzi polo is you take like a mountain of herbs.
My mom taught me how to make all this stuff.
And she is a maximalist when it comes to green things in food.
But she's also like a, what's the word for the person who abuses themselves?
Masochist? Masochist. Yes.
So she is a maximalist and a masochist. A maximal, a masochist, I don't even know.
Oh, we've lost her folks.
Sorry. Oh my gosh. But so no, my mom's absolutely a maximalist. And she also really just likes to make stuff hard for herself.
So she refuses to use a food processor and she hand chops piles and piles and piles of herbs.
I like to use cilantro and dill and an herb called fenugreek.
You could put scallions in there, whatever herbs you have. Parsley would work really well.
and you chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, toss those in with parboiled rice.
And then that gets layered into a pot that has oil or oil and butter on the bottom.
So then the bottom of the rice, the bottom of the pot becomes crispy while the rest of the parboiled rice steams in the pot as it finishes cooking.
So it becomes fluffy and light and like this incredible texture where each Each grain is independent of the next.
And then the way you serve it is you unmold it, kind of like an upside -down cake, and what was on the bottom becomes the top, the tadig.
And all these little bits of herbs have worked their way into the crust, and they're kind of fried and sizzly and delicious.
And traditionally, sabzi polo is served with smoked fish, like fried smoked salmon or fresh fresh trout that symbolizes the end of Pisces, actually.
And that's one of the traditional dishes of Persian New Year is sabzi polo with fish.
That's so neat that the astrological calendar and the vernal equinox, it's just neat to think about these things, how they cross over between cultures.
It's amazing. And I love learning that stuff when I was a kid.
I was like, wait a minute, Iranians know about the zodiac?
And that's honestly one of my favorite things about getting to travel and learn about people's traditions around the world is just understanding how we really are more similar than we are different, that flavors reappear around the world, ingredients reappear around the world, combinations and techniques.
And that is a great source of comfort to me.
How do you say happy notice?
oh the way you say happy noroos is noroos mubarak noroos mubarak or you can say it that way oh i'm just kidding i am so mean to you you have done nothing wrong don't tell me you've never wronged me but i'm so you know i want to be i want to get it right no you're so you're you're so nice and i'm so mean I'm Samin.
You are Samin. Wow.
Your mom knew. She knew.
No, you said I'm fine.
It's great. You did a great job.
You did a great job.
I don't want your pity, okay?
Oh, here's another way to say it that you'll totally nail this one.
Ready? Yeah. Noruz Piruz.
Noruz Piruz. Good job.
Yeah. Okay. Let's go from one holiday to another because I wanted us to talk to my old friend Josh Molina who is an actor on The West Wing and Scandal and Sports Night.
You've seen him in lots of things.
He was the co -host of The West Wing Weekly with me and he posted these incredible looking latkes.
His Twitter latkes?
His Twitter latkes, yeah.
And for anybody who doesn't know, a latke is a potato pancake that gets made traditionally at Hanukkah and Josh posted some on Twitter and they look amazing.
They looked so good.
And so we asked him if he would come and talk to us about that.
When it comes to my latkes, you can ask anything.
I've always been candid about my latkes, and I shall remain so.
Josh, are these quarantine -inspired latkes?
Yes. I mean, I found myself with some potatoes, an onion.
I've always got matzo meal.
And I had oil, canola in this case, baking powder.
I like when I can figure out what I've got and what I can do with it.
I also have both. I've got all my chickens home.
I've got my daughter and my son on home, they both enjoy latkes.
So it was a little bit of a revelation like, oh, I can make this.
Also, in the great Jewish tradition of doing something, and then figuring out what the meaning is, it occurred to me that we're in a time when we're trying to make the most out of what we've got.
And Hanukkah, the sort of central miracle or story is that a small amount of oil lasted lasted for eight days.
So I've decided, once I made it, I decided, oh, wait a minute, here's the meaning.
This is the most appropriate thing to make right now, even though it's not Hanukkah or anywhere near it, because I'm hoping all our food will last longer than one would expect for all of us.
Okay, wait, I need to know more about this recipe.
Sure. And the source of this recipe.
Well, first of all, I have to say I'm so impressed by how stained it is.
Thank you. And how annotated it is.
Right, because you didn't just tweet a picture of your latkes.
You also posted a picture of your own copy of the recipe that has your handwritten notes on top of it.
That's true. But now I'm going to be—and I realize I really didn't do my research here because I should be able to—I'm going to text my mom while we're talking because I think she can tell me from what source that recipe comes.
It's clearly some Jewish -y recipe book.
Well, yes. It also says the word milchiki, which I don't know what that means.
Milchiki. Yeah. Yeah, OK, well, there's milchik and fleishik, which is Yiddish for milchik being dairy and a milk product, fleishik being meat.
Never the twain shall meet if one is an observant Jew.
Got it. So somebody saw my recipe and said, hey, here's what you do.
You eat these with corned beef and Swiss cheese.
And I was like, that might work for you.
Not going to happen in my house.
I'm just going to read some of the notes that I see on here.
It says potato latkes and then in parentheses pancakes.
And underneath the annotation for the potatoes is to grade it on the large side of the grader.
Yes. But it says great L -R -G -E.
Did I write the L -R -G -E?
I don't know. Some mom did or you did.
It's amazing. It's kind of an abbreviation, but almost the entire word, just missing a vowel.
I found a shortcut, people, and I'm happy to share it with you.
and then I like one small onion grated optional and you put a check mark which means I definitely have to use it yeah exactly I suppose I should have just I could have scratched out optional but I wanted future generations to have choice and to have some agency in their latke making although that didn't stop you from crossing out flour in the options between using flour or matzo meal you went ahead and crossed that one out and circled matzo meal yeah you're right so So I guess I'm more emphatic about certain aspects of the recipe than others.
And then you posted a picture of the latkes as they're cooking.
And I have to say they are very evenly spaced in the pan.
And I would say as a cooking teacher, I'm really proud.
You did a really nice job of spacing them out in the oil.
Thank you. I'm not generally the most Zen.
Well, I'm not the most Zen anything, but I'm not the most Zen cook.
cook. And giving each latke its own space means that I have to cook more batches.
Which is a pain. I'm the kind of person who would normally try to make it just all at once if possible, but that doesn't work.
Latkes also need to be socially distant from each other.
That's what I'm trying to say.
And that is why I chose to make latkes.
How did you guys eat them?
We've gone a couple ways about it.
I was disappointed to find that I hadn't laid lay it away in an applesauce.
We were out of applesauce, so that option was gone.
Sour cream I had, so people have been eating with them with sour cream.
And then this morning, just moments ago, I fried an egg and put it over latkes for my daughter.
And that was a successful experiment we haven't done before.
That's one I love. And then the other really important pressing question is, from where does this quote, they will want to make from latkes alone a meal company?
It's from the recipe.
It says below, note, this recipe should serve four to six people.
This is not four to six Molinas, but four to six regular people.
But when some people see potato latkes, they act like they haven't eaten for a week.
They will want to make from latkes alone a meal.
When you have people enjoy so much, so you won't mind grating potatoes all day long.
I love that. So it's a Jewish inflected note at the very end.
Well, with some detective work, then, I have determined that the source of the recipe is the book Love and Knishes by Sarah Kasdan.
Oh, bless you. From 1956.
There you go. It's a classic.
The last part of the quote from the book says, you won't mind grating potatoes all day long.
Do you mind grating potatoes all day long?
Because for me, that feels daunting.
There are a couple hacks.
First of all, there's, of course, using Cuisinart or some sort of machine to grate your potatoes.
I don't think you get the same quality latke unless you grate by hand like you got to feel the blood the sweat the pain exactly right some people say human skin is the one ingredient that's not listed agreed yeah that is key to the flavor profile and then i read a hack a hack that i did try a couple times this past hanukkah which is to buy frozen hash browns and does it work i tried it i I have to say, again, not nearly as good, but in a pinch, or if, you know, it saves a lot of time and it's not a bad hack.
I still go with the hand grading, but in a pinch, it's not a bad way to do it.
And some of them might have that in their freezer right now.
And also, I wonder, do you subscribe to the make a lot a lot, because fry them up, freeze them, and then heat them up in a skillet to eat later?
Are you in that camp?
Absolutely, I am. And during high season or high season, I will make enormous batches of latkes and I will freeze.
Unfortunately, we were down to our last five potatoes with this one.
So no freezing to be done this time around.
Also, one important thing that we didn't, I'm staring at this photo, which I'm just so impressed by.
Thank you. But one very important thing that we didn't cover, which I would love for you to talk about instead of me, is the appropriate amount of oil to use.
I feel like I should be an expert on this, but I'm not sure that I am.
No, you're using the right amount of oil in that pan so like how well I mean I do it by eye I guess I pour an amount I really want to get this right I feel like things are going so well I don't want to blow it at the end this is your tryout for your home cooking network show so I think I put in an amount of oil that doesn't quite cover each laka to me I think the way I would describe what I see in this pan is a knowing that oil will expand and as it cooks and as it sizzles, you know, it's going to rise up in the pan and you don't want overflow.
Cause that's like a disaster, but you definitely, whenever you're pan frying anything, or this is called shallow frying.
Cause it's not completely submerged in oil.
My key is always, you want to go more than halfway because otherwise what happens is you get this like dreaded ring of raw, like potato or breadcrumb or whatever.
So this way you're making sure that it's more than half submerged so that it's getting completely golden fried.
And people don't really love using a lot of oil.
They're really freaked out usually by things like that that involve a lot of oil.
So I encourage, and I encourage you to encourage people to use a lot of oil.
Yes. Okay. Everything you said is what I meant to say when you originally asked me the question.
Yeah. No, it takes a lot of oil for sure.
And the big bummer is knowing that later or I'm going to have to like pour it into cans and jars to get rid of it instead of down my sink.
But such is the commitment you make.
You can just remember how delicious the latke tasted as you're funneling it into...
That's exactly. Well, let me ask you this.
I have a weird habit.
I don't even know why I do it.
But as they're cooking and they are largely covered, but not 100%, I sometimes with my spatula, I kind of make little waves to cover the tops of them.
I don't think that's bad.
I think you're just encouraging browning, which is great.
Yes. Yeah. Because to me, what you've really nailed in the picture on the little pan to the left, the dried or the fully cooked ones, they're completely browned.
I think browning is flavor in pretty much everything.
And, you know, that's the difference between like undercooked latke and a perfectly browned one is you're just going to have so much more dimension and complexity and it's going to be so exciting.
And so that's the thing is when we eat, we as humans are kind of programmed to really enjoy both textural contrast and temperature contrast, which is why like that cold dollop of sour cream on the hot, crispy latke is so good because it's cold and hot.
It's creamy and crispy.
The latke itself is crispy on the outside, but then like the potatoes on the inside, if you've done it right, are soft and creamy and sort of fall apart on your tongue.
And you're getting a ton of different experiences in one bite.
Wow. You know, maybe I've been watching you too much, but I have a Pavlovian response to your voice now and I start salivating.
I want to give a shout out to a possible compliment to your latkes, Josh, which is a recent purchase that I made, jalapeno ketchup.
Oh, that kind of compliment.
Yes. Oh, yeah. With two E's.
Got it. I was waiting for something positive.
Some positive feedback.
I thought you were going to say they made me look thin.
I saw it on the shelf and I got it in the spirit of my dad.
My dad, the food scientist, always trying to get me to try something that I've never gotten before.
I got this jalapeno ketchup and I love it.
I had it with some tater tots.
And I just think if you get a chance to get your hands on some, try that with your latkes next time.
I am not averse to a non -traditional condiment, so I will give it a shot.
Excellent. You are a reformed...
Not orthodox. This is actually the reconstruction approach to lockers.
Thank you for helping me workshop that joke, because I definitely could not make it on my own.
What else are you cooking at home, Josh?
What you cooking? I have an instant pot.
I made black beans with chilies and then a sort of tomato puree that I made in my blender separately with cilantro and some garlic.
And then I blended that into the beans once they were done from the Instant Pot.
And that was a big hit.
And we ate those with tortillas and cheese and lettuce and olives and rice.
Ooh, that sounds good.
Yeah, I'm not the fanciest cook, but good staples, hearty staples.
That's my thing. Fancy's overrated.
Fair enough. Josh, what do you do?
What does your family do?
For a living, nothing currently.
What do you do about the ensuing fartiness from the black beans?
Let it rip. We have a let it rip philosophy here at the Molina household.
I might actually have to write that into the corner of my bean recipe.
Oh, yeah, you should definitely annotate.
Yet another reason to stay at least six feet away from each other at all times.
josh thanks so much oh thanks for having me this was fun remember when we used to have a podcast i think i'm gonna try making some and then putting them out on the stoop because you can't really eat latkes by yourself no matter what that lady says that's right i agree if people want to see these beautiful latkes you can find them on josh's twitter he's at josh melina and you should be following him on there anyway he is a master of the forum.
Oh, you're a good man.
Thank you for that compliment with an eye.
Thanks for having me, guys.
This was fun. Thanks for joining us and happy cooking and eating to you guys.
Okay, Samin, let me throw this at you.
What about if when you're tired, you're really tired, you said, I got to go soak my beans.
Like we're going to start a new saying.
Yeah. I got to go soak my beans.
Oh, how you doing? I'm exhausted.
I'm just gonna go suck my beans.
And can you like, please just enlighten me exactly like why?
That's a great metaphor.
Because it might take a long time.
And you're trying to get those beans to just like, relax, get out of there, dried.
Oh, true. And it's like inactive cooking.
It's like a way to do something without having to really work.
Exactly. Okay. You said something about bringing like, there's still life in there, right?
But You just have to get back to it.
You gotta go soak those beans.
Oh, I love it. I gotta go soak my beans.
And that's it for this episode.
Let us know if you have any cooking related questions.
Call us at 201 -241 -COOK or send us a voice memo at alittlehomecooking at gmail .com.
You can find that email address and phone number and how to record and send us a voice memo on our website, homecooking .show.
You can follow me at Chow Samin on Twitter and Instagram.
And I'm at Rishi Hirway.
Thanks to Zach McNeese, Margaret Miller, Casey Deal, and Gary Lee for their help.
And thanks to everyone who sent us a question.
Stay healthy, eat well, and take care of each other.
We'll be back soon with another episode.
Until then, I'm Samin.
And I'm Rishi. And we'll be home cooking.
