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That's odoo .com. I'm Samin Nostrat.
And I'm Rishi Kesher -Wey.
And we're Home Cooking.
This is episode 9 of our 4 -part series where we help you figure out what to cook with what you got in the house.
I've given up on wearing pants that button and I've given up on making any sense of what number episode we're on.
What are pants that button?
Archaeologists are going to find pants that button and be like, long ago, people wore I'm like, what are pants?
I only wear a caftan Well, we're back after our break for the third batch of episodes It's so nice to see you and hear you I missed you so much I mean, let's not lie, we talk every day, but But not while the mics are rolling No, yeah.
I missed this a lot.
There were definitely things where I was like, oh, I wish I could hear what terrible pun Rishi would tell me about this.
We have a lot of news since the last time we recorded.
Can I share your news?
Sure. I am bursting with joy and so proud of you because I've watched you for the last two years.
You've been working so hard on turning Song Exploder, your first podcast, cast into a television series for Netflix, and that just got announced.
And I think right after this episode drops on October 2nd, the first four episodes are going to launch on Netflix.
You're going to join me in the ranks of dorky brown kids hosting Netflix shows.
And so it'll be yet another way that we are linked in life.
And also, it's really hard. It's It's a really hard process.
And so I feel like we've gotten to sort of bond a lot over the last couple years through the work of that, you know?
Yeah. I'm so excited for you.
Thanks a lot. And I'm excited for you, not to give too much away too soon, but I will just tell people in the briefest and most discreet of terms that the Honey for Samin search has borne fruit.
Can I leave it at that?
Can I say that? I'm not saying anything, so.
I'm just saying. The honey fruit was born.
And it's pretty exciting.
Wow, your eyebrows are real high right now.
Yeah. Real happy eyebrows.
Look, I just like it when a plan comes together.
I will say, like, the worst part of this entire experiment is Rishi's satisfaction.
Moving on. Okay, moving on with that.
Samin, what's your favorite thing that you've cooked since the last time I spoke to you?
Oh, the other night I made this, I may or may not have shared it with somebody.
Wow. I made some chickpeas, or we had, I had some chickpeas that I had cooked that I was planning to make into hummus, and I didn't get around to doing that.
Yeah. And so I made this kind of like ceci, chickpeas and broccoli is a kind of a classic combination in Italy.
What is that word? Ceci?
Ceci is the Italian word for chickpeas.
Oh, okay. So I had some broccoli that was like on its way out.
It was for sure like yellowing.
So I roasted it really dark and I had the chickpeas and I had some like about to go off tomatoes.
So I got the pan really hot with olive oil, threw the tomatoes in, got them all sort of like caramelly and saucy, threw in a bunch of chickpeas that were cooked with some garlic.
And right now, the like current hot condiment of choice that I'm like really into right now is I'm back to my Calabrian chili paste, which is one of my favorites.
It's just like neon red.
I feel like it's a really good summer one.
And so I put a big spoonful of that.
It's also has some vinegar in it.
It's just really yummy.
So I put a big spoonful of that in there.
And that I put in there at the last minute.
And then I put a ton of olive oil as it was boiling really hard so it could just turn into this emulsified, delicious thing.
And at the end, I put a whole bunch of chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon. And I had these thick pieces of good sourdough bread that I had toasted.
So then I put them down in this shallow bowl plate.
And then I had all of the saucy, tomato -y, chickpea stuff that I drizzled on top.
And so that got absorbed into the bread.
It was just kind of like a saucy, delicious, toasty, chickpea, broccoli, yummy thing.
The neon color that you're talking about with the Calabrian peppers, like the color of them.
One of the things I love about Calabrian peppers is that they look exactly the way they taste.
They totally do. They totally do.
You're just like, whoa.
Yeah. You're making my eyes a promise and then you're delivering to my tongue.
What about you? You haven't told me what you're cooking unless you all you've been cooking is a Netflix show.
So I have been trying to sneak more green things into everything that I'm eating.
Just trying to like up the healthiness but also up the flavor of these like sort of nutritious ingredients that are being added.
So I made a veggie burger the other day and I put kale on it.
Cooked or raw? I cooked the kale with garlic and a little bit of sherry vinegar and it was really good even just on its own but then as a layer to the burger it just gave it some new dimension and i could feel like all right i'm i'm virtuous yeah exactly at least offsetting the uh the whatever the burgeriness yeah and i've been doing that a lot you know just throwing some spinach into something you know because spinach can often be a little little neutral and you can just easily add some totally stuff and yeah i'm just trying to be a little bit better about the nutrition side of things along with the delicious
side of things do you know that one of the most like nutrient rich greens that you can eat is parsley that people just don't eat very much parsley huh i learned this when i was in a phase of juicing which i have been in several juicing phases in my life like where i would just like juice all the green things.
Parsley is so rich in so many nutrients, but we don't ever really eat that much of it.
And so if you were to want to up your nutrients, you could just eat a lot more parsley.
Wow. While we're on the subject of green herbs.
Excellent transition.
It's also related to the Calabrian peppers, I think, because while those are really honest about how they're going to taste, this is an ingredient that maybe is not so honest to some people oh this is emily calling from baltimore and there is one spice that i just do not understand how to use and that is a bay leaf i will say i have always been a bit skeptical of bay leaves um for a couple reasons one because you take them out before you eat them so that doesn't quite make sense to me can it really add all that much flavor that's not the the only question we got about bay leaves actually so we're
in a debate right now on whether or not bay leaves actually impart flavor oh my god boiling um some water and we're simmering some bay leaves and we're gonna make some bay leaf soup um but we thought we'd ask you and rich guests as well so let us know bye what can i make that will transform me from a bay leaf skeptic to To a Bayleaf lover.
Thank you guys so much. Oh my God, this is my dream montage.
I also feel like Bayleaves are really divisive.
I don't blame people for feeling this way because I used to feel this way.
Oh, even though you live in the Bay Area.
Even though I live in the Bay Area.
Oh, God. Oh, wow. And I really forgot what this feels like.
And it's both a terrible feeling and a wonderful feeling.
At some point, I'm going to end up playing this back to you where you said.
It's a wonderful feeling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's both. It's really both.
So what was the thing that turned you around on Bayleaves?
Okay, the thing that turned me around is not necessarily going to be the answer for everybody.
But I do think it is a way forward, which is I got myself a bay tree.
Which is not necessarily something everyone's going to be able to do.
But I got access to fresh bay leaves.
If I ever write a culinary memoir, it's going to be called a bay leaf in every pot.
Because that's how strongly I feel about bay leaves is like, I just put them in everything.
I really I love them so much. And yes, one fresh bay leaf, like one proper bay leaf can absolutely perfume a pot.
I like to use more because I love the taste of them.
But they're really fragrant.
It's also another reason to be skeptical about them.
At the store, if you're buying a jar of spices, you buy a jar of three crumbled up bay leaves and it costs $5.
It's confusing and weird and feels expensive.
They're old and they don't really smell like anything.
You can't identify that smell because often you've put so many other things in that pot of soup.
You're like, well, what was the bay?
What was that adding?
Whereas if you can develop a relationship to fresh bay leaf, I think you can start identifying what that smell is.
And I don't exclusively use the fresh bay now that I have a tree that I started.
The tree that I planted originally, it's the plant I've kept alive the longest in my garden, probably seven or eight years.
It started out, it was maybe four inches tall and had three leaves, and now it's maybe four feet tall, and it gives me endless leaves.
And I prune it every year, and I have so many leaves.
I send branches out as gifts.
I'll send you one with the banana bread.
okay but it's this incredibly fragrant smell it is actually a big wonderful smell here in the bay area when you're hiking you smell this wonderful smell after a rain it's just this really fragrant smell that i love you know on a hike or in my suit can you describe the characteristics of bay leaves flavor okay let me think about this while you're thinking of this i'm remembering Remembering a great moment in Gilmore Girls where Melissa McCarthy's character, Suki the chef, there's something missing in a dish that she's making and she can't think of what the name of it is and she's describing all
the qualities that it has.
This needs something and I cannot think of what it is.
It's that tart, kind of spicy, white.
Salt. The word is salt.
You forgot the word for salt?
And it's so interesting to hear somebody try and describe salt without using the word salty.
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about using food words in general and certainly aroma words.
We don't have words for taste and aroma, so you always have to use other words to compare it to, which is what's confusing and hard. And also the wonderful challenge of food writing and talking about food.
food and so yeah I'm like having a hard time thinking of what it is that I would compare bay to like a fresh bay leaf is a little bit floral it's quite like herbaceous to me it smells alive it smells like the forest in the best way it smells like trees and yeah and and it's a taste that I really love purely on its own scenting and perfuming things that are kind of of unexpected.
I love bay leaf cream.
I think it's a really nice sweet thing.
If you could make a bay leaf panna cotta or bay leaf whipped cream, I love it in soup.
But I do think the quality of your bay leaf really matters.
A lot of grocery stores now, especially if you can make it to an Indian grocer or just like an international grocer with like a variety of really wonderful sort of fresh offerings even in sometimes i've seen in whole foods in the little area where there's the little tiny clamshells of herbs where they have like clamshells of thyme and parsley you can get little clamshells of fresh bay leaves that's a great way to acquaint yourself with what a bay leaf is is it like hyper concentrated in the flavor it's so much stronger exactly it's so much stronger and you can get one and just crumble it in your
fingers and you get to experience that that incredible, powerful flavor and smell.
And it's not minty exactly, but it's just fresh and vibrant.
And that's something I always like to add, certainly to beans.
And then you can dry them yourself.
You can hang them from a string in your kitchen.
Yeah, or just do what I do and forget that you have them and then turn to the spice cabinet three years later and you're like, oh.
Yeah. Well, also three years is a real long time.
And that's also part of why a lot of people are like, well, this doesn't have any aroma.
And I'm like, yeah, because it's old, right?
You you actually do have to work your way through your spices.
And so what's your number one bay leaf flavored dish?
Beans. I do not like boil a legume without a bay.
I basically, other than pasta, like I don't boil water at my house without bay.
Yeah. Do you have a relationship to bay as an Indian?
A relationship? Is leaf bay?
Is leaf bay. I have a jar of bay leaves that are like years old, But I do use it when I'm making Indian food, especially like when I'm making chickpeas.
But I definitely am doing it as an act of faith.
Like you said, there's so many other things that immediately overpower whatever tiny, subtle flavor that little shriveled dry bay leaf is adding.
But I just I know that that's what goes in it.
A lot of people are anti -bay.
It's fine. Just don't come to my house.
And you're just asking me my opinion.
I'm pro -bay. You have to keep the haters at bay.
Yeah, exactly. Here is another question.
This one comes from Rosie, and she's in D .C.
Hi. I was originally going to get married back in April in Baltimore, and naturally, we wanted to have little old bay seasoning shakers as our party favors.
Given the whole COVID situation, we ended up doing a small micro wedding instead.
dead and my question is what do i do with 40 extra three ounce shakers of old bay i'm a maryland native and i love old bay but that's too much even for me appreciate your help thanks so just to be clear the old bay that she's talking about is different from the old bay that i have in my jar in my spice cabinet oh my god that's amazing i love this question okay okay so old bay seasoning for those who don't know is like a seasoning mixture it's like the chesapeake bay classic seasoning mixture used for crab boils and seafood you know dishes from that region And so in the past, I've used it when I've
made seafood boils.
And honestly, the only thing I can think of doing would require waiting until a post -COVID time.
And a way you could prepare yourself is you could spend some time opening all 40 packages, dumping them into a large jar so that you can be prepared for your inevitable large seafood boil that you're going to have to sell.
celebrate your, you know, one or two year wedding anniversary when you can use the like total amount of Old Bay seasoning in a large pot of water.
And then at that point you can put in, you know, your blue crab, your sausage, your corn, your potatoes, and do a big, beautiful seafood boil and eat that with cornbread and all that good stuff.
Another thing is you could probably also donate it to like a food pantry or something like that.
Definitely. I mean, people often call in to our show talking about excess ingredients.
And I feel like we haven't done a good enough job emphasizing how vital food banks are right now.
And people can always donate food if there's any chance that they're not going to use it.
There are lots of people who can.
And I'm sure that a food bank would love seasonings.
Totally. And also, I will say as we head into the fall and the winter, you know, food insecurity is just going to become a more dire issue for more and more people in this country.
And it really does feel really urgent for us to address that.
that. We're really lucky to be in our warm, cozy homes talking about Old Bay seasoning and bay leaves and rice and honeys.
And so, yeah, we should just be able to share some of what we have with people who have less.
And actually, if you want to learn more about food banks, we'll put a link up in our episode notes.
We'll link to Feeding America's site where they talk about how that network works.
Yeah, and how to find sort of your local food bank and how to support them.
Yes, exactly. They have a link for finding your local food bank.
OK, back to our questions.
More questions. Hi, Samin and Rishi.
I'm Mari. I'm 14. I'm Annie.
I'm 9, almost 10. And I'm Ioni.
I'm 8. We're back to virtual school, and we were wondering if you have any suggestions for lunches.
We're looking for things that we can make ahead of time and heat up.
One idea we had was calzones.
Or ways to soup up things like instant ramen or sandwiches.
Thanks so much. Ooh, I love this question.
Also, there's a postscript in their email saying that they're mostly vegetarian.
Uh -huh. And Manny and Ione prefer foods that are not spicy.
Okay, great. So I love the calzone idea and pizzas.
I think those are great ideas.
Why don't we give a simple answer and a more complicated answer?
How about that? Okay.
So my favorite thing, as everybody who listens to this podcast from the beginning knows, is doctoring up Annie's mac and cheese.
But I don't have tons of experience with instant ramen soups.
I think there are other things that you could do that maybe are like even a little more nutritious and certainly yummier and maybe not that much more work and yeah, and could be kind of fun.
So I think it would involve a little bit of work on the behalf of maybe your parents and a little bit of preparation, sort of just thinking ahead.
head but i think what it would lead to is options on the day of or at the time and so things like if you have a bunch of different small cut up frozen vegetables ready to go in the fridge and things like better than bouillon ready or veggie stock ready to go you basically can make your own little soup bar so like this is the kind of thing i do all the time for myself where i'll heat up some broth and then i'll just throw at the like last moment i'll put in some frozen peas in there some frozen spinach. I'll put some little bit of like, if I have carrots, I'll throw some in there, whatever vegetables
I have. And then I might cook some little pastas if I have like, you know, elbow macaroni or whatever little shapes I have in there.
And then I like to throw in other kinds of treats based on whatever's in the fridge and make like a delicious soup sort of on the fly.
So that's a lunch that I often surprise myself with, with how yummy it is.
And how long does that take from saying, okay, taking a break, going to go to the fridge and pull these things out and heat them up?
What's the total cooking time?
Well, if I have all of the things ready, because I've like already have all the stuff frozen and like I kind of just know, you know, and I'm going from frozen to sitting down maybe total 12 minutes.
I don't know. Wow. Yeah, like it's pretty, it's not really that long.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think the key is putting stuff in that's small, like using small bits of stuff like peas.
You know, frozen peas take only 90 seconds to cook.
Right. Like it's just bringing everything up to a boil and making sure that the stuff already tastes good.
And then you get to have that wonderful experience, which is the condiment time.
And then a way to make it even yummier is like you can poach an egg in there if you want, or you can do the thing like you can make it egg drop style, where you pour in a little bit and let the egg scramble in there.
Or like in Italy, it's called stracciatella, where you pour in like a little bit of egg that's been whisked with Parmesan cheese, and it floats to the top.
So you have a little bit of egg in your soup with vegetables, which is really yummy.
You could put a little soy sauce in that whisked up egg, which makes it really yummy.
So that's always a nice lunch to have with like a piece of toast or a piece of whatever kind of bread you have. Another thing you could do easier than maybe maybe this is easier than calzones, is spend a weekend making things like sheet pan pizza with your family.
And you can make it and par bake it and then cut it up into pieces and freeze it.
And then you basically have freezer pizza ready to heat up.
And you can preheat that up in the toaster oven or in the microwave. And that's like how awesome would that be for lunchtime?
Yeah. Homemade frozen pizza is kind of brilliant.
And you don't have to go through like a whole calzone.
I mean, you could also do that with You could parbake a calzone and freeze that.
And then you get to have gone through the fun family project of making the calzone or making the pizza.
And then also you get to the dividends of eating that for lunch. So I do think that that's a great idea.
It's going to involve a little bit more of a commitment.
If you don't want the commitment, I'm always a fan of the French toast pizza and the English muffin pizza and the pita pizza and the tortilla pizza.
Those Samin, as a UC Berkeley alum for a college nicknamed Cal, please tell me that somewhere on campus, there's an Italian restaurant called the Calzone.
Oh my god, there is not, as far as I know.
Huge opportunity, just totally missed opportunity.
Okay, and one last idea.
I am a huge fan of the rice cooker that keeps rice warm, because it's a way to be able to have something that you just have. when you have a bowl of warm grains that you start with, you are like 75 % of the way to a meal.
So I think pouring like brown rice in in the morning and then, you know, depending on the day, I can season up that rice in a different direction.
If I want to make it a Mexi kind of rice or an Indian kind of rice or just Japanese -y kind of rice or whatever, or just keep it super plain, then that can like dictate what direction I'm going to go in.
And then I can sort of open the the fridge in the morning and be like, okay, I know I'm going to have these leftovers, I'm going to have this shredded chicken or this can of tuna or these vegetables that I can chop up that I can then turn into this lunch later with this rice.
I'm a big fan of getting the rice going in the morning.
Okay, that sounds great.
I really hope this helps and please send us some pictures of your lunches.
Okay, continuing into our day past lunch, here's a question about dessert.
ooo dessert hi Sameen hi Rishi this is Brogya from India so I have members in my family who don't like fruits in their desserts and I've been sick of making chocolate -based desserts in the last couple of months I also don't like making Indian desserts because standards for those are too high in my household do you have any suggestions for desserts that are not fruit fruit -centric, are not chocolate -centric as well, and are not Indian.
Thank you so much. Oh my god, I love this.
Yeah. It's a very specific target to hit.
Yeah. Not fruit -centric, not chocolate -centric, not Indian.
This is good. Okay.
This is kind of my zone.
Actually, who am I kidding?
I like all desserts.
I like so many desserts, but one no -no for me is the combination of chocolate with fruit.
Oh, you're anti -chocolate fruit.
Yes. I don't like the chocolate orange thing that people have at Christmas.
I don't like when I get a piece of chocolate cake and they've drizzled raspberry sauce on it.
I'm like, no. Fruit is one category.
Chocolate is another category.
Nair the twain shall meet.
While I don't feel that strongly, I do think chocolate and fruit shall only meet selectively.
Not nair, but sometimes.
Sometimes the twain shall meet.
Okay. So, some places that come immediately to mind for flavors are coffee, caramel, honey, cinnamon. Those are kind of like the flavor regions that I can think of.
And other spices are things that I would focus on.
you know and also just like dairy flavored desserts you know things that are like sweet cream flavored or even like things like cheesecake or milky flavor vanilla flavor just um choosing spices to focus on would be a great way to do it also seeds things like sesame seeds are great oh my god there's so many delicious sesame seed desserts tahini based desserts honey based desserts so i think there are a lot of options what's your number one in this category?
Cheesecake? Well, I love cheesecake so, so much. My number one and my number two come from this cookbook, which happens to be sitting right next to me.
Oh. I am so obsessed with this book right now.
It was unplanned. I want you to eat this cake so bad.
Here's a better picture of it.
Yes, I have had this cake.
You've had this cake?
Yeah, because when I was in San Francisco, you said, go to this place.
And eat this cake. Yes.
Tell them what the cake is.
So So this book just came in the mail.
It's called Baking at the 20th Century Cafe.
It's by Michelle Polzine.
It's my favorite pastry shop in San Francisco and maybe one of my favorite pastry shops in the world.
And on the cover front and back is a picture of the iconic Russian honey cake.
This cake is a project that will maybe take two days.
So you would really have to love your family members to undertake this project, okay?
This cake is based on and sort of like comes out of Michelle's imagination as the sort of ultimate version of what's called I think Dobosh tort or like Russian honey cake it's these like cinnamony delicious like thin cake that is baked in all of these separate layers that she layers 10 different layers and then she makes this burnt honey frosting that's mixed with dulce de leche leche and whipped cream.
And she layers like frosting cake, frosting cake, frosting cake, frosting cake until there's 20 layers of frosting and cake.
And it's so exquisite and so delicious and also takes so much time and careful work.
It's an accomplishment to make it.
It's so, so incredible.
Have you made it yourself?
I have made it myself twice because I tested it.
I wrote a column about it and I had to test it and I had to make it.
It's like a weekend project and you you feel so amazing when you make it.
I will say the cheesecake that Michelle makes is also probably the best cheesecake I've ever had.
What I like about the cheesecake idea is that it is not technically an Indian dessert, but it is really similar to a category of Indian desserts, a lot of which are milk -based.
It's sort of like, here's something different that'll also connect to some mouth brain.
It totally connects to the mouth brain.
Yeah, and it's also a pretty simple thing to make.
It's just really delicious.
Yeah. Recently, I have been privy to a cheesecake recipe, which maybe I will be able to find and link to, where it involves a sour cream glaze.
So after the cheesecake comes out of the oven, you make this like delicious sour cream glaze that you put on top and you put it back in the oven for a second.
And so then it gets this like incredibly shiny layer on top that makes it look like it's out of a beautiful movie cartoon.
tune. So then let me give the lazy person's suggestion, which is what about like funfetti style birthday cake?
Oh, I listen. I love a funfetti.
I love a funfetti. It doesn't have to be funfetti.
Just like, you know, a yellow cake.
Yeah. Yellow cake or a vanilla cake.
Yes. And actually my favorite, favorite, favorite, and this is like, if you want to make it from scratch recipe, my very favorite yellow cake recipe is flow breakers, buttermilk cake, which if you Google those words, I think the number one recipe that comes up is from my blog because I typed it out a million years ago.
Flow Breakers. Flow Breakers buttermilk cake.
Yeah. And she was a fantastic pastry chef and cookbook author who really wrote like this incredible book called The Simple Art of Perfect Baking.
And this recipe in my mind cannot be improved upon.
It's like the ultimate yellow cake.
It does take a little bit of work.
Every ingredient has to be at room temperature.
But it really is the ideal yellow cake in texture and in flavor.
So I love that one a lot.
You could do sprinkles and make yourself a funfetti situation.
Who doesn't love a funfetti?
You would have to be anti -fun.
Yeah, just a sad person.
Okay, next question.
This is not a sad person.
Hello. I'm sending this on behalf of my sister who has planted one Armenian cucumber plant and one lemon cucumber plant and is now swimming in Armenian cucumbers the size of our thighs.
They're enormous cucumbers and they won't stop growing.
She's running out of ideas with what to do.
She's given them to neighbors.
She's given them to family, friends, co -workers, you name it.
She's pickled, but we're running out of ideas.
What do we do with all these cucumbers?
Please help. I'm sort of going to draft off of their question and ask you, do you have a recipe for the perfect cucumber sandwich?
Because when I heard this question, I immediately had a craving for one.
Oh, interesting. Well, as an Iranian, I have very strong feelings about this, because we eat cucumbers with feta in lavash bread.
That's like the way we eat cucumbers is with feta.
So that's like my recipe, if you will.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Give me that one.
Yeah, that's it. Oh my God, that's the whole recipe.
Okay, okay. Okay. Because I remember when I was four years old, my cousins from England came to visit and I was introduced for the first time to the idea of a cucumber sandwich. Like a finger sandwich. Yes.
And I had not had sandwiches with the crust cut off.
That wasn't really a thing that we did.
But my cousins were very particular.
They were like, this is how you do it.
and that combination of like the soft bread the cucumber the cheese i haven't had it in so long yeah i instantly connected that summer and jumping in the pool and it just feels like i really suddenly wanted that so bad oh what a good memory i mean i feel like if you're going to the store the bread to buy is like the thin pepperidge farm white bread that's like super thin sliced that's like the perfect bread for that unless you can get to your local bakery and you buy like beautiful sort of Pullman loaf or pandemic that you can then like slice perfectly thinly your own self and remove the crust
off. And then you get your dill, you get your cream cheese, you get your cucumber.
There you go. You're ready for your tea party with Queen Elizabeth.
Finally. Call me QE2.
This probably doesn't use much cucumber.
I know. Well, that's the thing is like, I don't know, you're literally going to use like a quarter of a lemon cucumber for what you're talking about there.
We got to like up the ante to hear, buddy.
Yeah, nothing's going to use a whole lot of cucumber, right?
What about raita? Well, that was one thought I had was cucumber yogurt.
Yeah. So, I do think you can grate a bunch and you squeeze a lot of the water out, which I would save the water and drink it, honestly.
You know, that's a very refreshing situation.
And then you, yeah, you can make yourself a delicious raita or in Iran, we call it mastokhiar.
And you can combine it with any any variety of other things?
What do you put in your raita?
Yogurt with diced cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, a pinch of cumin, and a pinch of salt.
Okay, okay. Yeah, yours is really simple.
We have all sorts of different versions of mostokhiar, but we do cucumber, yogurt, any of a variety of herbs.
I'll put mint and dill.
Sometimes I'll put cilantro.
Here's a crazy curveball.
Sometimes I'll put raisins in it and or toasted walnuts, which I find really delicious.
Sometimes people put like dried rose petals in there.
And then how do you use that?
Because I will put rice on pretty much anything.
I mean, I'll put it on anything.
And sometimes if I make it with thick yogurt, I'll just eat it by the spoonful.
Like I'll just eat it almost as a side dish.
But yeah, because Iranian food is very rice based.
So like you eat this, you could even just eat rice with the yogurt.
But since usually there's like a saucy stew, you would eat your like rice stew yogurt or rice grilled meat yogurt and like in my current life i don't eat so much like persian rice i might eat like grilled meat or grilled fish or some vegetables and the yogurt it's also really good on top of like say poached eggs i don't know i feel like it's just a wonderful condiment to have around and you can especially if you squeeze the water out which armenian and certainly lemon cucumbers are really watery and both of them it sounds like you're letting them mature quite a lot, so they'll have really big
seeds. You can remove the seeds before you grate them.
Again, save the seeds and save the water and turn that into a delicious drink.
Mix it with some fizzy water and some lemon juice and turn it into cucumber lemonade.
The other place where I think you could use up a lot of cucumber, a lot, and this is where I think the triage is about to to happen yeah is like where the blender comes out you bring the blender out uh -huh and we start making juices we start making popsicles we start making cucumber gazpacho and all sorts of other chilled soups in fact you could take that cucumber yogurt and turn it into a chilled cucumber and yogurt soup cucumber soup sounds good i've never i don't think i've ever had that oh yes i mean and it's just like a little bit wetter than cucumber yogurt.
Oh, I see, got it, okay.
And what does that mean, cucumber gazpacho?
Does that mean, are you just replacing the tomatoes with cucumbers?
Yeah, I would just use cucumber.
So I think you could make a cucumber gazpacho that goes in like a Vietnamese -y direction with like rice vinegar and cilantro and chilies and you kind of use those flavors.
I think you could blend it up with Mexican kind of tastes and go like a lime poblano chili kind of direction and maybe even top it with a little bit of sour cream or queso.
I think you could go certainly in like a Middle Eastern direction and put a little tahini in there.
You could just take it in like an inside out gazpacho, regular old gazpacho direction and use peppers and like just an inverse amount of tomato and make it sort of more cucumber.
It's so good with all of the different herbs that are available in the summertime, basil and dill and cilantro and parsley.
I mean, it just, to me, cucumber, oh, it's a delicious sort of blank slate of freshness.
Awesome. Yeah. In a lot of ways, I envy your problem.
problem so uh yeah oh wait oh wait can i suggest one other really delicious thing that's so good yeah what made you think of it just now grating cucumbers made me think of it and it's warm right now oh my god this is one of my favorite things from my childhood and i used to get made fun of for it and i think now because shrubs are a thing and like tonics and people are into stuff people are into stuff for the first time it's true nowadays people are into stuff People are into stuff.
And I feel like the time is ripe for this drink.
So in Iran, we have an entire category of drinks called sherbats, which is where the word sherbet comes from.
And they're these cool, refreshing drinks that you drink on a hot day.
And they're usually cordials, so they're like a sweet syrup that gets diluted in a glass of ice water.
And there's all sorts of different ones.
One of my favorite ones is a sour cherry sort of syrup that's on ice water.
but my very favorite one is called Sekanjabin, and it's made with vinegar and sugar and water that's boiled down, which sounds like the craziest combination of things, but it's so good.
It's so, so, so, so, so good, and so you make this vinegar, sugar, water syrup, and there are different ways of consuming Sekanjabin.
One of them is you just take the syrup and dip lettuce leaves in it and eat the lettuce leaves, and that's refreshing.
Another way is you use it as a cordial in a drink, And so you can just drink that on ice water.
But a really refreshing way is to put a whole bunch of cold grated cucumber in your psychangibine glass.
And so then you have this like cold, refreshing, sour, sweet, cucumbery, slushy, icy thing.
And I just want this to take the world by storm.
You know what I think could do it too is if people start, I know you had it as a kid, But if people start using it as a mixer, the way they use shrubs.
In a booze, in a booze, in a booze.
Yeah, in a boozy drink, yeah.
And you totally, and you know what's so funny now?
Oh my god, I've never actually connected these dots.
But I really love, what's that booze drink that you probably don't know because you don't drink any booze.
But there's a booze drink with a cucumber and a ginger ale.
Pimm's Cup? Yeah, Pimm's Cup, Pimm's Cup.
I've actually had Pimm's Cup before.
We're getting very English with our cucumber stuff.
But I actually had it once at a wedding, at an English wedding.
And it was really nice.
Yeah, I love a Pimm's Cup.
And I feel like a Pimm's Cup is kind of like the alcoholic big sister of Secangibine, now that I think about it.
Like it has that sweet and sour thing, and it has the cucumber.
Oh my God, I'm just like having my Proustian, Secangibine, Pimm's Cup moment right now.
Okay, so Amin's going to make Secangibine happen with your help.
Let's make this a thing.
Yeah. I like this idea.
A vinegary, cucumbery drink.
And I'll have the nonalcoholic version and you can have the boozy version.
Okay, great. And then we'll find out what secrets I'm going to spill.
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 no I had no idea who this person was and she performed this song Untouchable Face which Which in Untouchable
Face, she swears. She says, f*** you in your Untouchable Face.
And I had no idea what the song was about.
I just heard the f*** up, you know, which to me was so scandalous.
Like, I'm just like, you know, good brown kid.
Like, I was like, whoo.
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.
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 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 Key Change on Song Exploder, wherever you get your podcasts.
Or go to songexploder .net slash keychange.
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's the host, but he cuts himself entirely out of the the interviews he does with amazing musicians like Janelle Monae, Robin, Fleetwood Mac, U2 and more.
So you just hear them talking about the creative process behind the making of one of their songs.
I was actually a fan of Song Exploder way before Rishi and I became friends.
Two of my 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 on to a question that I chose specifically because it was something that I dealt with earlier this summer myself.
Oh personal. Deeply personal.
My name is Hannah and I live in Arizona.
I am wondering how you caramelize an onion.
I can saute onions.
I can cook them. I can get some flavor into them but I cannot properly caramelize an onion for the life of me and I was wondering if you could offer some support.
Thank you so much. Hannah?
Rishi? Rishi what is going on Rishi?
I ended up trying to do something that was like much more complicated that involved actually like sugar and wine and stuff like this and it turned out so bad but then this summer I really wanted to do it again I wanted to make caramelized onions I was really having a craving and then it turns out it's so easy.
Anyway I was able to successfully caramelize onions so I feel like I have a lot of faith that Hannah will be able to too.
Okay good. what advice do you have for her?
Well, Hannah, I would start with don't do one.
It takes some time to caramelize onions properly.
So it's worth it if you ask me to do several at a time.
So don't mess with one.
I would say at least do four onions because it's a thing that, you know, it'll keep in the fridge for several days.
And it's a nice thing to have around because you can use caramelized onions for like toppings for burgers.
You can make a beautiful caramelized onion tart you can make you know you can use them on pizza you can use them for all sorts of stuff so if you do eat dairy I recommend using a mixture of butter and olive oil in the pan because butter browns differently than olive oil and I like having a little bit of that dairy browning you know action because that just the way milk solids brown is so nice so what you want to do is slice your onions get your pan nice and warm get your fat in there get that warm and throw all All of those onions in there.
I like doing this in a cast iron pan because it stays evenly warm and doesn't need to be super duper hot.
Like it shouldn't be like scalding hot, but it should be hot enough that the butter starts to sizzle and then the onions are going to sizzle once the onions go in the pan.
A big key for me was turning the heat down a little bit.
Yeah. Because I burnt them one time.
Yeah. One of my pet peeves in recipes is when people say, oh, put the onions in the pan until they're they're brown five minutes later.
And that is just not true.
Like it really takes quite a long time to get onions, you know, certainly into translucent and then even to brown, like gentle brown, I think takes a minimum of like 14 to 16 minutes.
And then if you ask me, properly caramelized onions take upwards of 30 minutes and a good amount of stirring and really conscientious sort of tending.
I don't think it means you have to be standing there stirring every minute.
it just does mean like as the sugar start to release and things start to happen you do need to be there to make sure it isn't all sticking and burning to the pan.
I like to add some salt early in the process because that does draw water out and like I have made so many caramelized onions over the years and I worked in a restaurant where we made huge huge pans of them every day and so I would do tests and do like side by side put salt in one pan and no salt in the next pan just to see how things happen differently.
And I like the way they cook with salt better because the water comes out earlier and they get more tender.
And that's something I like.
So then you go and you keep stirring and you take them as dark as you like.
And then this is where the magic comes in.
To finish a caramelized onion, because you've built all of the sweetness and flavor and richness, what you want to do is you want to balance it with some acid.
And so sometimes people will add a little bit of balsamic vinegar.
What I like to do is to add a secret, secret amount of red wine vinegar.
So secret that you don't actually taste any vinegar.
But what happens is when you eat the onions, they just taste balanced.
They don't taste cloyingly sweet.
There's just this little brightness that happens.
And that's when you know that you've balanced it it right so if you're doing four onions how much red wine vinegar would you add to that at the end i mean you know like every vinegar has a different acidity and who knows how sweet your onions are but like it might be a teaspoon it just like i just add a few drops and sort of stir it in and taste it and i might add a few drops more and stir it in and taste it yeah yeah and you know and you that's when you adjust the salt and make sure it tastes just right and do you have strong opinions about what kind of onion you're using for caramelized onions?
I like yellow onions, but it would work with red onions.
It would work with spring onions.
There's those Walla Walla sweet onions, but I like just a regular yellow onion.
It would work with white onions.
All kinds of onions.
Yeah, absolutely, for sure.
I hope that helps, Hannah.
I hope it helps. Also, now you can make something called pizza la diere, which is the provencal caramelized onion tart or sometimes focaccia with anchovies and olives, and it's delicious.
Okay, here's a question from Simone.
My question for you is about how to use white miso in recipes.
I bought it for a pasta recipe, and now I have a big tub of white miso I've been trying to experiment with new food.
So far, I've made miso glazed eggplant and some chicken.
But what else can you do with miso and how do you properly add it to recipes?
Thanks. What do you think?
I'm not a miso expert by any means, but I do know when it comes to miso that the lighter it is in color, typically the milder it is in flavor.
And so the white one is the one I usually use for things like dressings, like miso mustard dressing or honey miso dressing.
That's the one that I like to use.
I think miso adds so much delicious umami.
I have been using it a lot lately in summertime in slaws and to dress all my soba noodles.
I eat so many soba noodles lately.
And so it just is like this incredible source of mouth puckering, savory flavor.
Yeah. And also, Also, you know, stir miso into some water and you have miso soup.
And it's such a simple and delicious and nutritious belly -filling thing.
One thing that I've never actually had myself, and I'm really excited to try it, is miso chocolate chip cookies.
Oh yeah, also there's those miso peanut butter cookies that are super popular on the New York Times Cooking that my friend Kristen Chambrough developed.
Have you had those?
I haven't had them, but they look so good.
Let's pull it up. Let me pull up the recipe right now.
Okay. OK. These cookies were the result of a happy accident when the peanut butter ran out.
Similarly, creamy white miso stepped in.
That's so awesome. I think you have to try this if you have a huge tub of miso.
That's great. We have a chef detective question.
Oh, life dream. Do you have your monocle and your pipe and your tweed hat that you can put on?
Oh, yeah, let me put it on.
Here. Yeah, exactly.
Your glasses, but just cover one eye.
Okay. Okay, so this question comes from Morgan, and she sent some visuals in her email as well.
But first, let me just play you the audio part of it.
Okay. I have a family recipe mystery for Chef Detective.
My grandmother used to make this delicious bread.
We just called it pull -apart bread because the loaf could easily be divided by hand.
I have a recipe card for it, but it lists only the ingredients, the baking temperature, and the time.
At this point, it's been more than 20 years, and I've actually never made the bread.
I did watch her make it one time, but the details of that experience are long gone.
So I'd love some tips for how to begin the process.
Thanks. Samin, have you ever had pull apart bread?
I've totally had pull apart bread.
Have you? I don't know that I have. Have you ever had anything like Parker house rolls or any sort of thing where you get, or like, have you ever had Hawaiian bread?
You know, where like you just get to pull the buns apart?
Yes, yes. yes i definitely haven't heard the term parker house roll before but aren't you from the east coast yeah i've heard of parker lewis can't lose god i made a doogie howser reference earlier in an earlier episode and now i'm talking about parker lewis can't lose i'm really dating myself here but you know who isn't dating herself i mean i really hoped you wouldn't go there i really really really hoped you wouldn't do that to me you're fired podcast over okay okay pull apart bread how would you explain what pull apart bread is a loaf of bread that once it's baked rather than slicing it the loaf
has been assembled and put together in such a way that you can actually pull it apart into pieces oh okay so this is a a category that's more about the shape of the bread and not the flavor of it.
Yeah, exactly. Yes.
She's looking for where she can begin, but she does have some starting information in the form of this card that she's sent as an attachment to her email with her grandma's super cute grandma handwriting.
Let me text this to you, but I'll also read it to you.
It says, five and three quarters to six and a quarter cups of all -purpose flour.
I love that there's a range.
one package of dry yeast, two and a quarter cups of milk or buttermilk, two tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of butter or margarine or shortening, and then one and a half teaspoon of salt.
One of the things Morgan is wondering is what's with all the options?
And are there general bread making rules that she can use to guide herself through this recipe?
For sure. For sure.
Oh, it also says oven 375 degrees and bake for 40 minutes.
Great. I feel like your grandma really set you up with a lot of information here.
Like we have a lot of clues that are going to set you on your way.
So I'm feeling pretty confident, Morgan, and you should too.
I would guess, you know, knowing very little about you and nothing about your grandmother, I would guess that the options really are about the fact that this recipe probably came out of, you know, a time of like limited options, you know, maybe post depression depression era where like you know it was about using whatever you had you know so if you had milk you used milk if you had buttermilk you used buttermilk and then really the only like variation in terms of an ingredient like an amount of an ingredient is the flour which again also is not so weird it's a half a cup of sort of an amount of variation which really
like depending on the day if it's a super humid day you might use more flour or maybe that amount is you would start by by adding the lesser amount.
And then if the dough needs it, you could add more, or maybe the larger amount is, you know, that extra half cup is what you would use when you're kneading.
And so to me, this doesn't look that strange as far as recipes go.
So she's given you a great map and really what you're missing is the how -to.
So we can, what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask one of my friends who is a really talented baker to translate this into a bread recipe for you.
Oh, nice. Her name is Lorealyn Pelicano, and she's a master in all of these sort of American traditions.
And so, I'm going to ask her about the pulling apart sort of method.
But I think what it is, what I would guess, is that you're going to roll the dough and cut it into a bunch of pieces.
And then you just sort of, in the loaf pan, you just nestle these pieces next to each other.
And so as the dough proofs, the pieces sort of rise, and then as it bakes, then it gets to a point where they have, like, grown into one thing so that you have to pull them apart.
Okay, so should we take a little break, and then you can confer with Lori Allen, and then we can come back?
Yeah, let's do it. All right, so Lori Allen talked me through this, and basically she said you can do one of two things.
Once you have your delicious, fluffy dough that you've made, you're going to roll it out into a big rectangle with a rolling pin and brush it liberally with butter and cut it into four -inch squares.
Or you can punch it out with a, if you have a round cutter, into like four -inch circles and fold them into tacos.
So either in half if they're circles or sort of tip -to -tip if they're squares.
And brush the outside also with butter.
There's liberal amounts of butter at all surfaces here.
That's going to encourage flakiness.
And then you're going to basically have eight tacos nestled side by side in your loaf pan.
Let them proof, butter that whole thing, bake it up.
And then you're just going to have delicious, warm, buttery, flaky memories of your grandma.
And I wish I could join you.
I mean, I am going to join you.
I want to make this now too.
What's the thing that she probably is missing the most in the recipe that she had, is it the taco formation?
I think it's the actual, yeah.
How, yeah, exactly.
The taco formation.
I mean, I haven't made this particular thing, but I'm guessing that this dough would also work as a Parker house style shape.
You could skip the whole taco and roll them into little balls and bake them in like a nine by 13 pan.
And that's what I'm imagining.
Yeah. And that's kind of a, that's like a, another version of like a little pull apart roll that I really love.
I really, I feel like there's no end to To the versions of the pulling apart.
I just feel like basically you just want as much dairy and butter involved as possible.
And we'll post this recipe on the website for Morgan and for anybody else who might want to try it.
With all the detailed information that we're kind of skipping over.
Yes. There are a lot of steps that there's no need for us to tell you about.
So what do you think, Samin?
Mystery solved. This is the first time I feel like I've successfully done it.
But you know what? But I won't feel good until Morgan lets us know.
Morgan, we're waiting for you to let us know if the case is closed.
Yes. Please, Morgan, settle our hearts.
So I mean, okay, one thing I've been doing a lot recently because we've been eating some tortilla chips.
This is something that I have done a lot over the years, is I cook with the little bits of crumbly, the dregs of the chip.
The ends of the bag?
Yeah. Uh -huh. What are you making?
Okay, so one of my favorite things to do is like fake Chip Dregs version of chilaquiles.
Oh, well, I mean, that's what I hoped you would say.
Yeah, I mix it with eggs.
And that's really good.
I've also just been like, using it a lot as like a little topping for things.
So we'll have like, I made black beans the other day with like a side of sliced avocado and brown rice.
And it was it It was all really nice, but it was also just a little too healthy.
But it was also, everything was a little bit soft. I was like, it needs some differentiation in the texture.
Just a little topping of crunchiness.
I love that. I was doing it with these bean fields nacho chips.
Oh, those healthy bean nuts.
Yeah, so it already had a bunch of spices and stuff blended in there, so it had a lot of flavor.
It's a great way to finish a dish.
you could also use them one thing i was thinking is you could use them as like instead of bread crumbs if you wanted to like bread a piece of fish or whatever do you know i mean it's like a ready -made breading basically that's so smart actually i just made fish the other day actually crushing a bunch of spices like crushing fennel seeds and black pepper and stuff in my mortar and pestle i could could you could totally add some chips in there yeah Because normally, you know, there is a certain joy, for sure, in tipping the bag up and drinking, quote -unquote drinking, the last bit of the Dorito
or whatever. But I just wanted to encourage people to also see that as a cookie ingredient, too, the way that I do.
I was thinking about the Marcella Hazan tomato sauce recipe that you told us about in an earlier episode.
And, you know, how excited I was about the idea that you used, like, the onion ends for it.
Uh -huh. So here's my new pitch to you for a cookbook.
Just like all dishes that just use the end of a thing, like the thing that you would normally throw away, the last bits of the chips, the ends of the onions.
Oh, I already know the person who's writing this book.
It's my friend Tamar Adler.
Oh, really? Yeah, her book's called What to Do with the Cold Chicken.
It's a book of all the leftovers.
Wow. She's been writing these columns lately for The New Yorker about just what she's been cooking throughout the quarantine out of leftovers.
Oh, here, for example, This is amazing.
Leftover polenta gnocchi.
About 12 ounces cold leftover polenta, six to seven ounces flour, egg yolk, and a bunch of Parmesan.
I mean, this is so brilliant.
She turned leftover polenta into this beautiful bowl of gnocchi, which I've never seen happen before, and it looks so good.
Okay, well, tell her, Tamara Adler, if you're listening or if Samin tells you, you need to hit me up for some stale potato chip bits recipes.
She's totally in. I'm your guy.
No, she literally ran a recipe in the New Yorker for hot dog salad.
So she is like you are her guy.
Yes. Okay. Well, that's it for this episode.
I'm so glad we're back.
Thanks for listening.
If you've been enjoying our show, tell your friends and maybe leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
We make this podcast with the help of Margaret Miller, Zach McNeese, Gary Lee, and Casey Diehl.
And maybe Ryan Gold does the illustrations for our episodes.
We're a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independent podcasts.
You can learn more about all of the Radiotopia shows at Radiotopia .fm.
And let us know if you have any cooking related questions.
Just record a voice memo and send it to us at alittlehomecooking at gmail .com.
Our website, as always, is homecooking .show, where you can find transcripts and recipes for all the things that we've talked about today.
You can follow me at Chow Samin on Twitter and Instagram.
And I'm at Rishi Hirwe.
way. Stay healthy, eat well, and take care of each other.
We'll be back in two weeks, and every two weeks we're going to have another episode for the next few months.
Until then, I'm Samin.
And I'm Rishi. And we'll be home cooking.
