Stop and smell the spices
On Father's Day and cooking
This post contains discussion of parents and Father’s Day. If you’d like to skip to the recipes, please click here.
When I was little, whenever my dad would start cooking—a pot of dal, a blenderfull of coconut chutney, or a big pan of turmeric potatoes—he would always alert my brother and me when he was about to add the cumin seeds. He’d open the jar, and we’d rush over to the stove and lean in for a big whiff of the spice. It has always one of my favorite smells, the earthy cumin that was so evocative and reminiscent of his cooking. I think of this every time I use cumin in my own cooking.
I am so fortunate that both my parents cook. In our family, my dad would take care of all the Indian food; my mom, everything else. (Even the grilling—my dad making the marinade, my mom executing the cooking.) The kitchen was as integral to my experience growing up as homework and Disney Channel. Food was key to our home routine, our vacation planning, and even our personalities. From my mom, I get my love of cheese and all things French. From my dad, I get my affinity for well-done meat, and my aversion to seafood. And of course, my love of Indian food—both eating it and cooking it!
When I left to study abroad, my parents gathered up recipes for some of the main dishes we always ate—spaghetti with meat sauce or gnocchi with goat cheese from my mom, turmeric potatoes or eggplant from my dad. These simple recipes, and the process of discovering a connection to home through flavor and the routine of cooking, made me fall in love with making food for myself. These Post-It-note-recipes have carried me through to me to where I am today, creating recipes and writing about food for you all!
I see a similarity in how my dad started cooking, as well—moving to the U.S. from India for graduate school, he brought with him recipes from his own mother for potatoes, avial, dosa, chutney, idli, and more. For someone who grew up vegetarian, and hated cheese, I’ve gotten the sense that home cooking was his lifeline in the strange world of the 80s U.S. food scene. And selfishly, for my own stomach and tastebuds’ sake, I’m grateful for it too!
So happy Father’s Day to the man who started me on the path to cooking! And who taught me to always take time during the cooking process to stop and smell the spices.
New recipes
Summer is truly beginning, and I’ve been so excited to incorporate new foods and flavors into my cooking lately, re-grounding myself in my foodmaking routine. Here are some of the recipes I’ve been making for myself lately! Please let me know if you try them! And as always, you can find all my recipes at the recipe archive, here.
Mushroom Tacos with Coconut, Mint, and Lime Chutney
Time: 45 mins | Difficulty: 3/5 | Yield: Two tacos
This recipe came from a desire for tacos, while not wanting to order out yet again. Mushrooms are an amazing taco filling, so chewy and meaty and earthy! But if you don’t like them, you could substitute for thin slices of chicken. The marinated mushrooms combine here with a really bright chutney topping it all off, that comes together in a mortar and pestle. (If you don’t have one, you can use a blender.) I also made these with frozen parottas, but you can easily use flour tortillas or taco shells if you prefer!! (NB: Some of these ingredients & tools might seem a bit esoteric (lime vinegar, garlic scapes, a mortar and pestle), but this is merely a description of my own recipe. I encourage you to use it as a base recipe, and don’t be afraid to substitute with what you have on hand or what you use more often!)
Ingredients/Tools:
For the chutney:
Mint leaves (a small handful)
Frozen shaved coconut - about 1/2 cup
1/8 of a red onion
A few inches of garlic scapes (if you don’t have any, I’d recommend using scallions over garlic bulbs, which will be too pungent)
Lime vinegar (or apple cider vinegar and some lime juice)
Olive oil
For the mushroom tacos:
2 cups of mushrooms (I recommend different types with different textures, like maitakes, shiitakes, or oyster)
Butter
Olive oil
Tamarind chutney
Chile powder
Grainy mustard
2 Frozen parottas, warmed through
Method:
Make the chutney: dice the onion and garlic scapes, and chop the mint. Add them to the mortar and pestle, along with the coconut, and mash them together. Add salt, pepper, a couple teaspoons of olive oil, and the lime vinegar, and mix again. Set it aside in the fridge to marinate while you do the rest.
Rinse and chop the mushrooms, into 1-inch pieces.
Add a big pat of butter and a touch of olive oil into the pan, and turn the heat on medium. When the butter has melted, add the mushrooms, and stir to make sure they’re well coated with the fat. Cover the pan, and let the mushrooms heat in their steam for about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sauce: Mix a couple tablespoons of tamarind chutney with a teaspoon of chile power, half a tablespoon of grainy mustard, and a couple drops of water.
When the mushrooms have softened, remove the lid and turn up the heat to get them nicely browned. Add salt and pepper.
Turn off the heat, then add the tamarind mixture directly into the pan. Stir to coat the mushrooms in the sauce and let them all caramelize in the residual heat of the pan.
Layer up! Add the mushrooms to the middle of the parottas, then the chutney on top of them. Enjoy!!
Beurre blanc beans with crispy balsamic-glazed mushrooms
Time: 30 mins | Difficulty: 1/5 | Yield: 1 bowl + leftovers if you want
These beans pack a delicious punch!! Inspired by my many attempts to make a beurre blanc sauce for one (I still have not cracked it), I’ve come to love the combination of sweet shallots, tangy vinegar, and buttery butter. (Lots and lots of butter.) The base sauce combined with the can of white beans, and a little bit of parm, creates a bowl that is warming and calming, while still having a brightness that makes you want more and more. I topped the whole thing off with some crispy balsamic mushrooms that bring a sweet punch to every bite—because why use one type of vinegar in a recipe, when you can use two?!
Ingredients:
Butter (about 2 and a half
tablespoons in total)
1 shallot
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
Dijon mustard
1 can of white beans
About half a cup of parmesan, grated
3 shiitake mushrooms
Balsamic vinegar
Method:
Get all your chopping out of the way first: Finely dice the shallot, and thinly slice your shiitake caps.
Make the beans: Add about half a tablespoon of butter to a pan, and add the diced shallot. Turn the heat on low and stir.
Once the butter has fully melted and the shallots are turning translucent, add the Dijon mustard (you only need a tiny spoonful).
Add a splash of vinegar to the pan. Stir well to combine. Alternate adding butter and vinegar, letting the mixture heat up in between additions, until the mixture takes on a thicker, slightly saucy consistency.
Add the full can of beans to the pan, plus about half the liquid from the can. Turn the heat up to medium, and stir everything well. Add a touch of salt and some pepper.
When the beans are bubbling and fully heated through, add a touch more butter and the parmesan. Taste to see if more salt or pepper is wanted, then turn off the heat and set aside.
Make the mushrooms: Heat some butter and olive oil in a pan (either the same pan, after setting aside the beans and wiping down the pan, or a separate new one), and add the mushrooms.
To make the mushrooms crispy, stir once at the beginning to fully coat them with the fat, then let them sit in the heat. You can also press down on the mushrooms with a spatula, to get more water out.
When the mushrooms are fully cooked and getting crispy around the edges (about 10 minutes later), add salt and pepper and turn off the heat. Pour about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar directly into the pan, and stir immediately to coat the mushrooms.
Top the beurre blanc beans with the mushrooms, add some parmesan shavings and some more cracks of pepper, and enjoy!
Asparagus Carbonara with pistachios
Time: 20 mins | Difficulty: 1.5 | Recommendation: Lunch or dinner
This pasta is DELICIOUS! The asparagus takes the place of pancetta here, giving the whole thing a really light, springy flavor. Because there’s no pancetta, you might have to add more butter near the end, but that’s not really a bad thing in my book. Make sure you grate more cheese than you think you need! The cheese here is everything. And make sure you turn off the heat when you add in the egg slurry, so it doesn’t scramble. The crumbled pistachios on top add the perfect crunchy touch, that brings it all together!
Strawberry-Rhubarb Cardamom Crumble
Time: 45 mins | Difficulty: 1/5 | Yield: 3-4 servings
This crumble is full of spring flavor, and super duper easy to put together! Crumbles are a really forgiving dish—they’re basically just any fruit you want, with a mixture of flour, sugar, and butter on top. To make the topping really crumbly, I also added a touch of baking powder to hold it all together. I also added cardamom powder to the topping, which goes very well with strawberries! Crushed pistachios sprinkled over the whole thing bring it all together. This is also a great dish for when your strawberries or rhubarb is nearing the end of its fridge life—and with berries, that’s not very long after you buy them. That makes it a really handy recipe for one person, since berry-buying is always a risk when you’re just cooking for one! This recipe makes 3-4 servings, but you can scale it up or down to your liking—as I said, crumbles are really forgiving (and fun to experiment with, too!).