DIY Garam Masala

Did you know that bananas are berries? Did you know that Clint Eastwood once became mayor of Carmel to overturn a ban on ice cream parlors? And did you know that you can make your own garam masala? It’s true! I’ve done it and so can you, thanks to Pushpesh Pant’s India Cookbook. 

Garam masala is a staple in Indian cooking and it’s the first recipe in Pushpesh’s book. I had all the individual spices on hand, so it made sense to make a small batch to use as I needed. Pushpesh’s recipe yields about a pound, so I cut the ingredients down to fit into a small jar, making sure the proportions remained the same. What I ended up with was a strongly aromatic blend that doesn’t ask to be cooked with - it grabs you by the nose and demands to be.  

You will need:

• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 9 green cardamom pods
• 3 black cardamom pods

Grind in a coffee or spice grinder, pound with a mortar and pestle or hit repeatedly with a sledgehammer or anvil. Strain to get rid of the larger cardamom pod shell bits and store in a sterilized, airtight jar. The sterilization will keep it fresh, and the airtight seal will keep all that flavor mightiness at bay until you’re ready for it. 

Dahi Puri - An Epic Snack

Allow me to break down my ultimate food trifectas: First there are the flavor triplets - Sweet, Sour and Spicy. Then there’s the pyramid of texture - Crunchy, Soft and Juicy. Dahi Puri has all of that with an added bonus - it’s topped with Chaat Masala. CHAAT MASALA. My food obsesssion. (I’ve waxed poetic on it here. It doesn’t just deserve its own blog post. It deserves volumes of sonnets dedicated to its wonder.) 

Dahi Puri is an Indian snack comprised of small, hollow shells deep fried to a crisp and filled with garbanzo beans or potatoes, which is then topped with a lightly spiced yogurt, tangy tamarind sauce and chaat masala. It’s crunchy, it’s sour, it’s spicy, it’s perfect. You pop the whole thing in your mouth and get hit with liquid and spice the moment you bite down. 

Oh, how I love Dahi Puri. The ingredients aren’t difficult to find if you’ve got a local Indian grocery store. To find the shells, just ask for Pani Puri or Dahi Puri shells - they’ll either have a brand name pack or a bag of fresh shells that they make themselves. The concentrated tamarind pulp is a staple in Indian cooking and should be readily available. For the chaat masala, I buy the Shan brand. 

You will need:

• Pani Puri/Dahi Puri Shells
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 2 tbs tamarind concentrate
• 2 tbs sugar
• salt
• chili powder
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 can garbanzo beans or 1 cup boiled, diced potatoes
• chaat masala

For the tamarind sauce, combine the tamarind concentrate with 1/4 cup water and whisk. The tamarind concentrate will be thick, black and gooey. (It’ll take some muscle power to dissolve it in the water, but keep at it.) Add more water as needed until it is of a pouring consistency. Stir in the sugar, a dash of salt and as much chili powder as you think you can handle. Set aside. 

In a separate bowl, combine the yogurt and 1/4 cup water. Add some chaat masala for good measure and set aside. 

If using garbanzo beans, rinse well, drain and set that aside, too. There’s no need to season the garbanzo beans or potatoes, but if you like things extra spicy feel free to add a bit of chili powder. 

And now for the assembly: Poke a hole on the top of each dahi puri shell. Spoon in the garbanzo beans or potatoes. Drizzle the yogurt on next, then add the tamarind sauce on top of that. Shake a generous amount of chaat masala over the whole lot in a final flourish. Then pop in your mouth and be amazed. 

Lobster Tails - Easy Luxury…

…when they’re on sale for 4 bucks a pop. No joke. My parents took advantage of the sale for Mother’s Day and I went home for some Mom time and a little experimental surf ‘n turf. The filet mignon was provided by my brother from Omaha Steaks. Oof, talk about fancy. They grilled up with salt, pepper and generous amounts of butter and it was the most tender steak I’ve had at home.  

And then the lobster tails. Oh, the lobster tails. It seems intimidating to make if you’ve never done it before, but it turned out to be super simple. First my parents youtubed videos on how to butterfly a lobster tail, which entailed cutting down the center top of the shell and prying out the juicy meat so it sits on top of the shell. Then they seasoned the tails with a little bit of salt and lots of pepper. 

Cooking the lobster tails was quick - they just placed the tails on a wire rack under a broiler (or in a toaster oven under the “broil” setting) and placed a pan underneath to catch the drippings. The tails are done when they stop dripping, about 10-15 minutes. 

In keeping with the homemade decadence, they served the tails with drawn butter. As a butter-fiend I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was actually very good without it. Juicy and tender, seasoned just right. The lobster tail experiment was a success, indeed. 

One-Pot Chicken Comfort Food

Needed: one pot of comfort food - STAT! It’s a yummy-time emergency. That’s right, I said it: yummy-time. Don’t laugh at me, this is serious. It was that kind of a month. 

So I was at Whole Foods not too long ago and picked up a Best of Fine Cooking magazine - the One-Pot Meals edition. I’ve been wanting to make chicken in the Le Creuset, and the braised chicken on the cover looked like a big plate of mmm so I gave it a go. I omitted a couple of ingredients for the sake of budget and convenience, but it still turned out perfect and cozy. 

This recipe uses fennel. I’ve cooked with fennel seeds before, but never a fennel bulb. And man, does it smell good. It’s licoricey and warm, smooth spice with no bite. This is a mild dish, so the fennel adds just enough depth to make it interesting without overpowering the earthy flavors. 

Interesting thing about the Le Creuset - everything I’ve made in it has the same earthy flavor. I can’t put my finger on what it is - maybe it’s all that fat that has no place to go but back into the sauce. In any case, meats taste meatier. Chicken tastes…more chickeny. It’s not gamey, just…rich. And this dish is no exception. 

You will need:

• 1 1/2 lb chicken legs, skin-on 
• 1 1/2 lb chicken thighs, skin-on
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 4 large shallots, quartered
• 4 medium carrots, chopped
• 1 fennel bulb, cored and chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 cups dry white wine 
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 4 sprigs parsley
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbs chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Heat 2 tbs of olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and sear, skin side down, for 5-7 minutes. Allow the chicken to turn a nice brown. Flip the chicken over and sear the other side for 5 more minutes. Remove and set aside.

Heat the remaining 2 tbs of oil in the dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the shallots, carrots and fennel. Allow the vegetables to soften and brown, about 7 minutes. Then add the garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for 2 more minutes.

Tie the parsley and thyme together and add to the pot. Pour in the wine and bring to a simmer. The brown bits at the bottom of the pan should begin to loosen and incorporate into the sauce. 

Add the broth and the chicken, arranging the meat in a single layer. Bring the liquid to a simmer, cover and place in oven. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, until the chicken is fork-tender.

Once done, remove the chicken and vegetables using a slotted spoon. Set aside and cover with foil. Toss out the herb bundle. Return the dutch oven to the stove and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the sauce down to 2 cups, about 20 minutes or so. (If you want a thicker sauce, you could add 1 tsp of cornstarch mixed with water.) Once reduced, stir in the lemon zest. Then add the chicken and vegetables back into the mix and top with chopped parsley. 

I served this with ready-made polenta from Trader Joe’s. I simply sliced the polenta, drizzled with olive oil and baked it up. This dish is so easy. And cozy. And comforting. And rather delicious.

Farha’s Honey-Chili Chicken Wings

April has been a nutty month, and not the delicious peanut butter variety. It’s more of the nutty-as-in-crazy kind. Between a promotion at work and me trying to write a pilot with a friend (which has been a nutty-as-in-fun process), I fell behind on my Cook This Now challenge and haven’t cooked much at all. Some evenings have even been spent in a catatonic state on the couch watching vacuums on QVC and eating leftovers. Oof. 

But my cousin Farha, who is a fantastic cook, came to visit from Karachi and snapped me out of it with her impressive skills. All my family really does when we hang out together is eat. We eat out, come back home and eat again. We eat in and talk about eating, then go out to eat something else. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. In keeping with my rather nutty, thrown-together lifestyle as of late, here’s a super easy recipe from Farha. No measurements are needed. Everything is to taste. It couldn’t be simpler. And there’s very vigorous shaking involved. 

You will need, roughly:

• about 10 chicken wings
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 3ish tbsp honey 
• 1 or 2 tsp crushed red chili flakes

Season the wings generously with salt and pepper and deep fry until the skins turn golden brown, about 10 minutes. Then place the wings in a large plastic bag (or in our case, a clean bucket that used to hold ice cream). Pour in the honey, add the chili flakes, close the bag (or lid) and shake shake shake shake shake.

Pokey Rain Bowl @ Pokey Truck, Los Angeles

It was a beautiful day in LA last Thursday and the Pokey Truck happened to be near my office. Their Pokey Rain Bowl is a refreshing combination of ahi tuna and salmon served on sushi rice with seaweed, ginger and tender greens. Considering I had a junk food relapse the day before in a moment of confusion and desperation, the Pokey Rain Bowl was just what my body needed. 

Pushpesh Pant’s India Cookbook

I picked up this beautiful cookbook in Solana Beach last month and I’m obsessed with the design. The book comes in a small canvas rice sack, complete with quality assurance seal, and the colors and fonts used are very reminiscent of the labels you see printed on basmati bags.

This comprehensive book is written by Pushpesh Pant who, apart from having an awesome name, happens to be a professor in New Delhi. He begins by outlining the culinary history of the 12 regions of the Indian subcontinent in great detail. I found this completely fascinating. When I was in India 5 years ago I visited a restaurant that specialized in dum pukht cooking, in which dishes are slow-cooked in a sealed clay pot. According to Pushpesh Pant, the art of dum pukht began in the Awadh region in 1784 with a food-for-work program in which workers building a shrine were fed biryani that was sealed in a giant pot and cooked throughout the night. If that biryani was as good as the one I had in India, I’d happily build a shrine in exchange for it. 

After pouring over every page I got the sense that this is the only Indian cookbook I’ll ever need. Pushpesh starts with masalas (including 3 different garam masala recipes), moves through pickles, snacks, main dishes and meats, and ends on more drinks and desserts than I’ll ever need in a lifetime. Looking for a fish recipe? There are 77 of them. Chicken? 87. Just want to make kebabs? You’ve got 23 recipes to choose from, including one called “Melt In The Mouth Smoked Kebabs.” 

Another thing I like about this book is the recipe layout and page thickness. A detail not to be overlooked, this book sits comfortably on my countertop without a heavy jar or willing assistant to hold it open for me. And each recipe is confined to it’s own page so no page-turning is needed. 

And then there are the pictures. They are stunning. I’m filled with minor anxiety that I’ll never be able to make all the recipes in this book, but I’m going to have quite the culinary adventure trying.