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I went to Wrought's wedding this weekend, and was in the process of packing before leaving. She said I could use her kitchen to make stuff for all of us, but that she's still got most of her stuff in storage, so please to bring spices. Cool. I could do that! PS, the party was awesome, and the food was top notch. No complaints. Minor background info: she has a drat good stove, a giant sink that gives screaming hot water, an oven, a grill (actually more than one grill), and a microwave. We could go shopping at the local stores for ingredients, but seeing as how it's 2 hours away from the really big cities with a strong immigrant population/culture, I wasn't exactly going to be able to find obscure or highly specific things. As in, I'd need to go to the more fancy stores to get leeks, and not the regular grocery stores. This meant that because she had limited stuff at home, and limited options to get things quickly (amazon does deliver, but this is stuff I wanted on hand at all times), I'd need to bring my most important spices. Immediately into my box went mustard seed (black), cumin seed, sesame seed, urad daal, turmeric, asafoetida (LG brand, of course), salt (diamond Kosher for life, because Wrought is a Morton's Kosher fan, and only has that evil stuff around), and black pepper. If I'd had a bit more room, I'd also have packed thyme (dried), and whole red chilies (dried). However, I figured thyme is a spice I can find in pretty much any store that sells spices, and that most of the people hanging out with us can't really take super spicy food anyway, so the red chilies would have been a waste to carry with me. The mustard/cumin/urad daal/asafoetida is an obvious one, because it goes into pretty drat near every South Indian dish ever in some combination or other. The turmeric is because I love how it tastes, and it also gets used in a ton of South Indian cooking. Sesame seeds are because I can't really schlep around that Indian sesame oil with me everywhere I go, and I like the flavour that sesame gives to things. Frying sesame seeds in oil doesn't at all substitute for the good South Indian sesame oil (Idhayam brand only, please), but it gets the taste broadly close enough that I find myself reaching for it quite often. The salt, I'm picky about because if you are used to Diamond Kosher salt, and switch over to Morton Kosher salt, you end up salt bombing your food. The black pepper I'm picky about, because I go through a LOT of it in a year. Again, South Indian food is replete with black pepper, as it's native to our shores. I buy the whole peppercorns, grind it into one of those small spice shakers, and go through it in about a week or two before having to grind more. Pepper grinders do not get me the fineness that I want along with the quantity that I get through. Why thyme? It's one of the herbs that works really really well when it's dried. Basil loses its charm. Curry leaves have to be fresh or frozen, or you might as well skip them. Oregano is fine, but I don't find myself reaching for it that often. Thyme I use any time I have brown lentils, mushrooms, or anything else that's super earthy. It got me to thinking. If you had to limit yourself to only packing 10 spices (because of space constraints), what would you end up choosing? I'm not giving salt for free. It needs to take up a slot if it's essential for you. If I wasn't so loving picky about salt, I could have taken my chances that the grocery store will have Diamond Kosher, or just used the Morton's. Ask me how I know that it's not alway the case that the store carries Diamond.  Same with the pepper. If I was confident enough that I could get the quality of black peppercorns that I'm used to from the Indian market (because they have a much more frequent turnover rate than the mainstream stores), and was willing to take my chances with what I'd find at the local stores, I could have just used whatever. But, because I use so much of it, and I'm used to a certain quality, that wasn't something that I could comfortably compromise on. For the purpose of this exercise, I'd say that anything that you'd use to season your food I'd count as a spice, even if that thing is a curry paste, a spice blend, a sauce, or other liquid. Because I'm South Indian, my food doesn't have a ton of wine, or stock, or vinegar. If we want souring, we'll reach for lemon/lime, or tamarind. I didn't bother with packing garlic powder, because I prefer fresh garlic anyways, and because I'm vegan, I'm not using a bunch of dry rubs and whatnot. I didn't bother with onion for the same reason. None of these things went into my packing, because I was fine doing without, or buying them locally. If you have confidence that you can get ______ locally, I'd say don't waste the slot. However, if you are picky about something (like a specific type of hot sauce, or specific brand of vinegar). This is less for a challenge about really doing the thing, and more of a thought experiment. I'm curious to see what the rest of you guys would take.
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Sep 25, 2023 23:09
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 06:14 |
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Grandicap posted:This is accurate, but doesn't make it better, it is what you are used to. If you calibrated your pinches to table salt or Mortons or whatever it would be you undersalting if you grabbed Diamond. Just to make it clear. Wrought is family at this point, and I love her dearly. I call her parents mom and dad, and they call me their son. Any ribbing I’ve sent her way about salt preference is threaded through with a wink and a grin. Of course salt is salt, and you reach for whatever you like. None is better than the other, and it’s always best to use what you are used to. If your local table salt doesn’t have anti clumping agents and iodine added, by all means use it. If you’re used to Diamond Kosher because the crystals are super fluffy and dissolve very quickly, reach for that. If you’re used to Morton’s whose grains are flat and a titch thicker, and probably best for koshering meat because that’s what the point of kosher salt is you goddamned Diamond loving hipsters, then by all means use it. At the end of the day, cooking is definitely a thing a lot of us do by feel, and switching to a different tool mid stream can and has caused disasters. It’s why when I need to make a really important meal, I’m so fussy about the spices (including salt!) I’m using, because this isn’t a small pot of mashed potatoes that I can sub out with something else. This is a 5 gallon pot of mushroom chowder that’s got several many $$$$ dried and fresh mushrooms going in. All that said. I’m curious. Would you all be interested in a separate thread about most essential cookware and most essential kitchen tools? Because I brought those too, and I have different criteria for those.
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Sep 29, 2023 12:34
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Scientastic posted:I use table salt because it's fine, we don't add iodine to ours in the UK It's not the iodine I object to. It's the anti clumping agents. Also, the super fine grains. Entropic, that's because none of us are Bengali. Bay leaves are a starting part of drat near every recipe they make. It's wild. They go mustard oil, bay leaves, dried chilies, and then whatever spices.
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Mar 9, 2024 21:18
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