sel et sucre

Tag: coriander

  • Kaddo Bourani

    kaddo bourani

    We’re approaching the end of pumpkin season, so I’ve been posting my very best pumpkin recipes last week and this week. Luckily, pumpkins keep well for a couple months (and my pumpkin puree will keep good for 6 months or more when frozen) which means after you buy up those last pumpkins, you’ll have ample time to cook these delicious recipes!

    Kaddo bourani is a delicious Afghan dish that plays around with very unusual flavor combinations. Sweet pumpkin mingles here with cinnamon, topped with mint garlic yogurt and a coriander-laced tomato sauce. This seemingly disparate combination manages to come together seamlessly. Traditionally, the tomato sauce has ground beef in it, but I’ve done a vegetarian version here, substituting with a can of kidney beans. This dish also works as an appetizer without the tomato sauce.

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  • Pumpkin Kibbe

    pumpkin kibbe

    We’re approaching the end of pumpkin season, so I’ve been posting my very best pumpkin recipes last week and this week. Luckily, pumpkins keep well for a couple months (and my pumpkin puree will keep good for 6 months or more when frozen) which means after you buy up those last pumpkins, you’ll have ample time to cook these delicious recipes!

    This recipe marks my 50th post on this blog, and I’m very excited to be posting a family recipe, passed on to me from my dad. Kibbe is a traditional Lebanese dish, usually made with ground lamb and bulgur wheat. This vegetarian version substitutes pumpkin puree for the ground lamb. Although I’ve always been an adventurous eater, I used to turn my nose up at this dish when my parents made it, simply because I love lamb kibbe so much. I’ve since come around and now absolutely love pumpkin kibbe as well! The only change I’ve made from how my grandmother in Lebanon cooks this dish is to sautee the onions before laying them in the bottom of the pan (I can’t help myself; I just love caramelized onions).

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  • Sri Lankan Curry Powder

    sri lankan curry powder

    In honor of Halloween, let me regale you with a tale of cooking horror: It was a (dark and stormy) Wednesday night, and after a long and stressful day at work, I was determined to make a Sri Lankan curry that night for dinner. I stopped by an Indian grocery store to pick up some curry leaves (an ingredient for which there is really no substitute – if you buy fresh leaves, any leftover leaves will freeze quite well), and by the time I made it back to my empty house (none of my roommates were home – and have I mentioned that my house is over 100 years old?), my stomach was already rumbling. The first step to a flavorful curry is fresh and flavorful curry powder, so I immediately set to roasting spices. I was finding grinding the spices in my mortar and pestle to be very therapeutic when I leaned down to get a good look at how close I was to being done – and was treated to a hefty portion of curry powder flying straight into my right eye (don’t try this at home, folks)!

    After lots of cursing, running water, and wild thoughts of going blind, my eye slowly recovered as I set to finishing my curry. Despite the setback (after which I decided the curry powder was done, fully ground or not), this curry powder turned out to be the perfect start to a delicious lotus root curry (recipe coming Wednesday). The spices here are very similar to many Indian curries, but the curry leaves bring their own blend of sweet warmth to the picture, and the spices are roasted just a bit more than usual, flirting with the line between golden brown and burnt.

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  • Thai Red Curry Paste

    Thai Red Curry Paste

    Anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog has probably figured out that I cook quite a lot of Asian food. I’ve long been a lover of the flavors found in Asian cuisine, and I somewhat recently began doing most of my shopping at an Asian supermarket (H&A Supermarket in Langley Park for anyone who’s in the area) and thus have easy access to many rarer ingredients for ridiculously cheap prices. When I discovered this store, I knew immediately what I had to make first: Thai curry. Thai food plays around a lot with mixing salty, sweet, and sour, and this curry paste is the first step in building a delicious curry with those flavors. For those of you who’ve cooked with fish sauce before, you know how intensely pungent it can be – but be prepared for the shrimp paste used here as it is even stronger. Trust me though, the flavor it adds is necessary.

    This recipe makes enough curry paste for six or more curries, and I like to freeze it for later use – to make it easy on yourself, freeze it into 3 – 4 Tbsp chunks (enough for a 4-serving curry recipe) as you can then just grab a chunk out of the freezer the next time you’re ready to make curry. Come back on Wednesday for my recipe for Thai red curry using this paste!

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  • Chaat Masala

    Chaat Masala

    I recently had the pleasure of dining at Rasika, a very popular DC Indian restaurant, and trying their famous palak chaat. This dish is an amazing medley of textures and flavors, with crispy spinach playing off a sour-sweet chutney and sweetened yogurt, and I knew almost immediately that I had to try my best to recreate it. I’ve dedicated this week to a series of posts on recreating all the pieces of Rasika’s palak chaat. This post is the first in a series of three. See post 2: Date Tamarind Chutney and post 3: Palak Chaat.

    Chaat masala is a classic Indian spice mix with some unusual ingredients. Along with the more familiar coriander and cumin, black salt features prominently in the mix, adding an interesting mineral taste, while amchur, a powder made from dried unripe mangoes, imparts a tartness. The resulting mix is sour, spicy, and very flavorful. It is great on nuts or fried chickpeas, mixed into yogurt, on a salad, or over fresh fruit.

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