In Praise of Home Cooking: Reasons and Recipes by Liana Krissoff

Author:Liana Krissoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2023-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Vegetable Curry

Serves 4

PRACTICE SKILLS

Stovetop cooking over medium heat

Peeling potatoes

Grating fresh tomatoes (or opening a can of tomatoes)

Chopping hard squash

Cutting corn kernels (but you can use frozen instead)

So where do we keep the myriad spices for all the curries and such we cook in these 99 square feet? I have a simple three-level system that’s transferred well from one house to the next. Perhaps it can be adapted to your kitchen and your style of cooking; perhaps it will sound patently absurd.

Level one: a trio of rectangular plastic containers with locking lids, labeled “A, P–Z,” “B–C,” and “D–O” (trust me on this), housing sealed heavy-duty freezer bags of spices, arranged roughly in alphabetical order—cumin ground, cumin whole, and so on. We have a container just for bags of various ground chiles, a large plastic container of bags of whole dried chiles, and one for dried herbs, which because they can take on unwanted strong spice smells are kept separate from them. And there’s a sturdy cardboard box where I put jars and canisters of odd things like smoked salt or seldom-used spice blends and the good saffron. Fragrant asafoetida is kept in the jar it came in, sealed inside two freezer bags, off to the side. All of these are stored on shelves in the basement (the ersatz pantry), where there’s plenty of room.

Level two: masala dabbas in the kitchen, a regular-sized one and a miniature one, in a shallow drawer near the stove. These are round, flat stainless-steel lidded containers, each with seven smaller cups inside and a cute little spoon. In the larger one we keep spices generally used for savory dishes; the selection varies, but it’s usually something like this: ground cumin, whole cumin, ground coriander, whole mustard seeds, ground turmeric, garam masala, and sweet paprika (or hotter Kashmiri chile powder or still hotter ground cayenne—which all look similar, and yes, this is a rare flaw in the system!). The tiny masala dabba contains spices for sweet dishes, though of course there will be times when you’ll tap both dabbas for a savory or sweet use: whole green cardamom pods, cardamom seeds, ground cloves, ground allspice, whole allspice berries, whole anise seeds, and whole fennel seeds.

Level three: countertop and prime cupboard-space spices. These are the sanctified few. Black peppercorns in a brass Turkish coffee grinder, hot chile flakes in a shaker bottle, toasted chile powder (dried red Thai chiles, toasted in a dry skillet until crisp and a bit blackened in spots, then cooled and ground in a spice grinder), very good ground cinnamon in a salt shaker that can be opened for teaspooning, a canister of Goya Adobo seasoning (sin pimiento) and one of Creole seasoning, and a bottle of dried oregano.

When we need star anise or black cardamom pods or nigella or guajillo chiles or kasoori methi or all of the above, we take the box tote to the basement and load it up.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee

1 teaspoon whole yellow mustard seeds

½ teaspoon whole

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