D (1:15)

That's what I meant by jumping in.

A (1:17)

Oh, okay.

D (1:18)

You have no trust in me as a producer.

A (1:20)

Correct.

D (1:20)

Let me try that again. Would you like to jump right in?

A (1:23)

Let's jump right in.

D (1:25)

Samin, what's the best thing you've eaten recently?

A (1:27)

It's funny because it's still summertime for sure, but the Bay Area has had the coldest winter since, like, 1974 or something like that. Super insane.

D (1:37)

Coldest summer, you mean?

A (1:38)

Oh, coldest summer, yes. Oh, my gosh. But it feels like a winter. And so yesterday it was just like a gray, cozy, foggy day, and I made a butternut squash and green curry soup with coconut milk that was really delicious.

D (1:51)

It's like, that sounds really good.

A (1:52)

Not to toot my own horn, but it is one of my, like, favorite recipes that I've made for the New York Times. It's a banger, if you will.

D (2:00)

I will.

A (2:02)

So that was pretty good. What about you?

D (2:03)

Well, I wanted to start my answer to that question with a question that we got, actually, because I think they go together. We got this question from Alexis. It doesn't have any audio, but she emailed in and said, I'm a solo mom of two in my early 40s, and I'm entering my metabolic syndrome era. I. E. Pre diabetes high blood pressure. I love listening to cooking and food podcasts, but have rarely heard someone address how to think about food recipes and adaptations when you need to start being more careful or restrained. When I turned to the diet cookbooks of diabetes websites, it sucks my soul and makes me want to not cook at all. I was wondering if y' all had to think about this or have chef recipe developer friends who have. And if you have any thoughts. And Samin, you already know why this question piqued my interest. Because I feel like I'm in my metabolic syndrome era, dealing with sort of being pre pre diabetic and discovering this summer that I have high cholesterol, despite what I thought was like a pret healthy lifestyle and all this stuff. So I've had to change all kinds of things about my diet and, you know, started taking supplements and all these things.

A (3:13)

And so this is right up your alley.

D (3:15)

Yeah.

A (3:15)

You know what other alley it's up?

D (3:17)

What?

A (3:18)

Costco.

D (3:20)

Exactly. People may remember from our previous episode that Samin was here in LA and we were very excited about going to Costco afterwards.

A (3:29)

It was pretty thrilling, everyone. Well, actually, one cannot gauge from Rishi's purchases how thrilling it was because he literally, after begging me to take him to Costco, made the smallest purchase I've ever seen. But it was still pretty thrilling.

D (3:46)

It was pretty thrilling for me. As part of my revamped diet, I am eating eggs and fish again, but in a very, very limited way of like, what's the most ethical way that I can do this? And as we talked about, sardines is a pretty low impact.

A (4:04)

They're just about the lowest impact, highest nutrition fish out there, apart from maybe anchovies and mackerel.

D (4:10)

And so I had been eating some sardines and then we went to Costco. We went fishing, if you will, because it's Costco. I now have like 24 tins of sardines.

A (4:22)

We had to Google how many cans of sardine per week is it okay to eat?

D (4:26)

And it's like maybe two. So I've got to stretch this out. I'm going to be eating sardines for a long time. And I wanted to go back to a moment from our own podcast from many years ago. I'm going to play you a clip here.

A (4:38)

Okay.

D (4:39)

I wanted to share this thing that happened over text during our hiatus. Normally it would have happened on our podcast, but we weren't Making the podcast. I'll play both parts. Okay. I had an idea for a signature recipe for your book. This had better not be a pun. What if you only had a little bit of bread and some tinned fish and some tahini, could you make a recipe? Oh, no. Could you use the bread for a sandwich?

A (5:04)

Yes.

D (5:04)

I'm thinking maybe grill the bread. And could you call it Samini's Teeny Tahini Sardini Panini? I don't deserve this. All caps.

A (5:18)

I don't deserve this. You want to bring the tahini, Tahini Tahnini Cimini to life now?

D (5:23)

It's a real question.

A (5:24)

It could totally exist. So normally, like fishy salads, like trout salad, tuna salad, and also like egg salad, chicken salad, all those kinds of things tend to be made with a mayonnaise base. But one of your and my favorite food establishments, Squirrel. I started buying and eating a chicken salad with the tahini base instead of mayonnaise. That's really good. So I think you could absolutely sort of use this tahini base for a sardine or a tuna or any other fish salad. Tahini is just sesame paste, kind of like peanut butter, but made out of sesame seeds.

D (6:01)

Yeah.

A (6:02)

Because it's so high in fat, when you add water into it, it seizes up sort of like a breaking emulsion. But if you keep adding some liquid and keep stirring, it'll thin out again and turn into something that's very similar to the tahini sauce you might get at a falafel jo, which is usually just tahini, and some lemon juice or water to thin it out, and some cumin and garlic.

D (6:23)

Okay.

A (6:23)

So essentially you want to just squeeze a bunch of lemon juice into some tahini, stir it up, add maybe a little bit of pounded or finely grated garlic from your microplane into there, and then if you wanted to leave it as is, you could just leave it with that, like, plain sort of sesame and lemon taste and garlic. If you wanted to go in, like, a Mediterranean direction, maybe you would add a little ground cumin. Or. Or you could add a little squirt of hot sauce or Calabrian chili paste or anything to make it spicy. Another thing I think would be really nice is a whole bunch of chopped herbs like basil or parsley. And honestly, this would be very easy if you have an immersion blender. You could just put all of the things into, like, a measuring cup and just blend it all.

D (7:05)

Yeah.

A (7:06)

Until it tastes right.

D (7:07)

And do you think that the consistency should be mayonnaise, like, or it should.

A (7:11)

Be on the thick side because it's always easier to thin it out. This sauce is sort of almost like you're thinking of it as your creamy base.

D (7:17)

Okay.

A (7:18)

That you're gonna stir in with your fish and whatever other solid things you want in there. So like a classic thing to put in it, say a tuna salad is celery, little diced red onion that maybe like had sat for a few minutes with lemon juice squeezed over it to macerate it and cut. The fire dill would be a nice herb which you could add either into the sauce or directly into the salad. But you want that sauce, that creamy base, to be quite thick because you can always thin it out with water. Or it may all need more lemon juice or may need more vinegar, but you can't really thicken it back up. Does that make sense?

D (7:48)

That totally makes sense.

A (7:49)

And if you don't have immersion blender, you can use a fork.

D (7:51)

Okay. And then just spread that on my toast.

A (7:53)

100%. Send me a picture of your tahini. Tah nee samini. Weenie Tahdini.

D (7:59)

We can have a toast with the martini.

A (8:01)

Neither of us are going to drink.

D (8:02)

A martinis drink martinis. Okay. We could be wearing bikinis.

A (8:07)

That sounds great. I would love to see that.

D (8:09)

Do you want to hear the first question?

A (8:10)

Hit me, Rishi.

D (8:11)

This is another one that doesn't have audio. It comes from Ari. Ari says I am calling in. This is a lie. I don't actually know how voice notes work, but let's pretend with a question regarding an overabundance of dried chili flakes.

A (8:26)

Oh, me too.

D (8:26)

My friends and I started a bulk food buying club and underestimated how much five pounds of chili flakes looks.

A (8:33)

Five pounds.

D (8:34)

And now we all individually have one pound of flakes and are scratching our heads about what to do.

A (8:40)

That's a lot.

D (8:41)

It's a lot.

A (8:42)

Yeah. There's one thing you could do that does not involve eating. So if you're a gardener and struggle with pests, rodents and birds, things like that, you can make a capsaicin spray by like, you know, steeping chili flakes in water and spraying it all over cucumber plant that's being ravaged by local squirrels or whatever.

D (9:06)

Yeah.

A (9:07)

And you will burn their little paws and taste buds off and they will keep away. So that's kind of like one of.

D (9:14)

The fun non culinary uses, like homemade mace.

A (9:17)

It is like homemade mace, Honestly.

D (9:18)

Keep it in your pocket or your purse for security.

A (9:21)

Just spray it on Rishi if he gets too close. Yeah. So you could make that. But I also made a similar judgment error, if you will, at one point and ordered a very large thing of chili flakes that I'm still working through, which is not my favorite, because spices, including chilies, degrade with time and exposure to air. But the immigrant part of me doesn't want to just throw them out. But I often have thought that the thing to do would be to make some sort of a chili crisp or a chili oil to give away, which is where I suspect you are going.

D (9:55)

That is where I was going. And especially because you mentioned Calabrian chili paste when we were talking about the sardini panini.

A (10:03)

Oh, yeah. You know what? So those Calabrian chili pastes that you and I evangelize are made with not yet dried chilies.

D (10:10)

Yeah.

A (10:11)

So that are, like, steeped in vinegar and oil, basically pickled. But you could just gently heat up some oil and steep chili in this. Like, gently heated, like, so barely heated that your fingers could still be in the oil. Not too hot, because you're not trying to cook the peppers. You don't want to change their color. You just want to extract as much flavor into the oil from the pepper as possible. And that's, like, the simplest way to make a chili oil.

D (10:38)

Yeah.

A (10:39)

If you wanted, you could go all the way to something like Chili Crisp. And there is a recipe in the book for Calabrian Chili Crisp that I worked on for probably three years or something, because 2019. 2020 was when I fell into the, like, love of the chili crisps and their ilk, including things like salsa matcha and all of the different variations on that theme. And I've never looked back, but I very much wanted. If I was gonna come up with a recipe for one, I wanted it to, like, hit all the notes of every individual thing that I liked about all the different ones.

D (11:11)

Yeah.

A (11:11)

So mine is a real mishmash.

D (11:13)

I love the mishmash. I love that it's this Szechuan thing, the chili crisp. But then you're using Italian Calabrian peppers.

A (11:20)

And there's peanuts in it. I like a lot of crunchy things. Like, I like a lot of stuff in there. So it's very packed with, like, a lot of shallot and garlic. There's just a lot going on as I eat it, and I usually make one big batch a year, basically. If at some point I'm like, oh, I wish I had more oil in it, then I just top it off with some more olive oil, which immediately becomes more flavored oil.

D (11:41)

Could Ari make this recipe with the already dried chili Flakes.

A (11:46)

So here's my problem. I can only assume that these chili flakes are regular, like red pepper flakes.

D (11:52)

Yeah.

A (11:52)

So, okay, Ari, if you want to make everyone you've ever met the best birthday and holiday gifts, you can absolutely make some chili crisp. You can use any recipe you like. You could use my recipe in my book. But let me warn you, dear friend, a thing to know that I did know and yet did not heed when entering the years long process of developing this recipe is that different chili peppers have different levels of spiciness. This is measured on something called the Scoville scale. So the higher the number, the spicier the chili. So, like, let's actually see, like, what's the spiciest in the world?

D (12:30)

Like, anybody who watches Hot Ones is very familiar with the Scoville scale.

A (12:35)

Yes. So, like, there's something called Pepper X, which is at 2.7 million. Carolina Reaper is 1.6 million. Those are insanely high.

D (12:43)

Those don't count as food, in my opinion.

A (12:45)

No, no. That's beyond. The thing that makes our tongue burn, like when we're eating something spicy is pain. The peppers are activating pain receptors in our tongue and in our mouth. It's not a flavor. So the, like, acclimating to spiciness is about sort of increasing your pain tolerance, which is kind of demented, but also lovely. I don't know. Like, this is also helpful to know if you have kids who you're trying to sort of like, work up their spice tolerance or you just spray adults.

D (13:11)

Spray them.

A (13:11)

Yeah, just spray them with some capsaicin spray.

D (13:14)

And then once they recover, they'll.

A (13:17)

Exactly. Then they'll be totally used to it. But no, just, like, start with the least spicy chilies and gently work up, because it truly is just pain tolerance.

D (13:24)

Yeah.

A (13:24)

The whole idea for this Calabrian chili crisp came from this lovely pastry chef, Carolyn Nugent, who has a bakery in Denver. She sent me a care package during the pandemic. And in it, among, like, a whole bunch of sweet things, was this jar of chili crisp. And it was the most amazing chili crisp I'd ever tasted. It was just, like, chunky with peanuts. It was the right level of sweet and salty. It was so, so, so good. So I begged her for the recipe. Cause I. I want to have something this good in my book.

D (13:55)

Yeah.

A (13:55)

And she said, oh, actually, I just started with Sola's recipe on serious eats. Sola El Whaley's recipe. And I just tweaked a few things. Here you go. Here's what I did. So I went back to the Sola recipe, and that was where I started. But I, in my normal haze of complete disorganization and deciding to try and use up whatever I had, I was like, oh, I'll just use these random chilies that somebody grew and gave me unlabeled. So I did a mixture of, like, some known chilies, some unknown chilies, and in Sola's recipe, I think there's three types of chilies. They're all mixed. So I made this huge batch, just kind of using up everything I had in the house, and it was so good. And in fact, I, like, gave jars to all the cooks I knew because I was like, can you guys give me feedback? What would you change? Would you make it crispier? Would you make it spicier? And people were like, oh, a little spicier or a little more this or a little more this. But it was very good, and it was very close.

D (14:51)

Yeah.

A (14:52)

Unfortunately, I had not written any of it down, and I had no idea what chilies in what proportion. This is a classic samin, like, thing of, like, I always mess myself up in this way.

D (15:02)

Yeah.

A (15:03)

So then I was like, how hard could it be? I'll just use up this other batch of random things I have. The second batch I made, I had no longer any more of these, what I now know were milder Anaheim chilies. And I did some crazy proportion of spicy stuff. This one was so hot, I couldn't eat it. Only one person I know could eat it, and I gave him the whole thing. Like, two quarts of it.

D (15:25)

Yeah.

A (15:26)

So then I really felt like after a failure of that level, and a recipe like this is not a small commitment. It's a weekend project, and you make.

D (15:33)

Your whole house smoky so hot, and.

A (15:36)

You'Re just crying, there's just, like, capsaicin in the air, and it's like. And your fingers are. I mean, I wear gloves and stuff. But still, it's not a small project. So a failure like that, which is, for me pretty normal in the recipe development process, is like, how have I not learned to just start with a standard thing and record it? Like, I still don't do that, because every time I'm like, oh, I can whip up something better.

D (15:58)

You always go into these things. So chilly.

A (16:01)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. No one's ever called me chill in my life. I kind of had to, like, rest in my failure for a while, which is also a typical part of the process where I'm just like, well, that sucks. I suck. I'm never. And I had to recover for a while. And then when I was ready to make more, I started making more. And then what I did was I went back to Sola's original, very good recipe, and I looked up the Scoville numbers for each of her three chilies. And since I knew I wanted to make my recipe with Calabrian chilies, which is just such a special pepper to me, has such a, like, wonderful sort of mild, sweet flavor. And also it's this crazy red. I knew it would make a very vibrant red chili oil. I did the beautiful mind math of all of Sola's chilies and the Scoville ratings and the totals and the percentages, and then I went and sort of applied that to the chilies that I was gonna now, you know, substitute. And I managed to come up with something that does not burn your entire gastrointestinal tract. And it's quite nice. And so before I could give any advice to Ari, I had to look up what's the likely pepper used for red pepper flakes and what is the typical Scoville number for that. So this has quite a wide range of 15,000 to 45,000, which I would call a moderate. It's, like, not a super mild chili, but it's not a super hot one either.

D (17:20)

Yeah, yeah.

A (17:21)

So for comparison, in the recipe in the book, we have 100 total grams of chilies, and half of that is Anaheims, which are very low. They're 500 to 2,500.

D (17:35)

And you're talking about whole chilies at this point.

A (17:37)

These are whole chilies. Yes. But also, the whole versus the non whole doesn't make that much difference. It does make a little bit of difference that you have to sort of account for in your head, because with the whole dried chilies, I have you toast them and then remove the seeds and discard the seeds. And a lot of the spices in the seeds.

D (17:55)

Yeah.

A (17:55)

And with ground chili flakes, the seeds are included, so I would probably call that 20% spicier. And also, this isn't going to make that much of a dent in your five pounds of chilies.

D (18:08)

But like you said, it makes a great gift.

A (18:10)

But it does make a great gift. I have before, like, basically quadrupled or sex tupled this recipe to make enough jars to give to literally everybody in my life for Christmas.

D (18:19)

Yes.

A (18:20)

I feel like I gave you a jar once.

D (18:22)

Yeah. We've received and we have given homemade chili crisp as a gift as well.

A (18:26)

Yeah, It's a Beautiful gift because it involves a lot of labor and time and love. But if you want something maybe simpler to start with, there is a great, very simple recipe on New York Times cooking. Let me find it. This one's by Genevieve Kobe. And it's basically just like you can buy dried minced onion. You don't have to, like, fry up your own shallots like I do, and then you sort of just gently heat everything together and have a totally functional, totally usable chili crisp. So if you wanted to, you could sort of compare the elements of what you like about my recipe and that very simple recipe and go from there.

D (19:03)

That brings us to our next question, which comes from Jason.

E (19:07)

Hi, Samin and Hrishikesh. I'm Jason and my wife Ina are huge fans of your show. We have a food safety question for you. We have a cast iron skillet that's been well seasoned over decades, and we want to know when it's okay to leave the oily fond of past dishes in the pan to add flavor to the next thing we cook. Ideally, we'd clean it with soap and water and re season it between each use. But we also have a toddler and not a lot of time. Sometimes when cooking for just us, we'll wipe it out with a paper towel and heat the skillet on high and hope that that kills anything. We recently made pork chops in the skillet, and it left a crust of salt and pork fat in the pan the next day at lunch. Please don't judge. We debated whether or not we could use that still not cleaned out delicious salty pork fat sludge to cook vegetables in or simmer rice in and guessed that the answer was probably no. So we washed it all with soap and water. Do you have any advice for whether you can use the leftover fond for future meals? Is there a general time period when it's good? Does it make a difference for food safety or duration if it's vegetable oils or meat fats? We have so many questions. Thank you both.

A (20:14)

This is really cute. I like Ina in the background.

D (20:16)

Thank you.

A (20:17)

Hello.

F (20:17)

Me too.

A (20:18)

This is very sweet, you guys. If we were to go downstairs right now, you'd see my pans just filled with grease and remains. Okay.

D (20:26)

Like a patina of chickens past.

A (20:28)

Exactly.

D (20:29)

Yeah. Yeah. You could do an archaeological 100 dig of all your old meals.

A (20:33)

Yes. So gross. I'm not proud. So let's, like, clarify a few things.

D (20:38)

Butter.

A (20:40)

What'd you say? Butter. Is that what. Yeah, if you just say it so quickly I can't hear it. It doesn't count. It doesn't do the. Your desired effect.

D (20:50)

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

A (20:52)

So the seasoning is different than the fond. When a cast iron pan is made in the foundry, if you will, it is going to be like a dark gray color and it doesn't yet have that nonstick quality because the iron, I guess is still porous. But in order to become seasoned, it needs to be sort of coated with a very thin layer of fat, a non degrading fat, and remain at a high temperature for a very long time. So classically, this is what I was told. In the old days, you used to only be able to buy unseasoned pans. Now most pans come pre seasoned, but they would tell me, oh yeah, you buy your pan and you make a few fried chicken dinners in it and that will season it. You're deep frying in it and it's remaining at this high temperature for hours at a time. Or you could lightly brush it with oil and bake it at a high temperature for a very long time. But that might create some smoke in your house that then sets off your smoke alert. That's seasoning and that's what creates the black color and the non stick texture. The stuff you're talking about, like when you cook a pork chop or cook something that leaves residue in the pan that you refer to as fond, or it's just like the caramelization, the Browning.

D (22:06)

Gunk I think is the scientific term.

A (22:07)

Yeah, that's the technical term.

D (22:09)

Yeah.

A (22:09)

And technically one should and might want to clean their pan in between uses so as to not like pass gunk on from one dish to the next. Sometimes gunk has like a delicious sort of, you know, it's like drippings and you want to mix those drippings into something. So sometimes let's say I might roast a chicken and then there's some remaining gunk in the pan and I might want to then like, yeah, do exactly as you say, like saute my green beans in that schmaltz in that chicken fat with those little bits or cook some rice in there. Or even like what would be so good is some of Lindsay's bread, some like sourdough bread sort of fried in the chicken fat and picking up all the drippings. But to me, that's sort of about like any meal where you want that dripping flavor to sort of become part of your meal. And rarely do I want last night's pork chops on today's eggs. You know what I'm saying?

D (23:00)

Well, here's a question. I think when I'm imagining the sort of drippings part, I'm imagining, like, an almost invisible layer of flavor that's sitting on there. But there's the other part of the gunk. When I think of the cast iron skillet is these charred bits of carbon. And that seems potentially dangerous to eat.

A (23:21)

No, I think if you're talking full carbon. Yeah. You don't want to be eating, like, carbonized burnt bits. Yeah, but that's not the same to me as, like a caramelized dripping from anything, you know, like, those are two different things. If it's reached carbon point, which is like, you touch it and it disintegrates.

D (23:37)

Yeah, yeah.

A (23:38)

That you probably don't want to eat. And it might be carcinogenic.

D (23:41)

Yes.

A (23:41)

But just your, like, regular caramelized bits. Or if you made a grilled cheese, say, and the cheese, you know, turns into the little fried frico bits, and that's in the pan and maybe is even brownish, like, that's not dangerous. It's just a question of do you want cheese flavor in your next thing?

D (23:58)

Yeah.

A (23:59)

So I think in general, it's a question of the flavor more than, like, health.

D (24:03)

But these things exist on a spectrum, right? I mean, like, yeah, it does it.

A (24:07)

Like, if it feels unsavory to eat, just get rid of it.

D (24:11)

But how crazy do they have to get with cleaning in that case?

A (24:14)

Yeah. I think wiping out with a paper towel is fine. I was taught to clean my cast irons over high heat by adding salt and then, like, using the salt to scrub it out with a paper towel. I no longer do that. I'm too lazy. Also, my pans are pretty well seasoned. It sounds like yours is. And soap will not destroy seasoning if you're just rinsing and cleaning a pan just like you would any other pan, you can't put a cast. A seasoned cast iron in the dishwasher. It'll come out rusty. So that. Please don't do. But you can absolutely wash it in the sink. And for many years, I was an evangelist of the metal scrubby. You know, like of a Brillo pad or a metal scrubby you could get at the hardware store, but they shed pieces of steel that sometimes end up in your food. So I stopped using those and. Cause for years, people were telling me, oh, you gotta get the chainmail scrubber.

D (24:59)

But then you have to send that scrubby thing to eight other people. And then they have to send that scrubby to eight other people.

A (25:05)

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And that's a big Step. You know, if you have to do it every time you're cooking, I hate.

D (25:14)

Getting that chain mail. And you're like, oh, God, what an obligation.

A (25:18)

Oh, it's so annoying. But I do have a very specific product recommendation that has sort of changed my cast iron cleaning life. Which is Field Company, which is sort of an upscale cast iron company, makes a very fine mesh chainmail scrubber. It's the nicest one I've ever seen, and that really does a great job of cleaning my pan. So that is what I would recommend to you. And you're not making yourself sick. It's just a question of, like, do you want to eat last night's pork chop on this morning's eggs? If you left it there for days, it might start to go rancid. But from last night to today, not so big a deal.

D (25:55)

I appreciate that question, because inherent in it is a little bit is, like, how much work do we really have to do? Please don't make us do more work.

A (26:04)

I know, and I hate that I just told you, you have to do more work.

D (26:07)

Okay, well, that's also at the heart of the next question, which comes from Hunter. I really relate to this one.

F (26:14)

Hey, Rishi and Samin, this is Hunter. So I struggle with blanching. I feel like when a recipe calls for blanching, it can be all over the place in terms of what it's actually asking for. Sometimes it's taking it out of the hot water and putting it into an ice bath, which I think is the most traditional way. Sometimes it's putting it under cold water. Sometimes it's just taking it out of the hot water. And really, when I see a recipe that calls for blanching, I just groan because it usually, at least in the best or most extreme version, means I have to pull out my ice thing from the freezer and put it into a bowl and then some water. And it's just this whole ordeal when I'm just trying to cook some broccoli, you know?

A (26:53)

I'm with you, boss.

F (26:54)

So what I'm looking for really, is what is the laziest way to do this and still be effective?

A (26:58)

Hunter, I love this question because it allows me to go on one of my favorite rants of all time. Time, which is, yes, you do not need the ice bath. In 99% of the situations, one does not need the ice bath.

D (27:10)

You are changing my life.

A (27:11)

Oh, yes. And I was taught very, like, adamantly by people who were super against the ice bath. There are very few times I use an ice bath I use them to stop eggs when I'm like, hard boiling eggs.

D (27:22)

Okay.

A (27:23)

But that's not even blanching. That's just its own thing.

D (27:25)

Yeah.

A (27:26)

And then if there's anything that is a very, very, very delicate thing that just needs no longer than the exact prescribed 30 seconds, you know, or whatever. For example, basil, which I don't blanch a lot, but sometimes, if I really want to make sure that my pesto is going to be bright, bright, bright, bright green, I just very briefly blanch the basil and then shock it in the ice water.

D (27:48)

You're shocking me. I never even heard about blanching basil for pesto.

A (27:52)

I really don't do it that much. I am too lazy for that. And also, it's like, not how they do it in Italy. It's just a restaurant trick.

D (27:58)

Oh.

A (27:58)

The only other thing I can think of that does require the ice bath is fava beans because they get slimy.

D (28:04)

This is how you wash your dog?

A (28:06)

That's how I wash fava. The hot water, cold water. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Actually, I do have to plunder because she's. Yeah, she hates it.

D (28:13)

Actual fava beans.

A (28:15)

Yeah. Ones you want to eat. They're kind of incredibly labor intensive. That's why I named my dog after them, because she was a pain in my butt.

D (28:22)

I do sometimes want to eat your dog.

A (28:24)

Yeah, me too. I'm like, oh, I got to eat you. You're so cute. Yeah. You'll pop them out of the pods and then blanch them in their skins, just briefly until the skins are loose for about 30 seconds, and then plunge them into ice water to stop them from cooking because they will get slimy if they're just, like, take too long to cool down. Those are the only ice bath situations at my house.

D (28:47)

Yeah. In a normal style recipe, they're saying, blanch this broccoli.

A (28:52)

Normally, if someone says in their recipe, blanch the broccoli for three minutes and then plunge it into an ice bath. The solution is blanch it for a little bit less time than the three minutes prescribed or however long. You know, blanch it until just before it's al dente or just before it's tender or whatever you're going for. Remove it quickly from the water. Have prepared at the side of the stove a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or something else where you can lay your vegetables or whatever you're blanching out into a single layer and immediately transfer it from the pot of water onto the pan and spread everything out so that the steam can escape and it Stops cooking as quickly as possible. And then if you've like accidentally gone a little further than you wanted, you just put the whole tray in the fridge for a few minutes to cool off. But honestly, one of the major reasons why I'm anti the ice water and I think why the cooks who taught me were anti ice water, is the more time food spends in water, the more it's leaching ingredients in flavor, basically. And it's an opportunity for the food to absorb the water. You just want to put it in the salty boiling water, let it absorb salt, let it cook to the right point, and then pull it out and let it cool off. Another trick that I find really important, and I think I instinctively understood this, but I didn't know it know it until I was doing the research for salt fat. Acid heat is when you pull green vegetables or any vegetables with like large watery cells out of boiling water. And I just do this automatically with every vegetable. I don't even think about it anymore. You want to drizzle it with a little bit of fat, a little bit of oil. Because what's happening in the pot is you, like, encourage osmosis to begin and there's like an exchange of water and nutrients between the pot and the vegetable. But that doesn't immediately stop the minute you pull the vegetable out of the pot. So it's going to continue giving up up water for a minute, which will lead to a shriveled green bean or a shriveled asparagus or shriveled whatever. But if you coat it very lightly with oil, it basically clogs the pores and it keeps it from giving up its water and shriveling and drying up.

D (31:01)

Wow.

A (31:02)

Those are my tips.

D (31:05)

Not only are we back with a new season of episodes, we've also got brand new home cooking merch. We finally put our tomato can home cooking logo on a shirt. You can get it as a T shirt or a sweatshirt or a tank top or even a onesie for little baby home cooks. Plus, there's a tote bag with the drawing of the round salt can thing that has Samin and myself and our dogs, Fava bean and Watson on it. It is the pinnacle of tote bags and there is a pun in there if you think about how pinnacle is spelled. There's also a special shirt in honor of our special recurring guest, the man with hot takes and a surprisingly high pitched giggle. My dad, known to Samin and all my close friends as Sumesh Uncle. He has his own shirt that says Team Sumesh uncle, featuring three little jars of saffron. And he undoubtedly has very strong opinions about their color and flavor. And of course, there's also still the OG sweatshirt with the drawing of the can of sardines and the inexplicable shrimp Jenga forever shirt. And all of this stuff was illustrated by our wonderful Mamie Ryan Gold. And all of it is available at Homecooking show merch. Again, it's Homecooking Show Merch. Home cooking is sponsored by Home Chef because sometimes you know, your home cooking needs a relief pitcher to step in for an inning and give you some help. Can I make a baseball metaphor here on the show?

A (32:36)

I had a relief pitcher step in last week because I was traveling, you know, on my book tour. So I got home, the idea of leaving again to go grocery shopping was bananas. But luckily there was a Home Chef delivery and I had a really great dinner. I had a coconut jasmine rice bowl with fried plantains and corn pico de gallo and that really saved the evening. Users of leading meal kits have rated Home Chef number one in quality, convenience, value, taste and recipe ease. And for a limited time, Home Chef is offering Home Cooking listeners 50% off and free shipping for your first box, plus free dessert for life.

D (33:12)

So go to homechef.com homecooking that's homechef.com homecookings for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life.

A (33:21)

Homechef.com homecookinG you must be an active subscriber to purchase receive free dessert.

D (33:30)

We have one last question that I wanted to present to you. I love this question. I'm so curious to hear how you answer it. I have my own thoughts. But yeah, this comes from Matt.

G (33:39)

My name is Matt. I'm about two years out from retirement from the Navy and I don't have kids. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with my GI Bill. And one of the things I have thought of doing is culinary school. If I go to school full time, I get a bunch of extra money for housing and so that's nice. And I can learn how to cook. I love to cook, I love to bake. But it's all kind of self taught. I love to get some actual skills. My question is this. I'm going to be 44 when I retire. I don't plan on opening a restaurant nor working in restaurants. This is simply me learning to do something as good as I can. So my question is this, is that even worth it? Is this something that I should actually consider or is this something that I should run away from as fast as humanly possible because I am in it for the wrong reason. Really appreciate your input. Thanks. Bye.

A (34:27)

Okay, Matt, I have so many questions. Also, congratulations on your pending retirement.

D (34:35)

Yeah.

A (34:35)

And thank you for your service to this country. Sorry, did he specifically say that the GI Bill covers the cost of the education?

D (34:43)

I think it'll pay for school and his housing as well.

A (34:45)

Okay, well, then why wouldn't you, man, if you're getting a life opportunity to go do something and learn something and become a nerd and immerse yourself in it, and you have no expectations of needing and wanting to financially be stable off of this, if it were anyone else, under any other circumstances, I would say do not do this. Do not go to culinary school at 44 and try to enter an industry that is really physically demanding and not incredibly financially lucrative. And actually, like, often even just more than not being lucrative is kind of impossible to be financially secure in in this country. I would tell anyone else, don't do that, but if your school and your housing is covered and all you want is to, like, immerse yourself in a skill and learn the classics and, like, become a better cook, why wouldn't you do that? I think that's a great opportunity and what a gift for you, you know, after sort of like paying your dues. So that, I think is great. Plus, there are a lot of people who go to culinary school and never work in a restaurant, have many other kinds of careers, you know, including food styling, recipe development, you know, sort of writing about food. I just read this year Laurie Colwyn's memoir. She went on after graduating to become an assistant to Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain and had a long writing career in the food world. And so, you know, there are many sort of unexpected ways to make use of a culinary diploma, but in general, because culinary school is so expensive and a culinary career is rarely stable enough financially to make that expense worth it and to even let you pay off the loans and the debt, I just generally encourage people to go straight to restaurants and get a job sort of at the lowest level. But that doesn't even sound like it's your dream or your reason for doing it. So in a weird way, I actually think this is a great thing for you to try to do.

D (36:39)

He's a perfect candidate for it. Also, what better use of a GI Bill than to feed your GI tract?

A (36:46)

That was a low blow, man. That was a low. That was like a low hanging fruit.

D (36:50)

I love the philosophical part of this question that Matt presents. What is the point of an education if you aren't necessarily going to use that skill that you're learning?

A (37:00)

You're talking to an English major and an art major, dude.

D (37:03)

You know, an MFA is a similar kind of education that might invite this kind of question. Getting an MFA is so expensive. Will you become an artist that will ever make the kind of money that you'll get a return on investment? Most likely, Statistically, no. No. But will it change your life? Will it change the way you see the world? Will it change the way that you interact with the world? For sure. Does that make it worth it?

A (37:26)

Depends what your value system is. Totally.

D (37:28)

Exactly. Yeah.

A (37:29)

And I think in this case, like, this, where it's not going to be a financial strain, I think go for it. You know, historically, even when I wasn't financially, like, stable, I was always making sort of decisions that tried to prioritize my life quality over, you know, my return. And I definitely now feel like it's a privilege to be able to do that.

D (37:49)

For sure, it is a privilege.

A (37:51)

That's why Rishi and I make this podcast. We make $0 on, like.

D (37:56)

But would you say that what Matt might expect to learn will be similar to the kinds of tips and tricks like blanching the basil so that you get a brighter green color out of when you make the pesto? Is that the kind of thing that they teach in culinary school?

A (38:10)

Yes, they definitely teach that kind of stuff. Most of the schools that remain really come from that tradition, which in some ways, I think will have some aspects that are very familiar to Matt as somebody who's experienced life in the military, because, you know, restaurants as we know them, and the culinary sort of profession as we know it started in the 1800s, I think, in France, and it was very much modeled on a military model. And in fact, like, a classic kitchen is called a brigade. Like a brigade, yeah. And so there are parts of it that are very militaristic and orderly, and there's a chain of command. And that's for good reason, because if you think about it, like, when you as a customer go to eat in a restaurant, you're going there because you want to have the same salad that you got the last time or you want to have the same experience that you had the last time. And the only way to ensure that that's happening is that everybody who works there is following the same set of rules and on the same page, rather than sort of on their own being like, well, I think this salad would Be really good if I drizzled it with this, you know, Anna's hyssop reduction or something.

D (39:18)

Yeah.

A (39:19)

So in some ways, like, creativity is discouraged, and it's very much about just following the rules. And so what you learn at culinary school is all of those rules. And I encourage people to challenge my thinking, but I am still a little old school in the idea that, like, in order to break rules, like, you kind of need to know what the rules are and why they're there. And so at culinary school, you're going to learn all those rules and it's going to be after that, sort of once you go out into the world and experience things, that then you can sort of develop and become creative.

D (39:52)

Yeah, you can go from navy blue to cordon blue.

A (39:55)

Oh, my God.

D (39:56)

Those are our questions for this episode. How do you feel about that?

A (39:59)

I feel like we answered some good questions. I encourage you, if you have silly, weird, quirky, depressing, joyful, funny questions for us to send them in. Because the better the questions, the better the episode.

D (40:13)

Did you notice that all the voices in these questions that I played for you were all men?

A (40:18)

I did. I noticed that at the very end, which felt very weird.

D (40:21)

It's unusual for her because I was.

A (40:22)

Like, wow, we're expanding our demo.

D (40:25)

Yeah, we're joining the manosphere.

A (40:27)

Oh, yes.

D (40:28)

Look out. Who? Look out.

A (40:30)

Joe Rogan.

D (40:31)

Joe Rogan.

A (40:31)

I don't know.

D (40:31)

Look out. Theo Vaughn.

A (40:33)

Yeah. Can you imagine? You already do the protein and the workout.

D (40:38)

Maybe we could do the proteini Martini.

A (40:40)

Gross. I will post for everyone a picture of Rishi with the world's largest can of protein powder at Costco. He hit the jackpot. He was so excited.

D (40:50)

Very good price.

A (40:51)

As Very good price. Very good price.

D (40:57)

Before we go, are there any things that I've recommended to you from long ago that you want to.

A (41:03)

Oh, that I want to re. Offer to you.

D (41:04)

Recommend to me and the whole audience. The opposite thing happened the other day when I referenced a book that you had recommended to me and I said, what's that? So it goes both ways. You forget that I've recommended things to you, but you also forget things that.

A (41:20)

You recommended to me. You know what, what's really disconcerting. This takes us back to the metabolic syndrome era, which is I do think, like, I'm in a middle aged, possibly perimenopausal syndrome era. And part of it is my memory is really bananas. I think historically I've had actually pretty good memory.

D (41:38)

Now banana pudding.

A (41:40)

I just. Yeah, it's all Gone. That's not to say that I don't take any responsibility because I, for some reason, just don't listen to most of the things you tell me to do that we know.

D (41:51)

Anyone who listens to this podcast, I.

A (41:52)

Think is pretty aware. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? I will recommend that you recommended to me a one which is not ice cream, but is basically ice cream.

D (42:01)

Yeah. They say you can't call it ice cream, but what else are you supposed to call it?

A (42:04)

I don't know. It's a non ice cream, like, substance. Yeah.

D (42:07)

Really good.

A (42:08)

It's really good. It's in la. It's vegan. It's so delicious, and everything is just so exquisitely flavored. It's Also, I think, $10 a scoop, but four thumbs up.

D (42:19)

Yeah. I've been on a real ice cream kick, despite being in my metabolic syndrome. Yeah. This might be part of the. But the other ice cream that I had that was really, really incredible recently was salt and straw has a vegan peanut butter brittle caramel fudge ice cream that they make with coconut cream.

A (42:39)

Wow, that is a lot of words.

D (42:41)

I like my ice cream like you like your chili crisp, full of all the stuff. It's really good because it's made with coconut vanilla ice cream. And so there's also a coconut flavor to it.

A (42:50)

Yum.

D (42:50)

And it is everything that I want from ice cream. And I may have eaten the whole pint. I didn't eat the whole pint, but.

A (42:59)

I'm close to it. It's. Lindsay had one spoonful.

D (43:01)

Yeah. It's like a revamped version of Moose Tracks.

A (43:06)

I love a Moose Tracks.

D (43:07)

And it was so good.

A (43:08)

Now that we're recommending ice creams, I will do one tiny ice cream plug.

D (43:12)

Yes.

A (43:13)

I got to make one of my favorite ice creams, which I've previously discussed on this podcast. We must have had a whole ice cream conversation. And you asked me my favorite flavors.

D (43:23)

I love that you really don't remember anything.

A (43:25)

And you begin. I definitely remember being like, well, my regular plebeian favorite ice cream is mint chip, but then I have these other, like, special bouge flavors.

D (43:32)

Yeah. We had our whole fantasy Emperor of ice cream.

A (43:36)

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I am getting to live that dream just briefly for a few months because I did a collaboration that's gonna be out this fall for a few months with Bayrite Creamery in San Francisco. And here's the little packaging. Unfortunately, just an empty container. Bummer. They're like, oh, we're bringing it by on Friday. I was so excited to taste it, and then it just came as, like, for me to take a picture with for social media. Yeah.

D (44:00)

Yeah.

A (44:00)

But it's very cute packaging, and they, like, took a lot of the inspiration from the design of my book. And the flavor is apricot Noyot caramel. That's based on an ice cream that I tasted once about 20 years ago, which was a burnt caramel noyot. And so it was a very deep burnt caramel ice cream base that was flavored with noyo, which is the kernel inside of the apricot pit that has this sort of very fragrant, fruity, and almondy taste that's kind of otherworldly. And I've never forgotten this, like, one spoonful of ice cream that I had. So when they said, would you like to do a collaboration? I was like, yes. So it's a little tricky. Making ice cream is very complicated. They kept asking me, and I was just like, I'm in a hermit cave. I can't do anything.

D (44:43)

Yeah.

A (44:44)

And then a year ago, I was like, oh, we could do the Noyo. And if I tell them now, they can start saving their apricot kernels. So we got to make this flavor, and we had to tweak things a little bit from the one in my memory, but actually, I think it's maybe even better. Wow. So the flavor of the Noyo is steeped in the base, and then they swirled in swirls of apricot jam, and then they added shards of burnt caramel.

D (45:05)

Okay. Amazing.

A (45:07)

So that's pretty exciting. Oh, and I have one other thing that's. I'm. I'm pretty excited to share with the podcast listeners because I feel like you guys are the target audience.

D (45:14)

Okay.

A (45:15)

I recently just recorded an audiobook version of Good Things.

D (45:19)

We'll get to hear the actual recording of you saying.

A (45:21)

Of me saying, apricots are a temperamental wonder. Actually, I'm not sure I read that line, but you.

D (45:26)

Come on.

A (45:28)

We had to limit. You know, I didn't read the recipes. I read all the narrative and sort of the helpful bits.

D (45:33)

That's a headnote. That's not.

A (45:34)

I didn't read all the headnotes, though. But if you want, I'll do a special edition of that recipe if people request.

D (45:41)

If people really request.

A (45:43)

Rishi will do it. Oh, my God. Rishi. Rishi, you should do your own podcast reading my book.

D (45:51)

I will. You know I've been doing an audiobook.

A (45:53)

I know. That's the other thing everyone should know. About is Rishi's starting a new project. Because originally was the thought you would do Sherlock Holmes.

D (46:00)

It is? Sure it is.

A (46:01)

Oh, it is Sherlock Holmes. Oh, my God.

D (46:04)

I sent you the first chapter.

A (46:05)

You did? I haven't listened to it, obviously. Anyways, as you know, I have called Rishi's voice buttery and velvety before in print. So I do think it's a nice voice to listen to if you don't know him, which is most of you. So you should try his podcast where he reads you Sherlock Holmes as a.

D (46:25)

It's actually part of my newsletter. Wow. All right. Thank you so much.

A (46:32)

Oh, my God. Okay. He has an audio project on his substack. Except cookies.

D (46:37)

Yes. I recently introduced a paid tier to the newsletter, and, you know, it's where I'm gonna put all the fun bonus things. And one of the fun bonus things that's happening is I'm doing a chapter by chapter audiobook recording of the first Sherlock Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet.

A (46:53)

I'll totally listen to it to go to bed.

D (46:55)

Oh, great. Yeah.

A (46:56)

Except then I'll have nightmares.

D (46:58)

And that's it for this episode.

A (46:59)

We make this podcast with the help of Zach McNeese, Mary Dolan and Amalia.

D (47:03)

Maria, and Mamie Rheingold does our artwork.

A (47:07)

We're a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independent podcasts. You can learn more about all the Radiotopia shows at Radiotopia fm.

D (47:15)

Our website is homecooking.

A (47:17)

Oh, my God. Are you making fun of me in the reading? Oh, my God.

D (47:22)

Where you can find recipes and transcripts for all of our episodes.

A (47:27)

You can follow. I don't even know how to make fun of you. You can follow Rishi wherever you follow him. Why ever? I don't know. You would want to at Rishi Hereaway.

D (47:37)

And Samin is a chow Samin. We both have newsletters that you can subscribe to or.

A (47:44)

Or not subscribe to or subscribe to and never open Y. My preferred method.

D (47:49)

Exactly.

A (47:51)

On substack.

D (47:52)

Samin's newsletter is called A Grain of salt, and mine is called a Except cookies.

A (47:57)

Stay healthy, eat well, and take care of each other.

D (48:00)

Thanks for listening.

A (48:01)

I'm Samin.

D (48:02)

And I'm Rishi.

A (48:04)

We'll be home cooking Radiotopia from prx.