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Home Cooking
Cultural Anther-pology (with Sumesh Uncle)
00:47:58
Sumesh Uncle is poised to start an international conflict with his hot take on saffron.
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, it's Christopher Kimball from Milk Street Radio. Sounds like I'm bragging, and I am. We're the number one most downloaded food podcast in America. You know, Milk Street Radio travels the world in search of the very best food stories. You'll hear about smuggling eels on the black market, the secret intelligence of plants, and insider tips to eating in Paris. And every week, listeners call in with their toughest culinary mysteries. Discover a world of food stories by searching your podcast app for Mill Street Radio.
- [00:31]
B
Hi, I'm Samin Nosrat.
- [00:33]
C
And I'm Hrishikesh Hirway.
- [00:34]
B
And we're home cooking.
- [00:36]
C
This is episode 19. This is year five of our two month series where we supposedly answer questions from home cooks. We're like Dear Abby in the kitchen. If Dear Abby also had a friend in the background helping out.
- [00:51]
B
Well, she had a friend. It was her sister Anne, actually. They were like dueling sisters. Ann Landers and Dear Abby were sisters.
- [00:58]
C
And they both went into the advice industry.
- [01:00]
B
Yeah, I think they had a bitter feud. I feel like we can be feuding sisters.
- [01:03]
C
I mean, we already are feuding sisters.
- [01:05]
B
Yeah.
- [01:09]
C
Okay. We have a couple of big announcements. The first huge thing is that Samin's second cookbook, which you've been hearing her grumble about for years, this is the reason why we stopped doing the podcast in the first place.
- [01:21]
B
That's what I told you.
- [01:24]
C
This was Samin's excuse for why she stopped making the podcast with me. It's finally coming out this fall on September 16, 2025. Samin's second cookbook. Good recipes and rituals to share with people you love. But you can already pre order it. Now you can get it from Samin's website, which is chowsamin.com. or if for some reason that's too hard for you to remember and our website's easier, you can go to homecooking dot show good things, and you can pre order it from any, any book retailer you could possibly imagine. There's like 6,000 buttons that you can.
- [02:00]
B
Click for pre order every book retailer you could imagine. And also on the website, you can find out about the tour. I'm going to be touring all over the country and beyond eventually. And I think our listeners will be particularly excited to hear that Rishi is going to be joining me and trolling me for some of my stops.
- [02:22]
C
No, no, it's called moderating. I'm gonna be moderating the discussion between me and you.
- [02:28]
B
What discussion? Just the bickering. You're gonna bicker with me?
- [02:31]
C
Yeah, exactly. But we're gonna be doing it live on stage for at least the show in San Francisco on September 13th at City Arts and Lectures, and in LA October 18th downtown at the United Theater. So go look for the tickets for all of Samin's shows on our website. And especially if you can come to California for those shows, that would be great. Maybe I will be able to join for some other dates as well, but definitely those two. So hope to see you this fall.
- [03:02]
B
Yeah, you can experience the chaos in.
- [03:04]
C
Person while all this stuff is going on. We're also going to make more episodes this fall.
- [03:09]
B
That's true. We have a big old home cooking season that'll be out later this year.
- [03:13]
C
Yeah.
- [03:14]
B
So.
- [03:14]
C
So no more of these one off, once a year shenanigans. We're gonna come back for a whole, whole slate of episodes. I think that's all the business, all the beeswax. I know that you were reluctant to make a cookbook, but then there was something that changed your mind. How did you go from I'm not gonna make a cookbook to I am gonna make a cookbook?
- [03:35]
B
So I don't know if you know this, Rishi, but I wrote a cookbook called Salt, Fat, Acid Heat. And with that one, I really struggled. I kind of knew I wanted to make something outside of the traditional format because I felt like the traditional format didn't serve the message and the lessons that I wanted to communicate.
- [03:53]
C
You wanted to empower people to make their own recipes. Like, you wanted to talk about the fundamental principles and not so much like, here's a dish that you can also make at home. Exactly this way.
- [04:02]
B
Totally. Because the big sort of light bulb moment for me as a young cook was watching other professional cooks cook. They weren't cooking from recipes. They were cooking using these four elements to guide them. And so if I could just teach people at home how to do that, then people could be freed of recipes or just use recipes as inspiration and guidance rather than like some bible you have to fully adhere to.
- [04:27]
C
Yeah.
- [04:28]
B
And that's how I have always cooked. And I have a real complicated relationship to recipes. And the idea of writing a book of just recipes was really not something I thought I would ever do. Initially, when I proposed this book, it was not a book of recipes. It was another big philosophical tome. And within two years, I kind of melted under the pressure of that and realized I couldn't do it. And I was like, you know what? I'm just not gonna write a book at all. And one of my agents said, why do you always make things so complicated for yourself? You don't always have to reinvent the entire genre. Your recipes are very nice. You could just write a book of them.
- [05:05]
C
That's true.
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D
You do.
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C
You put out recipes and people love them.
- [05:08]
B
Yes, but I hate myself the whole time. Plus, it felt kind of like disingenuous to be like, here's this huge book, Salt, Fat, acid heat, teaching you how to cook, recipe free. And then follow it up with a book of recipes that felt kind of, I don't know, like a betrayal or hypocritical or something.
- [05:27]
C
Okay, I agree with your editor, but.
- [05:30]
B
Sure, I kind of snapped at her when she suggested that I said, don't you know anything about me? Haven't you ever met me? I would never do that because that's just not who I am, and I have to find my own way there. And then, literally one week later, I was standing in my kitchen making this cabbage slaw that I made, kind of all pandemic long, partly because cabbage was highly available in the farm boxes. And it's inexpensive. And a slaw is something you can quickly throw together and then eat it for the next several days. And. And it was inspired by this slaw at the local sort of fancy deli near my house. They have this, like, sesame ginger, they call it Cabbage crunch, I think. So I had sort of reverse engineered that for myself, and I had made a particularly delicious batch, and I just, like, ate a bite of it. And I thought, oh, man, this is so good. If only I had a way, like an easy way to share this with people.
- [06:25]
C
To share the way that I make this thing.
- [06:27]
B
Yeah. Like these specific instructions. The list of ingredients. Ingredients in the list of steps.
- [06:32]
C
Yeah.
- [06:33]
B
For this thing. And then I was like, oh, no. Like, darn, shoot. Like, what have I done? I now understood that I had naturally come to the same conclusion as her.
- [06:44]
C
Yeah.
- [06:45]
B
That I was too stubborn to admit. And so I privately, for a while, just made a list of what recipes I would include in a book if I were going to do that. And I wanted them to be the things I make just to sort of take care of myself and the people around me. The stuff I cook on an everyday basis, that's really not fancy. Doesn't seem like it feels like it belongs in a food magazine, you know, it's just the simple nourishing things and all of the little quirky sort of tricks and lessons that I've learned along the way.
- [07:15]
C
So did you write down the recipe for the slaw?
- [07:18]
B
I did write down the recipe for the slaw.
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C
And that was how the book began.
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B
And that's how the book began.
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C
It was like Newton's first law of motion. This was Simin's first law of motion. First law of motion.
- [07:27]
B
Yes, if you will. There you go.
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C
Now you know what I'm gonna say.
- [07:31]
B
Before I even say, you know, with salad dressings, I think a big part of it is figuring out how to make a delicious dressing and just having that on hand. Writing a recipe for a specific dressing and a specific salad feels so limiting for me because I've changed what I put in my salad all the time. You know, you probably do, too, based on what you have around and what season it is. And so it felt really limiting to. To just assign that dressing, the delicious gingery miso dressing, only to that cabbage slaw when it felt like there was so much more possibility. And this dressing is so delicious, you can put it on a rice bowl. You can use it as a marinade. You can put it on, you know, a crunchy romaine salad with, like, little fried wonton strips on it. You can do a million things with it. And so I ended up making the salad dressing. Chapters called good things come in threes. Each salad dressing has three suggestions for salads. So the slaw is in there, but it's under the name of the dressing. And the dressing's more important in a way. You could just toss it only on shredded cabbage, and it would be great. But if you wanted, you could put other things like toasted peanuts and carrots and, you know, red onion in there, too. You could do whatever you want. But the dressing is basically some white miso. Something sweet, either agave syrup or maple syrup, a lot of acid. So I do usually some rice vinegar or another vinegar that I have in the book is a chili vinegar. So I sometimes use some of that.
- [08:57]
C
I want chili vinegar.
- [08:58]
B
It's delicious. And something spicy. You know, either some of those chilies or a jalapeno. Some neutral tasting oil. Oh, and a lot of garlic and a lot of ginger. It's super gingery. It's just a very fresh, bright thing. And, you know, you can tweak it with a little bit of lime juice and make it really sort of tangy. And what I. If you've ever had, say, like, a Chinese chicken salad, even though that's not actually from China, but it's not from.
- [09:23]
C
China, it's not really a salad.
- [09:25]
B
Yeah, it's true. It's just. And does it need chicken? No. You can make your Tofu, but it's that kind of like tangy, a little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, super fiery from ginger, you know, salty and rich with umami from the miso. And it kind of just like hits every part of your mouth and makes it zing. And so this definitely is one of my go to sort of dressings that I rotate between. It's really yummy. Also on just roasted vegetables.
- [09:51]
C
All right, so that's in the book. Congratulations on. I'm so excited to see you and talk to you again after you disappeared for years.
- [09:59]
B
It's true. Yeah, it'll be very fun. Also, I'm not asking for this. The banana bread recipe is also in.
- [10:07]
C
The book if people want to bring banana bread to our live shows.
- [10:11]
B
Yeah, because, you know, to make up for the banana bread that took me so long to get to, you just send Rishi home on a bed of banana bread. But I know you have something to share about your own baking.
- [10:24]
C
I got to do an episode of the podcast Recipe Club recently. The theme of it was cookie swap. Just the best email to get, you know, from the host, Chris Ying. I already love Recipe Club. It's a really fun show that I listen to anyway. And they're like, well, we're doing one where the theme is a cookie swap. Do you want to bake a cookie off of a recipe and then bring it in and, you know, talk about it and compare it with other people's?
- [10:49]
B
But it's also sort of a competition.
- [10:51]
C
It's kind of a competition, but I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, great. What a dream to be thought of. When someone thinks of cookies. This is my dream in life.
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B
You've really done well with the cookie.
- [11:01]
C
Branding, though, I'm gonna say, like, I've tried really hard. And so it was so nice to get that invitation. And I was like, great, yeah, okay, I'll do it. And then it turns out the other people who had to bake against are two. Not just bakers, but people who own their own bakeries here in la. Jen Yee of Baker's Bench and Nicole Rucker of Fat and Flour. So it was completely unfair, but I still liked the cookies that I made a lot. I think the cookies that I made were pretty epic.
- [11:31]
B
Well, are you gonna tell us about them?
- [11:33]
C
I wanted to make brown butter cookies because I knew that I had to bring my A game. I just had to make these. The most delicious cookie I could possibly imagine if this was gonna be for competition. So I went brown butter cookies. And I mostly worked off of The New York Times brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe. But because I guess I have to make things my own way and whatever.
- [11:56]
B
Oh, so I'm not the only one.
- [11:59]
C
Yeah. You know, I added the things that I want to have in a cookie, like my mother in law's incredible cookies that we've talked about on this podcast.
- [12:07]
B
Yeah, with the pecans.
- [12:08]
C
With the pecans. Yeah. So ever since having those, I feel like finely chopped up pecans are such a nice thing. Just even texturally, you might not even notice them. But I kind of always put that in cookies now. And also coconut. I thought that could be really nice. So I ended up making a brown butter pecan dark chocolate coconut cookie.
- [12:30]
B
Sounds good.
- [12:31]
C
It was really good.
- [12:32]
B
Oh, is Rishi's gonna write a recipe.
- [12:34]
C
Yeah, I wrote a recipe. You can look at it and you can tell me if I need to fix it to make it more recipe like. Okay, well, should we go to some questions? Cause we got some really, really good ones.
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B
Oh, I'm so excited.
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C
I thought the first question we could look at was one that I think is. Yeah, especially timely and relevant to this hellscape that we live in. This is a question from Harris, who by the way in the email said, hi, Samin, it's Vega's Auntie Harris. Oh my gosh.
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B
I have a crazy story about Harris. So Harris is a friend in my friend circle, but also is a professional drag queen and one of the co creators of Drag Queen Story Hour. And yesterday in congressional hearings, there was a 40 foot tall photo of Harris with Marjorie Taylor Greene using Harris as an example of like a bad influence on children. Because it's really crazy. I'll text you the picture. Yeah. So everyone should go read about Harris and send him some real love.
- [13:37]
C
Well, here's Harris's question.
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E
Hi, Samin and Rishi. This is Harris from Los Angeles. And my big question for you is, what on earth are we supposed to do now that it's becoming harder and harder and certainly less and less affordable to buy eggs on the regular? And I guess my question is less about, like, how do you substitute other things for eggs in baking or other recipes, and more looking for suggestions of yummy, nutritious, high protein breakfast, you know, help us start our day on the right foot. I've been vegetarian much of my life and in recent years have been dealing with some chronic health issues. So I've cut out gluten and a lot of grains and really try to focus on protein and veggies and things like that. And for the Past few years, I, for breakfast mainly cook a couple of eggs and usually a big pan of kale or other greens. And that's how I get going. And these days when I go to the grocery store, either it's a completely empty egg section or sometimes they've just dis here in the egg section altogether. So I'm sort of at a loss for what to do. Thanks.
- [14:43]
B
Aw, Harris, thank you so much for calling in. I love you so much, Rishi. I actually feel like you're gonna have a lot of good. You're kind of like a protein dude. You're like a macros guy. And also you're in your house. I would say it's highly plant based.
- [14:58]
C
It's entirely made of leaves. Our house?
- [15:00]
B
Yeah. It's. Yeah. And sticks.
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C
Yeah.
- [15:03]
B
He needs a little structure. Wouldn't you say the majority of or if not everything you eat at home is plant based?
- [15:11]
C
Yeah, everything that we make at home is plant.
- [15:13]
B
Well, except for brown butter chocolate chip cookies.
- [15:15]
C
I was gonna say. Unless I have to do competition level baking. Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you what my, like weekend deluxe breakfast is, which is maybe not what Harris is asking, because that might be more, you know, a quick thing, like an egg is something you can make quickly. This takes a little bit more time. But for me, when I want to do something decadent, I will do a tofu scramble, which I make with, you know, a mix of turmeric and ginger powder, onion powder, as well as, like chopped onions and peppers.
- [15:49]
B
And do you use the softest tofu?
- [15:51]
C
I actually don't. I mean, I think you can do with whatever, but we usually have firm tofu or extra firm tofu in the house. And I just use whatever we have and just, you know, smash it up and add a little bit of plant based milk to it too. And that helps the dry spices coat the tofu a little bit better. And it's really yummy. And you can zhuzh it up in so many different ways. Like you could add tahini to it. We have this black salt like, that has like a sort of. This doesn't sound pleasant, but it has a kind of like almost sulfuric kind of.
- [16:26]
B
Oh, is it that kala namak, the Indian one?
- [16:29]
C
Exactly, yeah. And that gives it a little bit of like an eggy quality.
- [16:33]
B
Totally.
- [16:34]
C
So you can kind of like make it richer or more simple, depending on what you've got. But that I love to do. And then I also will make plant based veggie sausages that you've purchased that I've purchased. Yeah, I won't make those from scratch. They're kind of pricey, but also extra protein and yummy.
- [16:50]
B
I have also been sort of more protein focused in my life because I crash and burn. I get real hangry real fast. Someone suggested to me, maybe you should try eating a little protein in the morning. I don't, and I don't really love eating breakfast, so it's a journey for me to figure out how do I eat something that will help me from having a anger attack later in the day. But a couple of the things. I mean, it sounds like, Harris, you're not all the way vegan, you're a vegetarian. So I do rely a lot on Greek yogurt and labneh, which are very high in protein, sometimes with a little jam and sometimes just by themselves, or with a little bit of like, a green chutney, like an Indian chutney or green sauce. But usually I'm a big fan of a rice and bean situation or a rice and legume. And I really love my Japanese rice cooker because it keeps rice warm for, you know, up to two days or three days. So it means, like, I can make rice one night and then the next morning I wake up and I have rice ready to go. And then I just can heat up some beans or lentils or chickpeas and. And make myself like a rice and bean and yogurt bowl for breakfast. The other thing is, I think this requires a little bit more of preparatory work, but kind of feels like it would land right in your zone. Harris, is if you spent time on a weekend making and portioning and freezing basically, like veggie burgers or falafels that then you. All you had to do was cook up in the morning, and you could actually cook them and freeze them cooked and then just reheat them in your toaster oven. So one of my favorite recipes for, like, a pretty high protein sort of burger like that is the Superiority Burger from Brooks Headley from New York.
- [18:39]
C
Oh, yeah.
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B
And the way Brooks writes, the recipe is quite complicated, so you can cut out a lot of this stuff. I think there's multiple kinds of quinoa and there's multiple vegetables, and you can really streamline it. But the general idea behind that is a really sort of super tasty, super flavorful, high protein little nugget. And so I've definitely made those and sort of portioned them into little patties and frozen them in a single layer on a piece of parchment. And then once they're rock hard you can just transfer them into a Ziploc bag and keep them frozen and then fry them up in the frying pan. Or if you wanted to go even one step further, you could fry them all and then freeze them in a single layer. And then in the morning, to make your mornings quicker, you just heat it up in the toaster oven.
- [19:26]
C
That sounds really good.
- [19:27]
B
And you could eat that with some greens and that would be fantastic.
- [19:31]
C
I know Harris didn't ask for egg substitution, but I was just thinking about another thing that I do sometimes. I make a version of the banana pancake that Kamau Bell told us about.
- [19:43]
B
Way early on, which was just egg and banana.
- [19:45]
C
Yeah. I find that the just egg liquid egg replacement is actually really good for that. The banana egg pancake, you're not really thinking about the egg. It doesn't have like too much in terms of egg quality, you know. And so for stuff like that, I think you can really get away with egg replacement. And so I will do the equivalent of two eggs from the just egg liquid and then you mash up a banana in it and make a little pancake on the frying pan. But I will put a scoop of peanut butter or almond butter in the bowl first and then put the little banana pancake on top of that. And then I top that with some chopped up apple and blueberries and coconut and it's really delicious. It feels like breakfast food. It doesn't feel too crazy heavy.
- [20:34]
B
Sounds really good.
- [20:35]
C
Yeah.
- [20:36]
B
I've been thinking a lot about the egg shortage, in large part because I not to return back to the dressings of the book, but I sort of love a creamy dressing so much. And historically I learned to use either dairy or egg to thicken a dressing and make it creamy. And there was something about that that was just making my stomach, I don't know. I think as I get older, I can't eat things that are that rich.
- [21:00]
C
Also, it makes it probably less shelf stable. Right.
- [21:02]
B
And it makes. Yeah. And also you have to eat it more quickly. So I started experimenting with aquafaba, which is the cooking liquid from beans.
- [21:10]
C
It's also what happens when you put your dog in water.
- [21:12]
B
Yes, exactly. When fava goes in water. Yes. His aquafaba. And I use that a lot in my salad dressings to thicken them. And I kind of always have. Anytime I open a can of chickpeas, I save the liquid. And I know that you do too. I actually, I love that when I've been to your house, Lindsay has like, with a label maker, has made a jar where she saves her aquafaba, which I'm very impressed by.
- [21:41]
C
Well, Harris, I hope that helps.
- [21:43]
B
I hope this helps. I hope this keeps you nourished because we need you around Harris.
- [21:52]
C
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.
- [23:12]
B
If you're a fan of home cooking and the way it's all put together. But like me, you wish it had a little less Rishi in it. Let me recommend Rishi's other podcast, the brilliant and magical Song Exploder. Rishi is the host, but he cuts himself entirely out of the interviews he does with amazing musicians like Janelle, Monae, Robin, Fleetwood Mac, U2, and more. So you just hear them talking about the creative process behind the making of one of their songs. I was actually a fan of Song Exploder way before Rishi and I became friends. Two of my favorite episodes are the ones with Solange and Sylvan Esso. The show is so carefully and thoughtfully made and it's just really inspiring for anyone who creates things. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [23:57]
C
Our next question comes from Gloria.
- [24:00]
F
Hi Samin. Hi Rishi. This is Gloria from Phoenix, Arizona, and I have a question about rice. So I'm Mexican and the way that we cook rice is usually we fry it up in a little bit of oil before we add you know, whatever liquid. So my dilemma is that I've only realized, like, a couple of years ago that you're supposed to wash your rice before you cook it. But I'm a little bit conflicted because I don't know, there's like, this thought process in my brain where I'm thinking that, like, the starch that I'm washing away will change, like, the structure or, like, the texture of the rice, like, before I fry it. And I'm also kind of scared to fry wet rice. Wet rice.
- [24:51]
B
I'm with you.
- [24:53]
F
So I don't. I don't know if I'm outing myself as, like, a gross person that doesn't wash their rice.
- [24:57]
B
No.
- [24:58]
F
Because I know, like, a lot of cultures do wash their rice, but I. I grew up not washing my rice, so I'm just so confused. For context, I use, like, the. Just the long grain rice that you buy, like, at the big grocery stores. So, yeah, any advice or tips or information would be very much appreciated. Thank you so much.
- [25:21]
B
Wow, Gloria. Oh, my God. I love this. I actually went through the same whole thing working on this book because there's so many rice recipes.
- [25:30]
C
Rice a piece.
- [25:31]
B
Rice a piece. And I wanted to create a easy rubric to follow no matter what kind of rice you're making.
- [25:37]
C
Rubrice.
- [25:37]
B
Rube rice. Jesus. I'm going to cover your face in the zoom. I can't. But, Gloria, you're not disgusting. You're not a gross.
- [25:55]
C
Grace, stop.
- [25:59]
B
What did she say?
- [26:00]
F
I don't know if I'm outing myself as, like, a gross person that doesn't wash their rice.
- [26:06]
B
Yeah, you're. You're not a gross person who doesn't wash your rice, for one thing. So I think what Gloria is referring to is like a classic. You know, if you go to a taqueria and you see green rice or red rice, it's cooked in a different way than, say, like, steamed rice that you would get at, like, a Thai restaurant or. Or a Chinese restaurant.
- [26:23]
C
Restaurant.
- [26:24]
B
A riceaurant. Yes. You have to just stab me now. So different types of rice and different types. Different types of rice. Which is to say, fully ruined it. I know.
- [26:46]
C
Okay, shake it off, shake it off. Rinse it off.
- [26:48]
B
Oh, my God. I'm gonna cover your face right now. Okay. There. That's better. Different types of rice have different starch contents and perform differently in the pan. But also different cultures and different recipes require treating the rice differently. So you. Yes, I would say, in general, for most rice preparations, it does make sense to rinse your rice because you want to rinse off the excess starch so that as the rice cooks, each grain cooks up into its own, like, distinct fluffy thing. And there's not just one big mass of rice that's glommed together because all the starch was still in the cooking pot. That's why if you've ever cooked rice and like, you go in and you try and sort of paddle it apart and it comes off in sort of these, like, big clumps rather than individual grains, it probably hasn't been rinsed well enough. But the style of rice that Gloria is referring to is more of a peel off. That's kind of what we would see at a taqueria. When you get, like, red rice or green rice for your burrito and that is made in a totally different way. You do start by, like, sort of sizzling it and toasting it in the pan. It's the same way risotto is made in Italy. You toast the rice and then you start adding liquid. The interesting thing that I found in my, like, deep rabbit hole of research was that for a peel off, you can rinse the rice or not rinse the rice, and it doesn't make a huge difference in the final product. And I. I don't know. This is not where my food science knowledge sort of. I'm not great at this. Maybe your dad can help. We can call sumesh uncle and ask. But I do think that by toasting the rice, you're kind of sealing some of that starch in and preventing it from coming out into the pot. So you're not gross, you're not disgusting, your rice is not dirty. You can rinse it. But if you are going to rinse it, it's very important to dry it super well, let it drain, maybe even put it in a salad spinner, or just let it really dry out before you go to fry it. Because then all of that water on the rice will splatter everywhere, maybe splatter on you, and that's no good. So I think you're actually doing it exactly like your forebears taught you and probably making something really delicious.
- [29:06]
C
I think it would be nice to call my dad. Actually, I wasn't thinking about the rice question. We got another question that I thought would be perfect to bring him in for if you're down with that.
- [29:16]
B
Let's do it. Is he around?
- [29:18]
C
He is, yeah. Let me get him on the call. My dad, in his retirement, has become an influencer. Yeah. With his photographs of food articles. Like, he takes a picture he takes a picture.
- [29:36]
B
He takes a picture of the New York Times food section.
- [29:38]
C
Exactly. An article in the paper and then posts that to his Instagram. Is it straight? Is it sideways? Is it upside down? Who knows? You never know.
- [29:48]
B
Does it matter?
- [29:49]
C
Yeah.
- [29:49]
B
But no.
- [29:50]
C
He's become really obsessed with saffron.
- [29:53]
B
Oh, yes.
- [29:53]
C
You know this, right?
- [29:54]
B
Yeah. He sent me much saffron.
- [29:56]
C
Yeah. Oh, he says he's ready.
- [29:59]
B
Hi, Sumesh Uncle.
- [30:00]
C
Hi, dad.
- [30:01]
D
Hi.
- [30:02]
C
So, dad, we got a question that I haven't played for Sumin yet. I just thought it would be perfect to share with you for a couple of different reasons. This comes from Alexis.
- [30:10]
G
Hello, home cooking hosts. I have a question for you about saffron. And not just any saffron, but a specific jar of saffron. My grandfather was a traveler and an artist and a chef, and he traveled to Turkey in 1990 and brought home a decent amount of saffron. After he passed away, I was with my family helping to clean out his cabin and came across this lovely little labeled jar from 1990 that looks very much like it's never been opened. The saffron still has a beautiful sort of deep red orange hue to it, but it is 35 years old. It's older than I am. And my question is, how does one go about assessing whether something like saffron is still good to use? I assume that there's an element of smelling it and just kind of seeing if it still smells pungent or potent, but really just questions about shelf life and food safety and if there's any downside to other than maybe reduced flavor to using saffron that is more than three decades old.
- [31:20]
B
This is a good story.
- [31:22]
G
It seems like a shame to throw it out. I know saffron is incredibly laborious to harvest, and I hate waste in general. So I was just hoping to hear your thoughts. Thank you both. I love your show and I always learn something new.
- [31:35]
D
Okay, so I work with saffron. I did a testing of the saffron from three different regions. One of the reason is in India called Kashmir. And the flavor was the best and the color was, okay, medium, But I tested with saffron from Iran, and it is bright red color, but flavor was not great.
- [32:01]
B
Whoa, whoa. Shots fired.
- [32:04]
D
And then the third one I did is Afghanistan. So now you're going to ask me, how do we test it? No, no, dad.
- [32:10]
C
Okay, look, the first question, I think.
- [32:13]
B
Yeah, maybe I'll answer the first one and then Sumesh uncle can chime in.
- [32:16]
C
Yeah. I mean, the reason why I was like, there's a kind of a food safety, you know, food safety is also your expertise, dad.
- [32:23]
B
Yes.
- [32:23]
C
And is it 35 year old saffron from 1990, is it okay to use?
- [32:28]
D
Yes.
- [32:29]
B
Yeah, I would say definitely it's okay to use. There's nothing in the saffron itself that could really go bad.
- [32:36]
D
Yes.
- [32:37]
C
What is saffron?
- [32:39]
B
Yeah, why don't you tell us what is saffron? Sumeshanko.
- [32:42]
D
Okay. Like, you know, like a tulips similar to one saffron tulip. And then you take the anther, which is from the flower, and you dry it out, which is very laborious.
- [32:55]
B
It's one of the reproductive organs of a crocus flower.
- [32:58]
D
Right, right.
- [32:59]
B
And each one has to be picked out by hand by someone who's like, bending over painstakingly and then they get dried out, which is why saffron is so expensive first. It's like, kind of tricky and, you know, temperamental. To even grow the flowers like, it requires a specific region and climate. And then harvesting and drying is a really complicated step, I think more complicated than any other spice other than perhaps vanilla beans. But the saffron itself doesn't go bad. There's nothing in there that can go rancid. So I would absolutely use it, Alexis. But in my experience. So my life story with saffron is I'm very offended on behalf of all Persians right now. That Sumesh uncle just went ahead and said, our saffron is not that delicious.
- [33:49]
C
But looks the best.
- [33:50]
B
But it does look good. So, yeah, Iranians, we do care about appearances because I have been eating and using and cooking with Persian saffron my whole life. And, you know, anytime somebody goes back to Iran, they smuggle a big package of saffron back. So I have a lot of actually quite old Saffron, also not 35 years old, but I just noticed that as it gets older, it loses some of its aroma and it kind of changes in color. It oxidizes a bit, but it's not bad. You just usually need to use more of it to get the same effect. So I think it's a wonderful way to honor your grandfather and his life and his travels to use that saffron. But I guess next time make sure to buy Kashmiri.
- [34:30]
C
Yes, dad, can actually. Can we retroactively go back to a question that we'd gotten just a bit ago? Samin, will you pose the rice question?
- [34:37]
B
Another caller called in with a question about rice, and her family is from Mexico, and she said that she learned that you're supposed to rinse your rice to make sure to get the starch off. And she was worried that she's been doing it wrong all along.
- [34:53]
D
It depends upon the reason. So for example, basmati has got a flavor. And if you toast the basmati rice, you're going to spoil the taste of the basmati.
- [35:03]
B
Oh, so I've just been doing it wrong my whole life?
- [35:06]
D
Well, try it out different, differently and compare it.
- [35:09]
C
Dad, What? Have you been eating anything good recently?
- [35:11]
D
Well, yesterday I made shrimp curry with rice.
- [35:15]
B
Did you toast your rice?
- [35:17]
D
No.
- [35:17]
B
Did you wash it?
- [35:18]
D
No, I don't do anything. Sometimes you want to wash it, but I don't need to wash it. But this is already washed, so wash it. Okay, a little bit.
- [35:26]
C
You're saying wash it but you don't wash it?
- [35:28]
D
Well, I personally don't wash because it's okay, isn't there? So, okay, let's make it wash the rice.
- [35:34]
C
No, no, no, no, no. I wanna know. Don't fictionalize your process for the sake of our listeners. You want the real, unvarnished, unwashed truth of your rice making. So you get a bag and then like a gross person, you take. You transfer the rice directly into the rice cooker.
- [35:51]
D
Yes.
- [35:51]
C
And do you. And do you recommend the kind of rice cooker that you use?
- [35:54]
D
It's a Japanese kind. You can get it in Target and something like that.
- [35:58]
B
That's what I have too. I love it.
- [35:59]
D
Yes, yes. So put it in and there are two settings only. You put it in and you start and then when it's done, it goes to warm.
- [36:08]
B
It's true. It keeps it warm. That's what I like about the rice cooking too.
- [36:11]
D
Yes, yes. Samin, before you go, my nephew in California in Davis, he's growing saffron here. Yes.
- [36:22]
B
Wow. Do you think it's delicious or disgusting?
- [36:26]
D
Well, he sent me a sample. It worked. But not the flavor is not the way. Like Kashmir saffron.
- [36:34]
B
Yeah, it's just David's saffron.
- [36:35]
C
So there you go, throwing all of your family members and adopted family members under the bus with their saffron flavor.
- [36:42]
B
Yeah.
- [36:42]
C
Thank you, dad.
- [36:43]
B
Buy sumisha kohl.
- [36:48]
D
Okay. Nice to work with you guys.
- [36:50]
B
Nice to work with you. Thank you.
- [36:52]
A
Bye.
- [36:54]
C
Well, there you go. There's Dad.
- [36:57]
B
I truly the part where he just was like junking on my people was amazing.
- [37:05]
C
Well, we just have one more question for today.
- [37:08]
B
May it heal our hearts.
- [37:10]
C
It's from Rebecca and I just. I don't know what it is about Rebecca. I really really like her. I really like her attitude in this question. Here you go.
- [37:21]
H
Hi, team. My question is, what do I do with all of these sauces and condiments that I bought for one recipe and now have been sitting in my refrigerator door shelf for like three months? Like, I have tamarind paste, I have calabrian pepper paste, I have hoisin sauce, preserve, lemon paste, black garlic paste, gochujang sauce, and like, they're all great. Like, they're not bad. It's just I bought them for one recipe and now I still have like 10 ounces left and I don't want to make that recipe again. Do I have to, like, find recipes for each of these condiments and like, keep making them or is there an easy way I can use them? Like a rule of thumb or like put it over rice with an egg or something? Would love to hear your tips. Thank you.
- [38:16]
C
I just, I love. It's like I've got all these incredible ingredients, but what do I have to.
- [38:21]
B
Do, like, make the same recipe again? Ugh. Oh, my gosh. You're very funny.
- [38:26]
C
The ingredients that she's got are great and also a lot of them feature in your book heavily.
- [38:33]
B
In my book, Honestly? Yeah. Great job, Rishi. You're just, you're very enterprising. I see where you're going with this.
- [38:37]
C
Yep, yep. Let me recommend a book to you called Good Things.
- [38:41]
B
So some of the ones she said, tamarind paste, preserved lemon paste, hoisin sauce.
- [38:46]
C
Calabrian chili paste, gochujang sauce. Oh, gochujang and black garlic paste. All of which sound amazing.
- [38:52]
B
Yeah. Really delicious. You know, we might not all have the same jars in our shelves of our fridges, but I think this is a pretty common problem. I have a whole almost like a shoe box in my fridge. There were never any shoes in it. It's a shoebox size box. Let's say there's no shoes in my fridge, but there is a shoebox sized box of like, where I just sort of corral the once in a while condiments. For example, I love making mapo tofu, which is actually really easy to make and very delicious. And my recommended recipe is in the New York Times cooking from Andrea Nguyen. It's so good.
- [39:30]
C
Don't make her other recipe, Mapo toshu.
- [39:33]
B
That's true. Don't not to. But tofu and just. Yeah. Have you noticed a distinct change in my attitude regarding your wordplay here in this episode?
- [39:45]
C
Your equanimity is impressive.
- [39:48]
B
Yeah, I've been taking a Lot of antidepressants, I don't know. So for example, when you make mapo tofu, you need the doubanjiang, which is the like specific Chinese chili chili paste. And then also like a fermented bean paste. I just use my Korean one. But that's two ingredients that I almost never use for anything else. And then at some point I made a Thai dish for which I bought a specific Thai chili paste because I had convinced myself that no other chili paste would taste the same. Then I have, you know, a jar of green curry paste for when I want to make a green curry. So I can relate, let's just say. So I do have some sauces that are corralled in the non shoebox.
- [40:30]
C
It's like buying a nice outfit for a fancy event.
- [40:33]
B
Yes.
- [40:33]
C
And then it's sitting in your closet and you're like, when am I gonna wear this tuxedo again?
- [40:37]
B
Yeah. But I really like having them because it means when I want to make mapo tofu, all I need is a little tofu and I'm done. I'm ready to go. But then there's this sort of next level of multi purpose. Many use condiment. And so whereas for me, I'm not, so let's say literate in the use of hoisin sauce that I would be able to call that a multipurpose condiment. At my house, my hoisin sauce would live in my shoebox. Pretty much everything else you listed, I think we can find you some uses for.
- [41:09]
C
That's funny. I use hoisin sauce, I think, and a lot. I just use it basically like a sweet and sour sauce for whatever.
- [41:16]
B
Well, there you go.
- [41:16]
C
Which of these do you think is the most versatile of the condiments that she has? Tamarind paste, Calabrian pepper paste, preserved lemon paste, hoisin sauce, gochujang sauce, black garlic paste. Which one are you like? Oh, this one. I've got you covered.
- [41:29]
B
My top two are the chili and the lemon Calabrian chili paste. Rishi and I are documented fans of this. I think Calabrian chilies are really delicious. They're very all purpose in a lot of ways. I think if you're adding red pepper flakes to something, you can just add Calabrian chili paste instead. Like if you're sizzling some red pepper flakes into your sauteed broccoli rabe or spinach or kale, use Calabrian chili paste instead. It comes with that delicious bright red oil. It's not insanely spicy. It has a nice sort of rounded, long lasting warmth and heat. It's also delicious to drizzle on top of your eggs, your rice, your noodle, your soup. Like that one. You can work through that jar easily. I believe in you, Rebecca. Right?
- [42:12]
C
It's so good.
- [42:12]
B
It's so good.
- [42:13]
C
Like it feels brighter than crushed red pepper.
- [42:16]
B
Well, there's also often a little vinegar in there too, so it is actually brighter.
- [42:20]
C
Yeah. Actually yesterday we had pasta and I ended up just tipping in some of the liquid oil. Yeah. In there just for texture and moisture and a little tiny bit of heat.
- [42:32]
B
So that one, I'm not worried at all. Another place recently I've started putting a little Calabrian chili paste is into like Caesar salad dressing to make spicy Caesar salad is really yummy. Your preserved lemon paste also. I believe in you. One thing I've been doing lately is making. We had a weird little heat wave here, so I made some salty lemon soda, like with preserved lemon paste and agave syrup and fizzy water.
- [42:55]
D
What?
- [42:57]
C
That sounds so good.
- [42:59]
B
It's so good.
- [43:00]
C
Salty lemon soda, but it's also a little sweet.
- [43:04]
B
Well, I sweetened it, but yeah. Yeah. Sweet and salty. Yeah.
- [43:07]
C
I need to tell me how to make the salty sweetened soda.
- [43:09]
B
Literally, I just put some preserved lemon paste and the one that is in my book is slightly different, but you can just use like one that you bought or take some preserved lemons and blend them up and use that. And then I, you know, I added a little agave syrup and fizzy water and ice and that was it.
- [43:25]
C
Wow.
- [43:26]
B
Yeah, it was very refreshing. And if you want, you can add a little squeeze of fresh lemon juice. But what I love about the preserved lemon is that it's so easy to use in that way where you're adding this kind of rich, like funky flavor as well as acid and salt in one go. Like it's just a shortcut.
- [43:43]
C
When you blend it in the blender, are you like getting it to be.
- [43:45]
B
Like a puree into a puree? Yeah.
- [43:48]
C
Okay.
- [43:48]
B
Yeah. And the one in my book, I add a few slices of fresh turmeric into the jar when I preserve the lemons and then I puree the whole thing. And then it's kind of this all purpose condiment you can add into salad dressings. Again, if you don't have a fresh lemon, you can still make like a lemony vinaigrette with some preserved lemon paste. Or you can mix both and add fresh lemon and preserve lemon. But again, the ease of it is you're getting the zest. The juice the lemoniness and salt in one scoop. It's so simple. You can add it into marinades for fish and chicken. I did that last week. I added some into my chicken braise. I also stirred a whole bunch of lemon paste into Greek yogurt, and I sweetened it again with agave syrup, which I always just have around. And then I turned that into frozen yogurt that I used my, like, handy dandy new ninja creamy like, tool for. But also, you could just eat delicious Greek yogurt or labneh with preserved lemon paste and a little agave syrup stirred in as a delicious creamy dessert. Oh. Another way I like using it is to make a lemon cake. So what you might think of as, like, your lemon bundt cake, your lemon loaf cake. I have a recipe in the book for a really simple lemon cake using lemon paste. Because again, it's just, like, you don't have to squeeze or juice any lemons. You just got your lemon paste. But I would say start adding a little bit to everything, and you will find out where you like to use it, because there is not a place I've added it where I've regretted it.
- [45:20]
C
You know, your salty lemon soda makes me think of another use for one of her other ingredients, the tamarind paste. Oh, have you ever had tamarind soda?
- [45:29]
B
No, but that sounds delicious. A sweet and sour. You could probably just go straight tamarind paste and fizzy water and call it a day.
- [45:36]
C
And maybe a little mint.
- [45:37]
B
Ooh, delicious. Well, one of my favorite recipes of all time is a tamarind date chutney from Niloufer Itchaporia King's book called My Bombay Kitchen. I refer to this book all the time. It's one of my, like, favorites. And, you know, she teaches you how to do it from tamarind in the pod. But if you have the paste, you're already five steps ahead, and you can just mix it with some dates.
- [46:01]
C
It would be great if all of the recommendations for all of her condiments were just make a soda. Make a black garlic paste soda, gochujang soda. I bet some of these would work as mixers for, you know, fancy experimental cocktails. Yeah.
- [46:17]
B
Okay, here we go. Date and tamarind chutney. She just uses equal parts pitted dates and tamarind pulp mixed with salt and chili powder and cumin. You could just do a little pinch of each salt to taste. And then she uses jaggery, which is the Indian, like, sort of answer to brown sugar.
- [46:38]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:39]
B
But if you don't have jaggery. You can just use brown sugar to sweeten it and you get that. Delicious. The dates are such a nice compliment to the tamarind. But this is all to say if you don't want to make tamarind date chutney, you could make a delicious tamarind date soda. You could use dates or date syrup to sweeten your tamarind. And that would be a really refreshing soda, I think also. Yeah, with a little mint garnish would be really nice.
- [47:03]
D
Yeah.
- [47:04]
B
I believe in you, Rebecca. Like all of these are winners. Also, look to Eric Kim for gochujang recipes. There's no shortage. He has a million of them.
- [47:14]
C
Samin, did I tell you about the Netflix show Culinary Class Wars?
- [47:21]
B
No.
- [47:21]
C
I really loved that show. I was just thinking about it because there's a whole theme in one of the episodes about the three Jiangs. The three.
- [47:29]
B
Oh, tell me more.
- [47:32]
C
Well, I'll just let you watch the episode. Okay. I'll just tell everybody. I'm just gonna throw that out as a food related wreck. I found it very entertaining. A slightly stressful competition show.
- [47:41]
B
Just how I want to spend my free time. Yeah.
- [47:45]
C
Okay. Go pre order Samin's book and come see us on the road. Come visit us when we're in San Francisco. When we're in la. Maybe I'll be with Samin in other places. But regardless, she'll be with other people. People she likes much more than me.
- [47:59]
B
Yeah, people way better than Rishi.
- [48:01]
C
Yeah. Yeah. Think of me as the Persian saffron of this tour.
- [48:10]
B
I mean, I didn't even catch how he summed up Afghani saffron. He kind of just.
- [48:14]
C
I don't think he did.
- [48:15]
B
Yeah, he was like, I'm getting that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you might be the Afghani saffron.
- [48:22]
C
Honestly, who knows?
- [48:23]
B
Who knows?
- [48:25]
C
But you'll definitely be getting some Kashmiri saffron of guests in the other places. But that's going to be really fun. I'm so excited for people to get to read your book. I have started diving into it and I love it already and I'm excited to get to talk to you about it on stage. I'm excited to do a live event with you.
- [48:47]
B
Yeah. I think the people who will come see us will bring such a good energy into the room.
- [48:52]
C
Yeah.
- [48:52]
B
And I'm really excited for myself to get to feel that, but also for everyone to get to experience that.
- [48:58]
C
So go pre order the book and get a ticket.
- [49:00]
B
You can find recipes, transcripts and resources at Homecooking show or@shrimpjanga.com Rishi really wants you to know that we're still paying $10 a year for that. So like make use.
- [49:11]
C
It gives me 14.
- [49:12]
B
Okay, $14 a year for that URL. So let's make good use of it. Someone please go click and we also have merch at homecooking show Merch.
- [49:22]
C
Yeah, we still have our home Cooking sweatshirt and the Shrimp Jenga Forever shirts.
- [49:27]
B
And maybe eventually we'll have a Sume Shunkle like some something about Kashmiri saffron or bust. Yeah.
- [49:35]
C
This episode was made with help from Mary Dole, Nolan, Amalia Mourinho and Zach McNeese.
- [49:40]
B
Mamie Reingold does our artwork and Rishi made our music. By the way, did you know that he scored a freaking hit movie? Go see Companion if you haven't yet and listen to Rishi's beautiful score for it.
- [49:53]
C
Samin is on Instagram at Chow Samin which is Also her website, chowsamine.com C I A O We're to about proud member of prx, a collection of independent listener supported artist owned podcasts. You can learn more about all of our shows at Radiotopia fm.
- [50:12]
B
Thanks for tuning in.
- [50:15]
C
We'll be back in the fall with more episodes.
- [50:18]
B
Stay healthy, eat well and take care of each other.
- [50:22]
C
Thanks for listening.
- [50:23]
B
I'm Samin.
- [50:24]
C
And I'm Rishi and we'll be home.
- [50:26]
B
Cooking Radiotopia.
- [50:38]
H
From prx.