Recipes
Mary’s Salsa Roja
This is my Mom's recipe. The smell of this sauce perfumed my childhood weekly. Native to Chihuahua in Northern Mexico, this salsa roja is the base for many staple dishes in Mexican cuisine. Guajillo chiles are the foundation and they get seasoned with garden herbs like Mexican oregano, thyme, bay leaf and garlic. If you've never played with whole chiles, this sauce is a great staple to learn.
Learn moreMelange Classique
This fanciful French blend combines nutmeg and pepper with a healthy harvest from the herb garden, to satisfy all your taste buds. Melange Classique is an all purpose seasoning for stews and roasts, pate, stuffing and bean dishes. Melange Classique will work well as a rub on any meat, particularly lamb, duck and pork.
Learn moreHerbes de la Garrigue
Herbes de la Garrigue is similar to the more famous herb blend from Provence but with the hearty additions of rosemary, fennel, mint and Turkish bay leaf. Try it on grilled meats, to flavor home baked breads, in a pot of soup, or anywhere you'd like some of the rustic flavors from southwestern France.
Learn moreChole
We loved Chetna Makan on "Great British Bake Off" and her first cookbook, The Cardamom Trail was full of many flavorful and stunningly photographed dishes. For Chai, Chaat & Chutney: a street food tour through India, she returned home to India and the street food that she grew up on. The book has four chapters that are organized by cities that make up the four corners of India - Chennai, Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), Mumbai and Delhi. The fifth chapter? All masala and chutney recipes. Some recipes will look or sound familiar, others will not...but the photos and descriptions of the food will make you want to eat (or drink!) all of them. If you love Indian food or any form of street food, this is the cookbook for you! This recipe is a wonderful example how curries in the North of India use lots of fragrant and aromatic spices to make this mouth-watering vegetarian curry made with chickpeas.From the author: "One of the ultimate curries of the North, this chickpea curry is often paired with Bhatura, a deep-fried flatbread sold piping hot originally on the streets of Delhi but, now, all over the country. This combination should be on everyone’s must-try list when visiting India. You can keep it light by eating this curry with rice or chapatti, if preferred."
Learn moreSpicy Fish Salad
The countries in the Persian culinary region are home to many religions, languages, cultures and politics. In culinary traditions, however, they all have a deep love for food that has tart flavors and is fresh and colorful. You'll find fresh herbs at every meal and colorful ingredient used such as pomegranates and saffron. Naomi Duguid's Taste of Persia shows us through delicious recipes and fascinating stories how diverse and wonderful this region is. This gorgeous looking salad uses poached fish and makes for something a little bit different for any meal. From the author: "Kuchmachi is a Georgian dish that’s most often made of simmered chicken or beef or lamb, a kind of meat salad dressed with a savory rich walnut sauce and served at room temperature. This version is made with poached fish. I first tasted a version of fish kuchmachi at a Palm Sunday fasting feast in Akhalkalaki hosted by the Bishop of Javakheti. The guests, most of whom were keeping the Lenten fast (no animal products except for a few days when fish is permitted), were happy to be able to eat fish on this special day. Outside, the landscape was spare and beautiful, with snow capped peaks on the horizon. Not far away lay the borders with Turkey and Armenia. Serve this on a hot day as a main course with an assortment of salads, or serve it as one course in a winter feast, preceded by a clear soup and followed by roast meat or roast vegetables."
Learn moreChicken Drumsticks with Spices and Coconut Milk
This lovely recipe comes from Béatrice Peltre's My French Family Table. This recipe is one of the author's favorite chicken "go to recipes" for when she needs a dose of delicious comfort food.From the Author: "When I'm thinking about comfort food that involves chicken, I like to imagine the sauce that will come with it, something wonderful to flavor a bowl of steaming grains such as brown rice, millet, or quinoa on the side. The sauce in this chicken dish is packed with many of my favorite aromas, from an array of fresh-scented herbs and spices - what's not to love about saffron? - to the flavors of lime juice and coconut milk. I always hope there will be leftovers for the next day so I can have a quiet lunch at home when Lulu is at school and Philip is at the office."
Learn moreMummy's Nutty Saffron Rice
If you're looking for a spectacular side dish, perfect for any dinner, look no further than this delicious Saffron Rice. It's easier to make than you might think...but you don't have to let anyone know that. We saw this dish in Summers Under The Tamarind Tree: Recipes and memories from Pakistan, and knew that we had to get permission from author Sumayya Usmani to share it with everyone.From the Author: " I was never fond of raisins and rice as a child, but as my taste buds matured, I realized that my mother's Persian-influenced recipe is a spectacular yet simple midweek rice dish, a good accompaniment...The saffron is infused in the water that cooks the rice, much like a pulao, and it gives the final dish a rather elegant biryani look."
Learn moreFODMAP Friendly Salmon Chowder
This salmon chowder recipe is missing some surprising ingredients! Onions and garlic are two of the most challenging foods to eliminate for the FODMAP diet, and two of the most critical! Enter Asafoetida, the perfect spice to add flavors of onion and garlic without using the vegetables themselves. This intensely pungent spice fills the gap nicely when you have to eliminate these essential ingredients. It infuses loads of flavor into this chowder alongside Herbes de Provence and Urfa Biber. You won't believe we've left out the onion and garlic.Baking the sweet potato and roasting the vegetables before adding them to the soup intensifies their flavor, and we've added a sprinkle of spice to each step to really spread the flavors around.
Learn moreSouthwest Pumpkin Soup
This southwest pumpkin soup is a delicious fall treat, perfectly spiced with warm heat from our Chorizo Bomb. Sultry smoke from our perennial favorite, smoked paprika, rounds out the taste. Cooking your own pumpkin for this recipe is really easy, but the canned pureé works fine as well. Serve it up with crusty bread and a nice porter or stout and you’ve got an instant Oktoberfest!
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