Lucie Monk Carter
The Paprika Mustard Sauce led to an enjoyable hunt for the evocative Grains of Paradise, ending at Red Stick Spice Company.
Learning to cook is a wise investment—I haven’t resorted to a Hot Pocket or a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme, two former staples, in close to a decade now—but I’ll admit I’m reckless with my grocery lists in pursuit of a new cuisine. Forking over sixty dollars to the Vinh Phat Market cashier for plastic bags crinkling with novel ingredients, I think, It’s fine, I’m making gulai ayam! But once that particular Indonesian curry is done and devoured, into the cabinet go the cardamom pods, candlenuts, and fennel seeds, undepleted until the mood strikes again a year later.
I’m counting on Cooking with Spices: 100 Recipes for Blends, Sauces, & Marinades from Around the World to help me sift through the surplus. Mark C. Stevens’ new cookbook takes a granular view of the kitchen, and the result is an easygoing, enthusiastic resource for what flavors work together and why. Did you know turmeric, ginger’s cousin and an “anti-inflammatory powerhouse,” will sing on shrimp? (Especially with a handful of cilantro.) Or that juniper loves rosemary? Would you come around to the pungent asafoetida if you heard that, once cooked, its garlicky flavor shines in a Chaat Masala blend?
There’s far too much information in Cooking with Spices to commit to memory—get ready to dog-ear—but Stevens’ thorough, multidimensional approach will linger as you come to understand the varied roles a tiny seed can play. His explanation of the proper treatment and storage of spices is helpful while humbling. (I’ve had the bad taste to let some spices age—as it happens, ground spices typically keep for only six months to a year. Sorry about that, Grandpapa Paprika.) Historical tidbits, some wildly fun, are scattered throughout: while it won’t revolutionize my cooking to know that cloves spread worldwide after Pierre Poivre (allegedly the inspiration for the tongue-twisting Peter Piper) smuggled the nail-like buds out of a determined Dutch monopoly in the Spice Islands in today’s Indonesia, it should sweeten my chances of a future trivia night win.
If you’re seeking an armchair-traveler’s thrill, spices are grouped into chapters by the region with which they’re most associated; brief histories and characteristics of each spice are followed by recipes for marinades, sauces, and pastes to put your new knowledge into action. Touching on India, the South Pacific, Europe and the Mediterranean, and other distant points, Stevens, an Italian American who now resides in New Orleans and works in the film industry, cites his own extensive travels as he educates and advises. (And he’s charismatic enough to pull off a casual “My favorite paratha [Indian flatbread] is seasoned with toasted ajowan seeds” without reader envy curdling into dislike.) Should you be in the market for home remedies, Stevens shares recipes for Asthma Tea and Throat Tea. And most helpfully, to me, he provides columns of flavor pairings between spices and various fruits, vegetables, nuts, and proteins. Making use of Cooking with Spices can be as straightforward as sprinkling amchur, a dried mango powder, on shellfish or as involved as combining eighteen ingredients (including onions and garlic sautéed in coconut oil and crushed peanuts) for a Thai Satay Marinade, which then calls for a minimum of three hours in the fridge.
The recipes within Cooking with Spices—some crafted by Stevens and others contributed by family and venerable friends, like Chef Beeta Mohajeri, a veteran of Commander’s Palace—are purposely open-ended, suggesting proteins and other applications but leaving it to the reader to connect the dots; though if you’re a cook who prefers as much direction as possible, the indication that the Peach-Plum Sauce complements scallops could feasibly be fed into Google for further details.
In my own kitchen, I followed to the letter the book’s recipes for Miso Doko Marinade (with ginger, sake, and miso elevating boneless, skinless chicken breasts) and Paprika Mustard Sauce (which I brushed over baked salmon). In a more adventurous mood, I whisked together the Asian Cold Noodle Dressing but went for soba noodles, rather than Stevens’ suggestions of fettuccine, vermicelli, or linguine, and swapped stemmed watercress and bell peppers for satsumas and snap peas. I enjoyed the spirit of the Vadouvan-Lassi Poultry Marinade, which combines an aromatic curry blend with lassi, an Indian yogurt, but adapted the flavors into turkey chickpea chili (with garlic naan for dipping). I’ve been motivated, too, to stuff hasselback butternut squash with sage and nutmeg, sprinkle potatoes with allspice, and roast green beans with cardamom. My spice cabinet doors are swinging open and shut, my mortar and pestle stay busy, and my Vinh Phat grocery list is—well, it’s as long as ever, but with the promise of more than one meal at its end.
Mark C. Stevens
Rockridge Press, 2017
Paperback, 284 pages
$14.25
