On Salt and Pepper

Yesterday during lunch I had the opportunity to observe several tables as they received their food. At three different tables, one of the guests on receiving his food immediately grabbed the salt and pepper mills and even before tasting the food, ground salt and pepper all over it.

Why wouldn't a guest at least taste the food before seasoning it?

As a chef, shouldn't I feel slighted that customers assault the food in this manner?

Over the years, I've seen firsthand that we all have tastebuds that vary remarkably. And so to answer the question, I'm not slighted when customers do this. That's why there are salt and pepper grinders on the table in the first place. Although it is beyond me why people don't taste before seasoning.

This reminds me of the flap years ago when the late and quirky Jean-Louis Palladin at the Watergate Hotel in DC refused to put salt and pepper on the table and refused to let the servers bring salt and pepper to the customers. I liked the man, his food, talent, and passion, but not his resistance to letting customers season food at the table.

Sure, when I send food to the table, I've sent it out how I want it seasoned, but seriously, what is the big deal if customers reseason it? As long as they don't complain about my seasoning and as long as they are happy, I'm happy.

Because seasoning is so subjective and palates are so widely variable, there is no one correct seasoning level. Knowing this, the only thing that I can do is make food that tastes good to me. But over the years, I have also learned to trust my palate. If it tastes good to me, experience shows that it is going to taste good to the vast majority of my customers.

Young chefs everywhere, learn to trust your palate. And just look the other way if your customers add more seasoning. They're not questioning your ability, just making things to their liking.

Black Gold, Part Two

My previous post entitled Black Gold was about the bounty of black truffles that we had and still have in our walk-in (three pounds of Oregon black truffles are newly arrived this week). This post deals with another black gold that is just making its way onto the market: Black Garlic. And you see that it is truly black in this photo.

I first heard of it last fall via the chef grapevine when it hit the menus at Charlie Trotter's (we buy from a lot of the same vendors), but until just recently, it's been very hard for me to source, out here in the boonies like I am. This week I was able to get my first shipment and I now understand what the fuss is all about: it was love at first bite.

Black garlic is a cooked and fermented product that is everything that roasted garlic wants to be when it grows up. It is soft and sticky like candy, a little bit chewy in the same way that fudge has some tooth, supersweet but not cloyingly so like licorice root or Stevia, with a midpalate of molasses and a hint of licorice, and a lingering sweet garlic essence, everything that you want in garlic ice cream.

It is so good that I could eat $50 worth (yeah, it's still really expensive) just like candy. And although my mind is running at warp speed with visions of all kinds of sweet applications (e.g., black garlic-chocolate flan), my first foray with the garlic was to enrich a savory sauce and to use slices of the garlic as garnish on the dish.

We red-cooked local lamb shortribs (braised in soy, black vinegar, mirin, and duck stock with ginger, garlic, black pepper, star anise, cinnamon, and green onions), then strained the sauce, reduced it with brown sugar, and blitzed in black garlic with an immersion blender. Then we portioned the ribs and grilled them to order using the sauce as a barbeque glaze. The ribs were plated on a fried rice cake and garnished with more sauce, black garlic slices, white sesame seeds, and a scallion brush. Fantastic!

For more information, see the producer's web site blackgarlic.com and the Washington Post article Inventive Chefs and the Rise of an 'It' Ingredient.

Black Pepper

This post is for Keith, whose inquiring mind wants to know about the various forms of black pepper (Piper nigrum). You can see the four forms in this bowl of mixed pepper that we put in our tabletop pepper grinders: black, white, green, and pink.

The black pepper vine, native to south India, produces very thinly fleshed, tiny fruits that are deep red when ripe. The pepper that we know as black pepper comes from the green unripe fruits, which are cooked for a short time in hot water. As the fruits dry, enzymatic action browns the fruit and it shrivels around the seed, producing the familiar black peppercorn.

If the fruit is soaked in water for a longer period, the flesh comes away and after further processing to remove all the flesh, only the seed is left. Some manufacturers also use mechanical processes to strip the flesh from the seeds. The seed is greyish in color and is known as a white peppercorn.

Green peppercorns are dried unripe fruits. To preserve their color, they are freeze-dried or treated with sulfur dioxide. Pink/red peppercorns are the ripe fruit treated in the same manner. Green and pink/red peppercorns are also pickled.

There are also unrelated plants from South America that produce bright red berries that are similarly spicy and are sometimes called pink pepper.

Salt

I know that you’re probably thinking that salt is salt, that salt is white, and that there’s nothing new about salt to learn. But are you sure? Think about the kinds of salt that you already know: there’s the iodized and fine-grained refined salt that you use on your table, there’s the rock salt that you use for melting snow and making ice cream, there’s Kosher salt, there’s the sea salt that you see in the grocery but probably never buy, and if you’re into food, perhaps you’ve heard of fleur de sel.

So you really do know that salt just isn’t one single white, refined, fine-grained seasoning. In fact, salt comes in myriad forms and colors from all over the world. And each salt has different flavors. Years ago, my wife was skeptical that you can really taste the difference, so we set up a tasting of all the salts that we had in the house: Morton’s iodized table salt, Morton’s Kosher salt, La Baleine Fine Sea Salt, and fleur de sel. The very expensive fleur de sel was easily the best with the least salty and the most complex flavor, the sea salt was next, then the kosher, and we figured out that Morton’s iodized is not worth having in the house and it hasn't been in more than 15 years.

Salt has been a prized seasoning since the beginning of time and up until modern times, extraordinarily valuable. From this value derives the word salary and the phrase “worth his salt.” Mark Kurlansky, known for taking esoteric subjects and creating enjoyably readable books from them, has tackled the subject in his book Salt: A World History. Although lacking any real ties to the culinary arena, this world history told from the perspective of salt is an engaging read and I recommend it highly, if you like history.

Here’s an overview of the salts that we use in the restaurant:

Morton’s Kosher Salt. This is our workhorse salt at the restaurant. It looks good on food, it tastes good, it sticks less to our fingers than fine salt, and it is less likely to be sucked up the vent hood than fine salt. And what a battle it is to find it. Fortunately, our grocery store carries it, so we buy it at retail just like you. All our distributors carry other brands and they are awful by comparison. The term kosher is misleading; the salt is not per se kosher, but it is used in the act of koshering meats.

Fleur de Sel. Fleur de sel (salt flowers) is the French name for salt crystals that form on the surface of salt ponds and are skimmed off with a special rake, as has been done for centuries. The crystals have a delicate texture, a pleasant crunch, and are always off-white in color reflecting the mineral content of the salt. Each body of water produces a slightly different taste and color because the mineral content of the water is different. These minerals, missing from refined table salt, are what give fleur de sel its unique flavor. The proper role for fleur de sel is as a finishing salt. Just a little bit sprinkled over a dish right before the table lends a pleasant saltiness and crunch. You may see fleur de sel referred to as sel gris (grey salt, because it is off-white).

Mallorcan Black Olive-Flavored Flor de Sal. We use a black olive-flavored fleur de sel (flor de sal in Spanish) made by mixing the salt with ground black olives. This is an incomparable finishing salt for roasted fish, lending a subtle and delicious Mediterranean flavor.

Smoked Sea Salt. Sometimes, we don’t have the time or the means to smoke something and yet we want a smoky flavor. When chipotle peppers would be too spicy or bacon would destroy a vegetarian dish, we might reach for the jar of smoked sea salt. It is very aggressively flavored, so we use it only in tiny amounts. It’s not for everyone, but we are happy to have it in our arsenal.

Himalayan Pink Salt. We fill the salt mills on our tables with Himalayan pink salt that we get from Pakistan via France. The pink tint indicates that the salt contains iron oxides. We use it for its beautiful color on the table.

Hurts So Good!

From time to time, I donate private cooking lessons and dinner to various organizations to auction for a fundraiser. This weekend, I did dinner for eight and the high bidders wanted me to demonstrate dishes with lamb ("but not chops"). For some reason, I was in the mood for North African food or other Arab-inflected food, so I cooked up a tagine, a couscous, a couple of other dishes, and a big batch of harissa.

Harissa is a common red chile-based table sauce or condiment in North Africa (and naturally in the south of France because of the immigrants from North Africa). Although it is available commercially, I can make a quart of it in less than two minutes from ingredients that I already have on hand in my pantry and it tastes better than any canned product I’ve ever tasted. I truly love harissa and am always looking for a chance to introduce newcomers to it.

I don't think any of my guests were familiar with harissa, based on the questions they were asking. One of them said, "this tastes like hot sauce with flavor!" I noticed at first everyone was being very careful about the harissa—it is very spicy—but that most everyone kept tasting and tasting it. Yes, it hurts so good!

This is my personal spice mix scaled to non-restaurant proportions—adjust it to your taste. Also, I never measure anything; I just eyeball the ingredients and then adjust the seasoning depending on my mood.

2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 cup sambal oelek* (or other crushed chile paste)
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pimentón (smoked paprika)
Juice of one lemon
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Toast the seeds in a pan over medium flame, tossing or stirring, until warm and fragrant. Grind half the seeds immediately in a spice mill. Mix the whole seeds, the ground seeds, and all the other ingredients, then taste for seasoning. Excellent with couscous, lamb, chickpeas, eggplant, and so forth. Tastes better after a day or so in the refrigerator.

*Sambal oelek is not traditional. In Africa, rehydrated dried red chiles (or sometimes fresh red chiles) are ground in a mortar. I just skip that step and use Huy Fong's sambal oelek, which we buy by the gallon. Nor is pimentón authentic. But many times harissa is made from chiles dried over a smoky fire, as are the peppers that are ground to become pimentón.

Curry Powder

I'm a huge fan of Indian food. I love big flavors and Indian food combines all kinds of spices to deliver big flavor. And, the cuisine in India is so broad with so many regional variations that I never get tired of it. My wife and I have had the conversation many times that if our diets were restricted to the food from a single country—heaven forbid!—it would be from India. Who else in the world combines green beans, coconut, and mustard seeds into an amazing taste and texture sensation? (Oops, my northern friends are going to kill me for mentioning a canonical southern dish!)

With this love of Indian cooking, about 20 years ago I started teaching myself how to cook Indian food, but more importantly, learning the regional metaphors and spice mixes so that I could create my own dishes. When I learn a cuisine, I don't really try to learn individual dishes. I learn how to think in that cuisine, to understand techniques, flavor metaphors, and what ingredients normally go together to make that cuisine unique.

I've learned from a lot of people along the way: from the southern Indians that worked for me in the high tech world, from a crazy Goan chef in Fairfax who taught me all about coconut milk-based fish curries, from eating in dozens of restaurants, from reading dozens of books, from interrogating the proprietors of many Indian groceries, from talking with the cooks at an Afghani kebab shack (northern Indian food is highly similar to a greater pan-central Asian cuisine encompassing food from Iran to Bhutan), and lately, from working side by side with Shiv Kumar at his Sona Restaurant learning his Punjabi take on the cuisine.

It's all been a fascinating journey and yet for all I do know, it's a vast subject and I can see that I only know the very tip of a very, very big iceberg.

One of the first things that any student of Indian cuisine learns is that there is no such thing as "curry powder." Curry powder was no doubt brought to the world by the Brits as a means to bring some of the native Indian flavors back to England. As ubiquitous as curry powder is in the English-speaking world, it is mostly an alien concept in India.

The Indians make various spice mixes called masalas (or sambar podi or paunch phoron) as base flavorings for dishes, yet none of them seem to be close to what we know as standardized curry powder. Each cook's basic masala will be slightly different (but sadly, more and more younger Indians are relying on commercial mixes), lending character and originality to the end dish. Advanced cooks make different mixes for different dishes in the quantity needed for that dish.

Likewise, I have no curry powder. I have developed my own flavor metaphors over the years and I know exactly what spices to use to achieve the end result that I desire. I know that I really like the sweet spices of northern cooking with pork, but that I like a good bit of cumin and less coriander with lamb, and heavy on the garlic. And for gobi (cauliflower), I must have a lot of turmeric and ginger.

That said, I have a somewhat amusing anecdote from the restaurant to relate. As a restaurant that takes pride in creative vegetarian cooking, we see our share of Indians, many of whom are vegetarian. And sometimes we get into conversations about Indian food. Many of them are surprised at my knowledge of Indian cuisine.

But at times my customers assume that as an American, I can't possibly know anything about the subject. One woman in particular comes to mind because after a short conversation, she laid a land mine for me, "So, what brand curry powder do you use?"

Without missing a beat, I said, "Probably the same one that you use."

She hesitated for a couple of pregnant seconds and I could see the "but" forming on her lips. I could also see when my meaning finally came to her, and smart woman that she is, she avoided the mine I left for her. I smiled and wished her well with her dinner.

Today's Word is....Charmoula

I was glancing through an old edition of Food Arts this morning when I saw a reference to lamb with charmoula. In recent days, we've touched on chimichurri (and incidentally on its Italian cousin salsa verde), so why not keep going on the theme of green condiment sauces?

Charmoula, often transliterated from Arabic as chermoula, is the green sauce from northern Africa: Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. The basic theme is a lot of cilantro, a little parsley (3:1 ratio), olive oil, lemon juice, a bit of garlic, and that's about where the commonality in recipes ceases.

Each cook adds his or her own touches to personalize the sauce: ras al hanout, cumin, green chiles, cayenne pepper or paprika, onion, lemon zest or preserved lemon, and so forth. Ras al hanout is another can of worms: it's a blend of many spices such as cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, paprika, cayenne, black pepper and so forth and so on ad nauseum. You think charmoula recipes vary? You should get into a "discussion" someday about the definitive ras al hanout mixture!

This whole thread reminds me that I bought some gorgeous cilantro at the farmers market this morning to accompany my dinner special: Huachinango en Mojo de Ajo (whole roasted red snapper with garlic paste). I'm thinking that charmoula might just be a great finishing touch, but I think we'll call it salsa verde.