Today’s tip is from Chef Johnny Gnall. If you have questions or suggestions for tips, email Chef Johnny.

Home cooks can get intimidated by the thought of trying new ingredients. There’s a time-and-money issue of experimenting with something that might not turn out well.

But cooking is exploration. Sometimes explorers find that the trip yields nothing exciting, other times they happen upon a game-changer. With all the information and recipes on the Internet, you‘ve got all you need to add vivid new flavors to your cooking.

Ever heard of galangal (pronounced guh-LAHNG-ull, with a broad “a,” also called galanga and blue ginger)? Native to Indonesia, it is best known in America as an herb that flavors Thai soups.

Galangal. It looks like ginger but is used in a very different way. Don’t be intimidated by it! Photo by Piano Non Troppo | Wikimedia.

A member of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, galangal is similar in appearance to ginger; but instead of ginger’s spice heat, it delivers an earthy, complex favor profile with notes of citrus, pine and cedar (and it’s usually removed prior to serving, not consumed in the same way as ginger). It’s also delicious in stews and stir-fries.

Once you know what something tastes like—kaffir lime or shrimp paste, for example—you can add it to your favorite recipes to give them new life.

DON’T BE INGREDIEN-TIMIDATED

Unleash your inner explorer and plan to try a new ingredient every month. Your supermarket may have enough to start you off—from enoki mushrooms in the produce department, quinoa with the grains, and the spice rack (check out black cardamom, cubeb pepper, fenugreek, grains of paradise, mastic, za’atar and many others).

Next, look up international markets and produce stores in your area and go browsing. If there are no local markets, search on the internet. Peruse African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern grocery sites.

Then, make yourself a list of 12 ingredients you want to try over the next year. Here are some ideas to start you off:

Could he have known that a substantial number of Americans—junk food lovers—would come to see the term as a positive? No doubt, if someone were to establish a chain called The Junk Food Food Court, the lines would be out the door. (Note that if you take this concept and run with it, you owe THE NIBBLE a royalty, which we will put to the service of healthier-eating awareness.)

In his series of Eat This, Not That books, David Zinczenko has done a great boon to America by pointing out the horrors in our diet: the salty, sugary and fat-laden foods we consume. While we know they are not good for us, we never realized how bad they were until he garnered so much media attention.

UNJUNK YOUR JUNK FOOD

The first book is Unjunk Your Junk Food: Healthy Alternatives to Conventional Snacks, by Andrea Donsky and Randy Boyer with Lisa Tsakos.

The premise is that you don’t have to give up junk food to eat healthy; just make smarter choices.

As such, the book features some 175 favorite brands of junk food, from candy and chocolate, to cookies and ice cream novelties, to chips and dips, to sodas and other beverages. It showcases the “bad food” on the left hand page, with the better alternative on the facing page.

Equally as important, the book explains why, giving a detailed comparison that is both enlightening and interesting. In addition to the specific food comparisons, there are helpful overviews and glossaries: basic nutrition, bad ingredients to watch out for and things even a ten-year-old can understand and appreciate.

In fact, we really like this book for both kids and adults. Instead of demanding change, it confers upon the reader a great understanding of the differences between good and bad ingredients, while providing a more-than-satisfactory alternative for each bad food.
 
Even though we don’t eat much junk food, we were enlightened by:

VEGAN JUNK FOOD

While Unjunk Your Junk Food truly is about junk food, Vegan Junk Food, by Lane Gold, is misnamed. We’d call it Vegan Comfort Food. Perhaps because there were already a few titles that focus on vegan comfort food, the publisher wanted a point of differentiation. Instead, it’s a point of confusion. This is a vegan cookbook focusing on popular comfort foods.

While we’re at it, we also don’t like the subtitle, “225 Sinful Snacks That Are Good For The Soul.” Again, there are some snacks (caramel popcorn, cookies) but the majority of the recipes are meal items, not snacks.

We also don’t find it inviting to call food “sinful” or that other misused word, “decadent.” And we wager that no cleric would agree that sinful undertakings are “good for the soul.”

 
It’s an inexpensive book ($11.17 on Amazon.com), so we can forgive the limited number of photos. Everyone knows what cheesecake, dip, fried rice and muffins look like.

We recommend this book for every person/family who enjoys these foods, because eating vegan as often as you can is your contribution to saving the planet.* Not to mention all the cholesterol saved.
 
*Animal manure is the number-one component of greenhouse gas (which produces climate change, a.k.a. global warming); raising animals depletes and pollutes water tables and a whole bunch more reasons we’ll cover on Earth Day.

[1] Homemade curry powder (photo © Savory Spice Shop | Facebook).

[2] Coconut chicken curry with basmati saffron rice (photo © Cafe Spice).

[3] Fish curry (photo © Sun Basket).

[4] Keema curry, an Indian curry made of ground meat and minced vegetables (photo © Hannah Kaminsky | Bittersweet Blog).

[5] Goat curry (photo © AG Local [now closed] ).

Today’s tip is a teaching moment from Chef Johnny Gnall. If you have questions or suggestions for tips, email Chef Johnny.

If you produce your own seasonings, you have the discretion to alter them to fit your preferences, whether they be increasing the heat, decreasing the garlic or making whatever changes suit you.

Here are two Asian seasonings for you to make, store, and use: curry powder and chile oil.

They’re easy to make, and you can use them in everything from breakfast eggs and luncheon salads to dinner recipes.

You can give them as gifts, too: delicious ingredients with a personal touch.

Make them in small batches at first, until you reach a level of comfort with the process.

Once you have it down, you can make quarts or more at a time and have them in your pantry for use in specific recipes, or to experiment with—or that last-minute gift.
 
 
RECIPE #1: MAKE YOUR OWN CURRY POWDER

This recipe is for a very basic curry powder. Curry powders you buy at the grocery store tend to be pretty generic (especially the domestic products made for the “American palate”), so you really are better off creating your own. It will save you money and enable you to bring out the flavors that you prefer. Throughout India and Asia, each household and restaurant has its proprietary recipe.

> The chile oil recipe is below.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. It’s a good idea to toast your spices in a pan over medium-high heat, tossing as you do so; it will make your curry powder that much more aromatic and flavorful.

2. You can use a food processor or blender to combine the spices, or just mix them thoroughly with a wire whisk. Mix thoroughly and store in a tightly-capped jar or bottle.

Variations

 
 
THE HISTORY OF CURRY

Curry is both a spice blend and a variety of dishes in a sauce prepared with a blend of curry spices. Ingredients in both the spice blends and the dishes made with them vary widely.

To make matters more complex, there is also the kari plant, the sweet, aromatic leaves of which are used in southern and southwestern Indian regional cooking. They can be added to curry dishes separately or in a curry powder.

While blends varied by region and household, they usually included cumin, coriander, fresh or dried chilies, ginger, and turmeric.

When not referring to a spice blend, curry generally describes dishes prepared in a sauce.

In the West, curry has come to mean a dish (meat, seafood, vegetable) in a sauce or gravy seasoned with a complex mixture of ground spices, with different levels of heat.

And it still refers to the curry powder itself.

Some sources say the word derives from the Tamil kari, meaning black pepper according to some historians. Other historians say it refers to a lightly spiced sauce. In contemporary Tamil Nadu, kari, in many contexts refers to meat. Here’s more about it.

The Curry Spice Blend

The foundation of many Indian curry dishes is a mixture of onion, ginger, and garlic flavored with several spices or a blend.

The blend typically includes a selection of cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel seed, fenugreek, mustard seed, black and red (cayenne) pepper, and turmeric (which imparts the characteristic yellow of the more familiar [to Americans] curry powder), all toasted and finely ground.

Other ingredients may include curry leaves (Murraya koenigii), chilies, nutmeg, mace, poppy seed, star anise, and bay leaves. Each region of the country has its own flavor profile, and each cook has his/her own preferred blend.

Archaeological evidence from modern-day Pakistan (which borders modern-day India), dating to 2600 B.C.E., suggests a mortar and pestle were used to grind spices including mustard, fennel, cumin, and tamarind pods.

Another spice often included in curry powder, black pepper is native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia and has been known to Indian cooking since at least 2000 B.C.E. [source].

Evidence for a blend of spices that came to indicate a complex mixture of spices and herbs, including the aforementioned spices joined by garlic, ginger, and turmeric (later known as kari), dates to 2500 B.C.E.

As people migrated and brought their recipes with them, many varieties of curry evolved.

The next significant influence was the establishment of the Portuguese trading center in Goa in 1510. Kari was transcribed as “curry” by Portuguese traders.

This recipe is for a fermented chile oil—much more complex than a store-bought chile oil.

Says Chef Johnny: “I absolutely love oils like this. The fermentation develops the flavor in a unique way and brings out umami, which makes a recipe that much better.

“Drizzle it into soups for a garnish-with-a-kick; add some to salad dressings, sauces, and marinades; use as a dipping oil; finish a sauté. It can be substituted wherever oil is used as a condiment, alone or in combination with a mild oil.”

Ingredients

1. Combine the flavor ingredients in the oil and heat over medium-low heat, to about 150°F (use a kitchen thermometer).

2. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Once cool, transfer to a jar or other lidded container and cap tightly.

3. Let the mixture sit for at least a week, preferably two weeks; then it’s ready to go. It’s interesting to see how the flavors develop and change as the fermentation process takes place.

4. Once you’ve made a successful (to your preference) batch, you can try versions with other herbs and aromatics. For gifts, tie a ribbon around the neck of a bottle and use your computer printer to create a gift label.
 
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*The Columbian Exchange, also known as the Columbian Interchange, was the widespread transfer of animals, plants, precious metals, commodities, culture, human populations, technology—and yes, diseases—between the New World (the Americas) in the Western Hemisphere, and the Old World (Afro-Eurasia) in the Eastern Hemisphere, in the late 15th and following centuries.
 
 

Chocolate povitica: a winner. Photo courtesy
Strawberry Hill.

It is, as we discovered, an eastern European yeast cake similar to Russian babka—but better. Richer. More dense and buttery. And some flavors have cream cheese, which opens the door to cake and pastry heaven.

After tasting the first three flavors, we knew that Strawberry Hill Povitica would be a Top Pick Of The Week. Then, eight more loaf cakes arrived.

In handsome, reusable boxes, these scrumptious cakes, often in beautiful patterns, are at the top of our list for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts. We’ve become big fans of Strawberry Hill—as will anyone who takes a bite of their povitica.

Read the full review, check out all 12 flavors and our top three favorites.

See all the different types of cake in our Cake Glossary.

Looking for dinner salad ideas? Look no further than this alluring interpretation we had at Orsay, a restaurant in Manhattan that specializes in classic brasserie fare (with some modern dishes like this French-style “dinner salad”).

You can also serve it as a luncheon salad, or as a first course to a larger meal.

The concept is simple: Cook your protein and top it with a salad of dressed baby lettuces. Here’s the easy recipe template:

1. BASE LAYER: VEGETABLE OR STARCH. In the photo, a round of roasted winter squash is used as the base. Instead of squash, you can use any starch or vegetable: rice, mashed white or sweet potatoes, cucumber salad, tabbouleh or your favorite braised, grilled, steamed, sautéed or grilled vegetables (we like sautéed spinach or kale). If you want more salad, use salad as the base. Or, you can skip the base entirely.

3. TOP LAYER: SALAD. We buy mixed baby greens (mesclun) and snip in some fresh herbs, typically basil, cilantro or parsley. You can use one lettuce, such as frisée or radicchio, or whatever appeals to you at the market.

4. OPTIONAL SAUCE. Serve with lemon mayonnaise (add 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice to 1/2 cup mayonnaise), aioli (garlic mayonnaise, or a mustard-mayonnaise blend [use Dijon or grainy mustard]). The chef at Orsay added drops of mango purée to create a lemon-mango sauce.

5. OPTIONAL GARNISH. Use chives, shaved Parmesan curls, crumbled blue or goat cheese, or whatever you have in house, from an artichoke heart or water chestnuts, to a strip of grilled red pepper for color. A bit of fresh fruit also works: a slice of apple or mango, a halved grape or even crispy dried apple chips.
 
Have fun playing with the template.
 
Find more of our favorite salad recipes.