• 3 parts ground coriander seed
• 2 parts cumin
• 1 part turmeric
• 1 part paprika
• 2 parts cinnamon
• 1 part ground black pepper
• 3 parts salt (I used gray salt because I’m a bit snobby like that, but table salt works too.)
• 3 parts garlic powder

Put the spices in a bowl. Mix it. Best when rubbed on pork or chicken, though it is also pretty awesome sprinkled on sautéed yellow squash and onions or chick peas.

Posting here so I sort of remember what I did (measurements are approximate).

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 2 lbs. ground turkey
• 1 large onion, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (Dude, use Parmigiano-Reggiano if you can afford it, Grana Padano or domestic parmesan if you can’t. Just FFS don’t use that stuff in a can or plastic jar)
• 1/4 cup romano cheese (Same deal. Pecorino Romano if you can afford it. A domestic alternative if you can’t. Or just double the parmesan).
• 3/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley. (We’re making small meat balls, so we need small bits)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup plain breadcrumbs. You don’t want the mixture to be too moist, but you don’t want it to be too dry either. Bready meatballs are gross.

The rest of the stuff

• 3 quarts of chicken broth or stock
• Two bunches of Lacinato Kale (the smaller, organic-sized bunches; see a photo) chopped into 1″ wide strips. You’ll be eating this with a spoon, so you don’t want the bits to be too ribbon-y. Yes, you can use regular kale if you can’t find Lacinato kale. Lacinato kale is also known as dinosaur kale, black cabbage, black kale, or Tuscan kale.
• 1 cup cooked ancini di pepe or orzo if you can find it. You can use Israeli couscous, if you can find that instead. Don’t try to use fine-grained couscous though. If you plan to eat the soup all in one day, you can add it without cooking. But if you plan to have leftovers, trust me when I say cook the pasta first. Otherwise, it will just suck up all of the broth.
• White salt and black pepper to taste
• Bonus points: Black salt (Kala Namak) to taste. (Check your nearest Indian grocery store).

What to do

Pour the broth / stock into a big enough pot and bring to a boil. Add the kale and turn it down to a simmer. Check it in about 20-25 minutes.

Make the meatballs. Dump all of the meatball ingredients in an appropriately-sized bowl, and mix with your hands until blended. Don’t mix it too much though. Then you’ll have tough turkey balls. Once the ingredients are blended, start rolling it into meatballs that are 1/2 to 1″ in diameter. Whichever size you choose, though, make them uniform(-ish) so they cook at the same rate.

About halfway through the meatball making, check your kale. You don’t want it to get too tender too fast. Taste it. If, while in your mouth, it feels like it’s about halfway to being fully-tender, that’s fine. If it feels like it’s further cooked than that, take it off the heat until you’re done rolling meatballs.

When you are done making the meatballs, add them to the broth (if you took it off the heat, remember to put it back on the heat first). Simmer the meatballs in the soup for about 10 minutes. Add the ancini de pepe or Israeli couscous, and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes or so. During this last 10 minutes is when you should add salt, pepper, and optionally black salt (kala namak) to taste.

A few notes about kala namak black salt.

1. It’s actually not black, but pink.
2. Its sulfur content means that it tastes and smells a bit like not-so-fresh boiled eggs.
3. That egg flavor gives chicken broth-based soups a nice egg-y richness that’s similar to egg drop soup, but without the heft of egg drop soup.
4. Use too much and your mouth will taste like you just sucked on a struck match. A pinch or two per bowl is plenty.

This recipe will yield 8-10 decent-sized bowls of soup.

The story of how chilies got their heat is pretty straightforward. A recent study suggested that capsaicin is an effective defense against a fungus that attacks chili seeds. In fact, experiments have shown that the same species of wild chili plant produces a lot of capsaicin in an environment where the fungus is likely to grow, and very little in drier areas where the fungus is not a danger.

From the New York Times article A Perk of Our Evolution: Pleasure in Pain of Chilies (log-in required)

While reading And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, I came across something known as a shrub — a brew of vinegar, sugar, and berries or ginger used to flavor soda water, or during colonial times, rum and gin.

Though the book described how shrub was made, it didn’t feature a recipe. So I made one up. Feel free to change the proportions to suit your own tastes.

Ingredients

• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 c blueberries
• 3/4 c water
• 1 c sugar

What to do

Mix the vinegar, water and berries in a non-reactive saucepan. Simmer until the berries macerate (become berry pulp). Stir in the sugar, and reduce the mixture to the point where it becomes a thin syrup. If I was paying attention to the clock, when I first made this, I’d guess it takes 20 minutes. But keep an eye on it. You don’t want it to boil over.

The traditional way is to steep the berry-and-vinegar mixture overnight and add sugar the next day. But my way takes less time .

To drink

Add some shrub to the bottom of a glass, top with soda water and ice. Add light rum (10 Cane is a nice one for this) if you want to get a little tipsy.

Also try

• Strawberries
• Blackberries
• Ripe mango

It’s one part obligation to your family. One part obligation to your craft. A dash of showing off, and let’s be honest, one sprinkle of trying to keep your various relatives from fucking up dinner.

Richard Blais of Flip Burger Boutique and Top Chef fame in his blog post Knife’s Edge: Family meal.

For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it has its largest processing plant), and its continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year.

From A Fish Oil Story by Paul Greenburg on the overfishing of menhaden in the Atlantic Ocean.

The H1N1 flu virus that triggered the first influenza pandemic in 40 years seemed to come out of nowhere, but, of course, that wasn’t the case. The virus mutated inside a pig before making the leap to human beings, and scientists have traced it back to a strain that first emerged in U.S. factory pork farms back in 1998.

That’s #7 on the Top 10 Green Ideas list from Time magazine’s 2009 The Top 10 Everything of 2009.

(Via @Alternet → @SlowFoodUSA)

In India, where food production depends on the vagaries of the weather, GM foods are a hot button for not just debate over bio-safety but also the power of multinationals to influence food choices.

The GM eggplant strain has been developed by American agrichemical giant Monsanto with its Indian partner Mahyco. The crop, its promoters claim, can double yields and reduce pesticide use by nearly half.

Environmentalism meets human hunger needs in Saritha Rai’s GlobalPost piece, Eggplant of doom?

Ingredients (amounts approximate):

• Shucked Pacific oysters. I used small ones, about half of an 8 oz jar.
• 2 cups crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 2 tsp. dried parsley flakes
• A splash of marsala cooking wine (2 tbsp. maybe)
• 1 tsp. sugar (more or less to taste. The point is to cut the tartness of the tomatoes.)
• Salt to taste — use black truffle salt if you have it. It adds a subtle, yet detectable richness and depth. 1000 times better, I promise
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 cup grape tomatoes chopped
• Crusty French bread

1. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil and 2 tbsp butter in a skillet and toast your bread. Set it aside.
2. In another skillet (or the same… whatever), heat the remaining butter and olive oil
3. Add the onions. Cook until translucent.
4. Add the garlic, cook for 1 minute or so, until it’s fragrant
5. Add the tomatoes (crushed and grape) and let it heat through
6. Add the peas and cook until they’re thawed out and bright green
7. Add the oysters and simmer until they almost look like they’re done (I think I cooked them for 10 minutes)
8. Season with wine, lemon zest, sugar, parsley, and truffle salt or regular salt
9. Spoon the oyster-y goodness over your toast, eat and enjoy

Great for cold days, Super Bowl parties and Frito pie. Enjoy with the beer of your choice.

I actually kept track of what I put in for a change, so these are the exact measurements. I tend to like my chili on the cumin-y side. Feel free to adjust all of the spices as you wish.

Ingredients

• 2 bell peppers, diced
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 pounds ground turkey
• A 28 ounce can and a 15 ounce can of unseasoned tomato sauce or tomato puree
• 4 tablespoons chili powder
• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 4 tablespoons dried cilantro
• 3 tablespoons dried oregano
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground chipotle pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1-1/2 cups water
• 1 15 ounce can of red kidney beans
• 1 15 ounce can of black beans
• 1 15 ounce can of pinto beans
• Salt to taste

What to do

Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven. Add the bell peppers and onions. Sauté until the onions are translucent.

Add the garlic, and saute for 2-3 minutes more, being careful not to burn the garlic, onions or bell pepper.

Add the ground turkey. Stir continuously to break it up into small-ish bits. Cook until the turkey browns and the liquid is almost completely gone.

Add the tomato sauce and the water. Let simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken.

Stir in the spices and simmer for 5-10 minutes more. You should start to see a 1-inch ring of cooked tomato gunk around inside the pot.

Stir in the beans and cook long enough to heat the beans through. That should take no more than 15 minutes. Be careful not to the chili come a boil, otherwise the beans will turn to mush.

Serve over white rice or corn chips with a side of Beano. It will feed at least six people.

The result? Spicy, but yummy. A rough recipe follows the photo.

Click the photo to view notes about what all of that goodness is.

A note about how I cook: I only use measurements when baking. Baking is basically edible chemistry, so the exact proportions are more important. Not so with cooking. So I guess and eyeball amounts and add more if I think it necessary.

In other words, all amounts are approximate. If it looks like more or less in that dinner plate (which I believe is 10 inches in diameter), go with the dinner plate estimate .

Ingredients

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1/8 cup minced ginger
• 3 small thai chilies, or 1-2 green ones
• About 10 whole cardamom pods (or 2 spoonfuls of ground cardamom)
• 2 teaspoons whole cloves (or 2 teaspoons of ground cloves)
• 2 teaspoons fennel seed
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cinnamon sticks (or 1 teaspoon cinnamon)
• 2 tablespoons turmeric
• 3 tablespoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2-3 dried bay leaves
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cubed
• 15 ounce can of tomato puree
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• Salt and sugar to taste

On using ground spices versus whole ones: I think whole ones have a better flavor since there is less surface area exposed to the flavor-changing effects of air. However, whole spices mean you’ve got to pick more stuff out as you’re eating. Your choice.

What to do

1. Heat the oil in a sturdy skillet
2. Add the chicken and simmer in the oil until it’s lightly browned
3. Add the onions, ginger, garlic and chilies. Simmer / fry until the onions are translucent.
4. Add the rest of the spices and simmer / fry for about 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomato puree, season to heart’s content with salt and sugar. Let simmer to your desired state of gloppiness.

Pick out all of the big spicy bits (bay leaf and any cloves or cardamom pods you can find), and serve over rice. Basmati rice is particularly nice.

If you make it, let me know how it goes.