Hyderabadi-Style Lentil Stew (Khatti Dal)

In Indian cuisine, dal (or lentils) are everything. This is not an exaggeration. Dal can be an essential building block of literally any type of dish—salads, condiments, breads—but its most important function is in stews, the most basic of Indian food offerings.

Why dal? As a stew, it is one of the most complete, nutrient-rich meals around. It can be eaten in near-infinite ways: over rice, with bread, intermingled among vegetables. You can add lime to make it tangy or ghee to make it rich. Dal can be whatever you need it to be, but it is always comforting, and always flavorful. That’s why, in India, even in the already specific category of lentil stews—each region has its own variation (and sometimes several).

The Basics: How to Make Dal

Spiced Dal with Peanuts and Dill

Dal could not be more straightforward to make, and practically every Indian recipe uses the same general formula. You can even use this method to make your own unique version at home:

1. Start by boiling lentils and water in a 1:4 ratio in a pot with a spoonful of turmeric and a teaspoon (or more) of salt per every cup.
2. When the lentils reach a boiling point, turn down the heat to low, and cook the lentils until they soften to your liking, from just-cooked to fall-apart creamy. This can range from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the variety.
3. Mix in your other seasonings and add-ons. This can be a combination of fried asafetida and cumin (in the north), curry leaves and coconut (in the south), or even just boatloads of cream (in Punjab). More on all of this soon.

Dal Best Practices

These tips are what I like to call “The Difference Between When I Make Dal Versus When My Mom Makes Dal.” They’re small—at times obvious—tricks of the trade, but ones that will make your stew taste less like health food and more like comfort food.

Don’t over-season: Seasoning is great, and of course, Indian cuisine loves salt and spices. But remember: dal has a wonderful natural legume flavor, and you don’t want to overpower that with tons of spices. Be confident but not heavy-handed with your flavorings.

How to navigate the valley of the dals

Don’t add all your spices and aromatics at the beginning: My mom says that the only spice she adds at the very beginning of cooking lentils is turmeric, as it needs time to break down and really imbue the stew with its earthy nuttiness. Save the most of your seasoning to the end of the cooking process—as that’ll keep all the flavors tasting fresh.

Overcooked dal is gross: Don’t overcook your dal. Always be watching and tasting. Overcooked dal is a mushy mess. Similarly, undercooked dal tastes like bird food; the lentils should be tender but still have some substance.

10 Regional Dal Varieties to Try

Because most regional dal recipes use the same basic preparation, they vary most distinctly by two elements: the add-ons (e.g., the spices and the textural bits) and the accompaniments. Here are some of the most commonly consumed varieties across India. As always, even within these categories, there is a lot of variation—but this will hopefully provide a basic outline of the grand glossary of dal.

Tadka Dal

An earthy, soupy, dinnertime staple.

Region: North Type of Lentil: Toor (Pigeon Pea), Moong (Yellow Split), Chana (Split Chickpeas), Urad (Black Gram) Add-Ons: Vegetables like tomatoes, spinach, or bottle gourd (though these are optional), asafetida, red chilies, cumin, and turmeric. Accompaniments: This is a home staple/go-to weeknight meal in north India. It’s usually eaten over rice, or with roti.

Make SAVEUR’s tadka dal »

Sambar

An intensely spicy, slightly bitter, and soupy side for grain dishes.

Region: South Type of Lentil: Toor Add-Ons: Vegetables like drumsticks or pearl onions, coconut, curry leaves, sambar powder (a widely available mixture of lentils and spices like fenugreek, turmeric, cumin, and coriander seed) Accompaniments: Sambar is most often paired with dosa (a lentil-and-rice-based crepe) or idli (a rice cake). If you order either of these dishes at an Indian restaurant, you are 100 percent likely to be served sambar on the side. Rice is also an acceptable complement.

Make SAVEUR’s sambar dal »

Rassam

Another soupy style of dal with lots of tanginess from tomatoes.

Region: South Type of Lentil: Toor Add-Ons: Tamarind, tomatoes, garlic, red chiles, black pepper (these seasonings are often ground into something called rassam powder, which is almost as widely available as sambar powder). Accompaniments: Rassam can be eaten on its own or over rice. Often, the lentils will be removed from the soup altogether, so all that remains is a tangy, spicy broth.

Dal Makhani

A rich, butter-forward, slightly sour stew.

Region: Punjab Type of Lentil: Urad or Rajma (Red Kidney Beans), and sometimes both Add-Ons: Tomatoes, butter (and lots of it), onions, and garlic Accompaniments: A staple of Indian restaurants (mostly likely due to its incredibly rich taste), dal makhani can be found alongside naan or cumin rice.

Dal Dhokli

A mild, very balanced stew with lots of texture.

Region: Gujarat Type of Lentil: Toor Add-Ons: Roti (split into pieces and submerged directly into the stew), turmeric, chilies, coriander, peanuts, jaggery (Indian raw sugar) Accompaniments: None—this is a strictly one-pot meal.

Khichdi

A porridge-like mixture involving everything but the kitchen sink (mostly rice and whatever vegetables you have on hand) cooked until very soft.

Region: North Type of Lentil: Moong Add-Ons: Rice (mixed directly into the stew), vegetables of various kinds, any type of seasonings—khichdi is a very mix-and-match sort of meal. Accompaniments: Papad and yogurt. This is the most typical sick person (or toothing baby) stew, as it’s really easy to digest.

Bisi Bele Bath

A sour, funky southern analog to khichdi.

Region: Karnataka Type of Lentil: Toor Add-Ons: Rice, tamarind, asafetida, curry leaves, nutmeg, nuts, onions, tomatoes Accompaniments: Papad and yogurt (same deal as khichdi)

Pongal

A plain, sweet, oatmeal-like snack.

Region: Tamil Nadu/Andhra Pradesh Type of Lentil: Mung Add-Ons: Rice, coconut, sugar (if you want to make it sweet) Accompaniments: Pongal is like a simple porridge, eaten by itself and often serving as a temple offering or a harvest festival treat.

Dalma

Lentil Stew with Coconut (Dalma)

A nutty vegetable soup.

Region: Odisha Type of Lentil: Toor Add-Ons: Vegetables like green papaya, pumpkin, and eggplant, turmeric, mustard seed, panch phutana (a five-ingredient spice blend that is heavy on the fenugreek) Accompaniments: Rice—like tadka dal in North India, this is a home cooking staple of Odisha.

Make SAVEUR’s dalma »

Chhole (also known as Chana Masala)

Spiced Chickpeas (Chana Masala)

A rich, comforting chickpea stew that’s sometimes slightly sweet.

Region: Punjab Type of Lentil: Chickpea (this is technically a legume and not a lentil, but it’s worth a mention because the dish is so incredibly delicious) Add-Ons: Tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, chilies, coriander seed Accompaniments: Bhatura (a puffy, stretchy fry bread) and raw onions (the bite and crunch cuts perfectly through the thick, warming stew)

Make SAVEUR’s chana masala »

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Making Perfect Indian Dal appeared first on Saveur.

It was early in the morning when I hopped on the ferry from the port town of Chios, Greece, and headed to Cesme, Turkey. I had driven my car the wrong way down one of the town’s many one-way streets, resulting in a face to face interaction with a policeman and the revelation (his, not mine) that I couldn’t reverse it back down the street under any significant pressure. I made it to the boat and was told by one of the passengers that the sea would be particularly rough that day, the perfect thing for a person susceptible to seasickness to hear.

Cesme looked a lot like Chios’ port town, which looks like most port towns in the Mediterranean: quiet, quaint, colorful, littered with signs catering to tourists. But I wasn’t staying in Cesme for long. I walked to the bus station, about 10 minutes from the port, and found the bus to Izmir. My plan was to eat my way through the city’s market neighborhood, Konak. I had a list of must-try street foods on my phone, and that was basically the extent of what I knew about where I was going and what I was going to eat.

The market district has much more than prepared food—if you need any housewares, rugs, leather products, spices, dried fruits, and birds—Konak is where you want to be. Below is a sampling of just some of the street food you can find there, a representative (though not exhaustive) sample of what you can eat on the street across Turkey. You can find stands selling simit and pide on side streets and busy city roads, and they’re often packed with locals who know the best food (and the cheapest) isn’t necessarily in a restaurant. And while some of these street foods are new, most of them have been part of Turkish culture for centuries. Because there’s so much to eat, the best piece of advice for finding street food in Izmir is to just let it happen. Follow every little alley to the end, try everything, and don’t freak out if the buses don’t drop you off where you thought they would.

Simit

You can find simit, sometimes called a Turkish bagel, pretty easily in parts of the US now, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try one in Izmir. These chewy bread circles are covered in sesame seeds and crunchy on the outside, and they’re the perfect breakfast food. Look for bright red carts with red and white striped awnings around the side. They shouldn’t be hard to find—I walked for three blocks and ran into four separate stands. These vendors sometimes sell sandwiches and other carby foods as well.

Midye Dolmasi

These were probably my favorite snack in Izmir: in my notes I refer to these several times as “the fucking best.” They’re mussels stuffed with salty, spicy rice, and you can find them right on the street. Either eat them right at the stand at chuck the shells in the trash, or order a bunch and grab a seat to enjoy them.

Sogus

Right after I downed my 12 stuffed mussels, I was running on a bit of a Turkish street food high, so I decided to ask the guy who had prepared the mussels if he knew where I should get söğüş. I pulled up a photo of it on my phone. “Söğüş?” He kind of yelled. He clearly thought I didn’t know what was in it, but some very quick research had already told me there’s brain involved. I nodded, and he laughed and led me down another small side street to a stand selling only söğüş.

The man behind the counter was chopping brain, tongue, and cheek, which he’d then mix up with some tomato, parsley, and onion, and wrap in a giant chewy pita. The guy who made it, as well as all the people seated at my table, kept checking in to see how I liked it. Order this spicy, delicious snack and get a side of serious street cred for free.

Balik Ekmek

If you find yourself by the water in Izmir or Cesme, you may come across little stands selling balık ekmek, Turkey’s popular fish sandwich. It literally just means “fish bread,” and that’s pretty much all it is: crispy grilled fish, a little seasoning, sometimes a lemon wedge, and a few slices of onion and some lettuce. It’s a cheap but fresh and tasty sandwich that is definitely worth seeking out.

Pide

Like simit, you can find pide just about anywhere. Think of it like extra-cheesy grilled pizza: a customizable set of toppings tucked into a canoe-shaped bread boat. Get it with any combination of vegetables and meat, and make sure to find one with an egg in the middle so you can dip the pide’s crisp edges into it.

Kumru

We’ve waxed poetic about kumru before, but it’s worth reiterating—if you’re in this part of Turkey, you should definitely reserve some stomach space for this sandwich. Cooks griddle kaseri cheese directly on the flattop, then plop it on top of a pile of sliced meats on toasted, buttered bread. It’s finished off with a beautiful fresh tomato slice.

Kumpir

What’s the most stuffed baked potato you’ve ever seen? Did it involve sour cream? Butter? Chives? If you’ve ever gotten a baked potato with all this on it and then thought, “this would be even better if I added beets and peas to it,” you have to try kumpir. There are so many toppings that can go onto this giant baked potato, and they sit in a case that looks a little like what you’d order gelato out of. Pile on olives, cheese, corn, pickles, tomatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, mayonnaise, ketchup—just about anything goes when it comes to kumpir.

The post 7 Amazing Turkish Street Foods to Stuff Your Face (Besides Kebabs) appeared first on Saveur.

These are fat days for eating pasta in America, and in most big cities you can now slurp a superlative plate of spaghetti carbonara and tuck into house rolled pappardelle. But what about our American originals? Here are the pastas you’ll only find in the U. S. of A.

New York: Chicken Riggies

Bobby Hazelton created the iconic Upstate New York dish at the now-closed Clinton House in Clinton, New York. It’s chicken breast cooked with tomato and cream over rigatoni. But Hazelton only ever made it for staff and regulars. One of his cooks, Mike Schulz, left to run the Chesterfield in Utica in 1988 and was the first to put it on a menu. The rest is (contentious, small-town) history.

Missouri: Toasted Ravioli

The place: Mama Campisi’s on the Hill in St. Louis. The chef: a man who lives on in lore simply as Fritz. A patron ordered ravioli, a drunk Fritz mistook bubbling grease for boiling water, and the result was improbably delicious.

Louisiana: Crawfish Monica

In New Orleans, you can eat red gravy (tomato sauce with a little gumbo DNA) year-round. Crawfish Monica—rotini sauced with crawfish tails, butter, cream, and Creole seasoning—basically only comes out for Jazz Fest.

Ohio: Cincinnati Chili

In the early 1920s, Macedonian immigrants Tom and John Kiradjieff created a beef-and-tomato-based stew at their hot dog stand, with the goal of capturing as many national demographics as possible. Italians requested the stew over spaghetti, and Cincinnati chili was born.

The post A Field Guide to America’s Weird and Wacky Pasta Innovations appeared first on Saveur.

Sometime in the past dozen years, bartenders in Spain stopped asking what you wanted to drink. They didn’t have to; everyone wanted a gin tonic. (The Spanish drop the “and” for a smoother phrase.)

A G&T in a large, bulbous goblet packed with beefy ice cubes continues to be Spain’s reigning cocktail. Even a dive bar in Barcelona or Bilbao might have a dozen different tonics and twice as many gins behind the counter, plus a selection of garnishes so profuse that some wags refer to the final concoctions as “gin salads.” (Purée for a slushy gin gazpacho, then?)

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Spain is the world’s third largest consumer of gin.

While the cocktail might be an import—the British developed it in India centuries ago—the gin used for it is often local. Among the hundreds of brands available in the country, dozens are distilled in Spain. Rather than adhering to a consistent school such as London dry, Spanish gin exhibits a mixture styles (from dry to the sweeter side), alcohol bases (distilled from grains but also wine), and flavorings (only juniper to dozens of exotic botanicals). Some are craft upstarts riding the wave of gin tonic popularity. But not all.

The oldest and most unique is Xoriguer (sho-ri-gair) from the Balearic Island of Menorca, a tipple so distinctive as to be one of only three gins to receive geographic indication status from the Europe Union, which recognized “Gin de Mahón” back in 1989.

Menorca has particularly strong historical links with Britain, which gained control of the island in 1708 during the War of Spanish Succession and then negotiated to keep it afterwards. In Mahón it had one of the most protected ports in the Mediterranean. The Royal Navy built dockyards and used it as their main Mediterranean base for most of the 18th century. Using alcohol from wine (rather than grain), Menorcans distilled gin to supply the British flotilla, and kept on doing so after it finally sailed away a century later.

The Pons family have been producing the Xoriguer label since the 1940s. Fittingly, the modest factory is located at the end of the city’s long, narrow port. Still made in wood-fired copped stills and cooled with salt water, Xoriguer uses a mix of alcohol from wine and molasses along with a heady infusion of juniper. That’s it: no botanicals. The juniper comes from the Catalan Pyrenees and is dried in the floor above the stills for two to three years before being used.

The gin drink of choice on the island is the pomada. Prepared with Fanta or Kas lemon soda, fresh lemon juice, and a touch of sugar, popped in the freezer, and often served slushy, it is synonymous with summer and village fiestas. The island is tiny—just 25 by 15 miles in size, and home to some 90,000 people—yet consumes some 60 percent of Xoriguer’s production, not to mention vast quantities of bottles imported from elsewhere.

Xoriguer certainly makes a dazzling gin tonic. But if you order one in Menorca and your bartender asks what type of gin you want in it, he or she is probably just being polite.

Jeff Koehler

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A bold, juniper-forward gin. For a sophisticated, minimalist version of the pomada, try a pellofa, with a medallion of lemon and a spritz of soda from a siphon. Labels on the iconic green glass bottles are adorned with the 18-century windmill that gives its name to the brand. (For copyright reasons, it is sold as “Mahón Gin” in the U.S.)

Gin Mare

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Distilled in the small fishing port of Vilanova i la Geltrú, 30 miles south of Barcelona, Gin Mare is herbal, with a zesty finish. Reflecting the company’s name—Mare is Latin for “sea”—it casts a Mediterranean-wide net for botanicals: Italian basil, Greek thyme, Turkish rosemary, and Spanish citruses, plus local arbequina olives.

Alkkemist Gin

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During its triple distillation, Alkkemist’s gin gets infused with a basket of 21 different botanicals, drawing out the citric scents of verbena, spiciness of sage, warmth of cardamom, and fragrance of Muscat grapes. Uniquely, the grain spirit is distilled just 12 times a year—only under the full moon, adding a touch of mystery to its flavors.

Nordés Atlantic Galician Gin

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Nordés gin is made from an Albariño grape-based spirit. Grown along the wild coasts and rías (inlets) of Galicia, the small grapes make crisp, refreshing white wines. In Nordés’ gin, classic juniper flavors are pared back, revealing more fruity, perfumed accepts from a dozen botanicals, including hibiscus, eucalyptus, and lemongrass.

W&H Cubical

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Founded in 1877 and best known for their sherries, Destilerías Williams & Humberts, in Jerez de la Frontera, gained a new audience with a trio of cube-shaped bottles of London dry gin. W&H distills the gin from English grains and infuses it with a basket of botanicals that include coriander, cassia bark, and even a touch of mango.

The post Some of the World’s Best Gin Comes From…Spain? appeared first on Saveur.

“We call this warrigal, but it’s also known as Cook’s cabbage,” says Bruce Pascoe. He was harvesting an emerald-green plant with spade-shaped leaves growing under a stand of paperbark trees in Far East Gippsland, a remote coastal region eight hours’ drive north of Melbourne. “When James Cook landed here in Australia, he fed this plant to his crew on the Endeavour. Without it, they would have died of scurvy.”

Pascoe explains that his wife Lyn makes pesto by pairing warrigal, which tastes like spinach brightened with lemon, and macadamia nuts from her orchard. Pascoe, an aboriginal linguist, author, and food advocate, recently launched a crowd-funded initiative called Gurandgi Munjie to encourage the rediscovery of the country’s indigenous food plants and propagating methods. It’s a big challenge, but one Australia is finally embracing.

Given its relative isolation in the southern hemisphere, with climate zones ranging from arid desert to tropical rainforest, Australia has a cornucopia that exists nowhere else in the world; the Slow Food Foundation’s Ark of Taste lists 60 rare and protected entries, some harvested for millennia, others only now gaining attention as more of the continent’s chefs connect with botanists and foragers who source ingredients typical of the First Peoples diet. (Aborigines arrived here approximately 50,000 years before European explorers in the 17th century.)

By challenging myths about indigenous foodways, Bruce Pascoe helps Australians rediscover their true culinary heritage

Bush tucker, or wild food, has evolved beyond survivalist rations, serving as the inspiration for Australia’s next-generation cuisine. Aaron Turner of Igni serves deeply rich wallaby broth made from tails roasted over a blazing red gum wood fire—it’s wilder in character than stocks made from lamb or beef. Jock Zonfrillo, whose Orana Foundation is organizing a continent-wide wild foods database, pairs warrigal with octopus and finger lime at his restaurant in Adelaide. Wattleseed, edible pods harvested from desert-loving acacia species, appears with queen garnet plums at Fleet in Byron Bay. Sour quandong, the native stone fruit harvested from a sandalwood cultivar, brightens aged Pekin duck baked in the brick oven at Brae in rural Birregara.

After meeting Pascoe, Ben Shewry of Attica in Melbourne started raising yam daisy in his restaurant’s suburban kitchen garden. “Bruce Pascoe’s legacy will be that he has helped educate Australians about their true ingredients,” said Shewry. “Not the ones that the first settlers brought, but rather the species that have always belonged here.”

Here are 12 essential flavors from the Land Down Under.

Davidson Plum

This bush fruit is native to the rainforests of Queensland and northern New South Wales. While it has a superficial resemblance to a European plum, the tropical variety is unrelated to stone fruit from the northern hemisphere; the two-inch fruits grow in grape-like clusters.

The flesh is deep burgundy, the taste is highly acidic and sour, similar to rhubarb, which makes it an ideal sauce base to accompany indigenous game like magpie goose or kangaroo. Botanical soda makers Bickford and Sons add tiny Davidson plum to its sparkling apple cordial.

Emu

It doesn’t taste like chicken. Australia’s largest bird, a leggy sprinter with grey-brown plumage closely related to the ostrich, forages mostly on insects and acacia scrub, favors woodland savannah habitats, and migrates over great distances. Their massive eggs are dark green, like something Game of Thrones’ Mother of Dragons might nurture.

At Attica in Melbourne, chef Ben Shewry laser-cuts each thick shell on the diagonal, and then fills it with whipped egg and sugarbag (honey) floss. Aborigines historically prized the wild bird for its meat, but emu also has an important place in their Dreamtime stories, or creation theology, which explains the singular worldview of Australia’s First Peoples.

Finger Lime

Cracking open a tangy, acidic finger lime reveals caviar-shaped pulp that bursts in your mouth like citrusy pop rocks. Not a true lime, citrus Australasica may date back 18 million years; the three-inch-long, cylindrical-shaped fruit ranges in color from blood orange to Day-Glo green.

Finger limes are prized as a garnish for oysters as well as cocktails. At Lee Ho Fook in Melbourne, Asian new wave chef Victor Liong pairs them with charred Spanish mackerel and a “Chinese tapenade” of preserved olive vegetable, burnt garlic oil, nori, and Fujian shacha paste.

Marron

Marron is as close to lobster as Australia gets. Originally found wild in the streams and rivers of Western Australia, the hairy variety of this freshwater crayfish species was an important food of the Noongar people for thousands of years, but is now endangered thanks to its invasive, smooth-carapaced cousin, Cherax cainli, also known as yabbies, which are milder and sweeter in flavor than most saltwater shellfish, including those ubiquitous jumbo shrimp that dwell on backyard “barbies.” Grilled marron is paired with young coconut and koji butter at Momofuku Seibo in Sydney.

Magpie Goose

Considered a living fossil, this black-and-white plumed waterfowl dwells in the floodplains of the Mary River near Kakadu in northernmost Australia. The Yolngu people traditionally cook magpie goose (gurrumattji) in a pit oven, smothered in wet leaves, a technique similar to the Maori hangi or Hawaiian imu.

The breast meat is darker and gamier than duck; Adelaide purveyor Something Wild collaborates with indigenous communities to source “open range” meats like magpie, so eventually this rarer bird may edge more domesticated geese as the centerpiece for Christmas dinner.

Muntries

One of the oldest bush foods, muntries is a key component in the traditional diet of the Narrindjeri people of the Coorong in South Australia. The pea-sized, purple berries have a flavor evocative of spiced apples, and were typically pounded into a paste, then baked into cakes or dried for longer storage.

Also known as emu apples or native cranberries, they are often used in pies, chutneys, jams and sauces. At Brae, chef Dan Hunter pairs ripe muntries with calamari, wild cabbage and fermented daikon during the short season.

Quandong

High in vitamin C, quandong (Santalum acuminatum) is a stone fruit that flourishes in Central Australia’s semi-arid desert. The astringent flesh clings to a large kernel, and tastes like a cross between apricot and peach. This climbing shrub clings to a host, or as Aborigines say, a “brother” tree, when young.

Foote Side Farm produces tart preserves that will boost a pavlova topping or soy-chili dipping sauce. At Charcoal Lane, a “social enterprise” restaurant in Melbourne that offers kitchen internships to at-risk aboriginal youth, quandong is a bitters ingredient used in the bar’s whiskey cocktail.

Saltbush

Drought-tolerant Old Man saltbush (Atriplex nummularia) thrives throughout arid inland Australia. The grayish-blue shrub produces flowering seeds that Aborigines used to grind and roast for “damper,” a rustic soda bread baked in the ashes of a cook fire. The leaves are highly salty, rich with minerals and proteins, and are most often used as a seasoning. At Igni restaurant in Geelong, chef Aaron Turner turns the dried leaves into a tasty riff on salt-and-vinegar chips.

Wallaby

Australians nicknamed them “Skippy” for a reason. Smaller than a kangaroo, but a close cousin, these marsupials are herbivores, and have been part of the indigenous Australian diet for millennia. Although they’ve only been sold commercially in the last 20 years; before that the meat typically wound up in pet food. The taste is gamey and slightly grassy; tender filets take only minutes to sear on a grill. At Igni, Aaron Turner turns wallaby rump into tartare.

Warrigal

Warrigal is also known as Cook’s cabbage or Botany Bay greens, which grows wild in sandy coastal regions. It was one of the first native Australian plants to be adapted by European settlers. After blanching, the taste is similar to spinach. Chef Kylie Kwong serves steamed vegetable and warrigal dumplings at her Australian-Chinese restaurant Billy Kwong in Sydney.

Wattleseed

Wattleseed belongs to the acacia family. This hardy shrub’s seed husk is extremely dense, and only tends to germinate after a bushfire—early aboriginal “fire stick farming” was the most common means of propagation. Roasted and ground, the seeds have an aroma similar to coffee. Saltbush Kitchen makes a versatile spice blend with silver wattle (Acacia Victoriae), Tasmanian pepperberry, and lemon myrtle.

Yam Daisy

Pulled straight from the ground, murnong, also known as the yam daisy, has a tuft of stalks topped with a buttery yellow bloom and a tuberous root system that resembles a baby parsnip. Aborigines first domesticated this perennial herb in southern Australia; however, the introduction of livestock by European settlers led to its near extinction as pastures became over-grazed.

Traditionally, the yam daisy was either roasted or pit-baked. At Attica in Melbourne, the tubers are first simmered in salt water, then fried until caramelized. The flavor is mildly sweet, almost like a white yam.

The post An Introduction to Australia’s Indigenous Ingredients appeared first on Saveur.

New Zealand is justifiably celebrated for its lamb, seafood, and sauvignon blanc, but this distant nation of about 4.5 million floating in the Pacific has a secret: it’s also home to some of the world’s greatest snack food. In a land so otherworldly that it’s a convincing stand-in for Middle Earth and so remote that it’s occasionally left off of world maps altogether, it makes sense that these unique snacks seem airlifted from an alternate reality.

The first thing a new snacker in New Zealand notices is a novel palette of companies. Yes, Cadbury has a presence (I’ll get to that later), but apart from that, the snack scene is anchored by the Griffin’s family of biscuits, Whittaker’s chocolate, Bluebird potato chips, and national treasure Cookie Time.

Notably, all of these are New Zealand-born companies that still produce their goods on the islands. On a practical level, it just doesn’t make sense for a country like New Zealand to import all of its chips, cookies, and candies. Conversely, these snacks are mostly unavailable outside of the country except through online expat-emporiums like Kiwi Corner Dairy and Shop New Zealand

Griffin’s Cookie Bear Hundreds and Thousands

Simple yet impossible to stop eating, Cookie Bear Hundreds and Thousands channel the overall textural and gustatory experience of one of my favorite bygone American snack foods, Dizzy Grizzlies. Made by Nabisco during a far too brief window of the ‘90s, Dizzy Grizzlies were a variant of Teddy Grahams, but featured a more extreme species of bear (grizzlies) performing more extreme activities (e.g. skateboarding). On one side, they were coated in chocolate and covered in tiny spherical rainbow sprinkles, which lightened the mood and made them less threatening. The New Zealand analog does away with any anthropomorphic X-Games; these are just circular cookies, nondescript light pink frosting, and the titular hundreds and thousands (of rainbow sprinkles). A delight.

Cookie Time Original Chocolate Chunk

It’s fitting that I first tried New Zealand’s most cherished cookies—Cookie Time Original Chocolate Chunk—aboard its flag carrier, Air New Zealand. Less fitting that it was on my outbound flight, but better late than never: these are a treat. I first learned about the brand while driving past its corporate HQ outside of Christchurch, and at the time I had no idea how large Cookie Time’s mascot (a fuzzy, bucktoothed red monster) loomed over the national psyche. With a decidedly Pepperidge Farm vibe, the cookies are crumbly yet toothsome, with sizeable chunks of milk chocolate. Like Sausalitos, but with a better mascot.

Certainly not the most appealing sounding candy, Pineapple Lumps might be an acquired taste, but they are undeniably brilliant. A thin layer of chocolate reveals a pleasantly artificial tasting pale yellow pineapple filling best described by the onomatopoetic British adjective “squidgy.” Something about the whole thing reminds me of an energy bar, the thinness of the coating, maybe, or the chewy yet yielding texture of the filling. Pineapple and chocolate are a rare pairing, some may say for good reason. To them I respond: “try a lump.”

Whittaker’s Peanut Slab

A point of national pride, the Whittaker’s Peanut Slab is honest, old-timey confectionary at its best. Wrapped in golden packaging, the slab itself is noticeably thicker than any American candy. In both appearance and flavor, it is like several Mr. Goodbars stacked atop one another. The chocolate is more chocolatey, the peanut is nuttier, and the whole thing gives a satisfying snap when it yields at first bite. Indeed, one of the chocolate’s best qualities is its utter sturdiness; part of me wants to claim that it would survive being run over by a car. But what kind of person would run over a peanut slab with a car?

Bluebird Salt and Vinegar Chips

I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to buy a bag of chips with a surfing penguin on it, but Bluebird’s genius doesn’t stop at marketing. To start, this is a company that boldly espouses the principle that ridges should be an intrinsic quality of potato chips. Furthermore, the chips are relatively thick-cut, lending them both a satisfying crunch and dippable structural integrity. Finally, the flavors are fantastic, and their salt and vinegar is a great showpiece of the genre. Sharp and salty, it has the tingling piquancy that so many salt and vinegar chips lack, while the rich, starchy backbone can perhaps be attributed to NZ-grown potatoes.

Griffin’s Hokey Pokey Squiggles

New Zealand is home to some of the world’s most sought-after honey. But for those who can’t afford Manuka, there’s always hokey pokey—what Kiwis call the crisp faux-honeycomb that turns up in several homegrown desserts. Hokey Pokey may reach its apex as an ice cream flavor, but a very close second is within the Griffin’s Hokey Pokey Squiggle—a treat comprising a layer each of soft cookie and hokey pokey covered in milk chocolate. Like a Cadbury Crunchie bar converted into cookie form, Squiggles have the unmistakable shatter of all golden syrup-based toffee, but they aren’t as cloying. The cookie provides an alluring textural counterpart, while the chocolate ties it all together. One of the best.

Lemon & Paeroa Soda

While not exactly a “snack,” New Zealand’s 110-year-old local soft drink L&P is both so unique and so popular that it would be remiss of me not to mention it. The beautiful union of zingy, almost gingery citrus flavor and (once upon a time) mineral water from a small town on the North Island, Lemon & Paeroa’s irresistible taste has, in some instances, been transferred to the edible realm. Whittaker’s infused the stuff into its white chocolate L&P Slabs, while Griffin’s deployed it (along with an interesting diminutive of “biscuit”) in its L&P Bikkies. Probably best as a drink, it goes particularly well with Bluebird Salt & Vinegar Chips.

Cadbury Perky Nana

I know, I know—Cadbury is a giant multinational, but they do have a factory in Dunedin that produces the New Zealand-specific Perky Nana bar alongside the company’s international staples. Similar to Pascall Pineapple Lumps, Perky Nana features a smooth artificial banana filling sheathed in Cadbury’s signature milk chocolate. It’s a dependable flavor combination, but somehow not very common in the U.S. or Europe. Though not a New Zealand-bred company, Cadbury nailed the fanciful name, and if their NZ website is to be believed, the bars grow on an eponymous tree in a candy forest. Which must be near the factory.

Griffin’s Krispies

One of New Zealand’s most unassuming snacks is also one of its most—to borrow a British term—moreish. Usually this means that the consumer wants to eat more than one. With Krispies, I’ve found it hard to eat fewer than four in one sitting. Brittle shortbread cookies with an attractive scalloped periphery, Krispies have a deep toasted coconut flavor accented with a hint of saltiness. Texturally, as the name suggests, they have the crispiness of a Tate’s cookie, but with a little more body. If I lived in New Zealand, these would be permanently stocked in my pantry. I mean larder.

Griffin’s Afghans

Traditionally made in home kitchens with cornflakes, chocolate icing, and walnuts, the Griffin’s version of these beloved chocolate cookies is a bit pared down. To start, there are no walnuts. Cornflakes are replaced by “wheat flakes,” which provide necessary crunch. And while the whole cookies are covered in a chocolate icing, it’s different than the dabs that would likely crown homemade Afghans. These are relatively straightforward, but to an outsider with no frame of reference for the home-baked version they tick all the boxes that a chocolate cookie should.

The post 10 Snacks That Prove New Zealand’s Supremacy in the Junk Food Game appeared first on Saveur.

Biryani is my go-to dinner party dish. A one-pot meal of rice, meat, and aromatic spices, it’s rich in flavor, grand in tradition, and elaborate enough to take center stage at holidays and celebrations, such as Eid or weddings. Each bite is suffused with spice, roasted nuts, dried fruits, or caramelized onions—deep and layered in flavor.

The dish’s origins are up for debate, but most food historians agree that the precursor to South Asian biryani first emerged in Persia, probably as an unfussed mix of rice and meat, and traveled to the subcontinent through trade, pilgrimage, and conquest.

Once in South Asia, biryani bloomed. Distinct regional varieties can be found wherever various Muslim food cultures influenced the cuisine—in Hyderabad, a city synonymous with biryani, but also across South India on the coasts of Gujarat, in West Bengal.

Here is just a sampling of the subcontinent’s dizzying array of biryanis; there are dozens upon dozens, and their differences are often subtle. Biryani, a cookbook by Pratibha Karan published by Random House India in 2009, is one of the most comprehensive collections of regional biryani recipes, and many that I mention here can be prepared with instructions from that slim and informative volume.

Some Biryani Basics

Hyderabadi-Style Steamed Chicken and Rice (Kachi Yakhni Biryani)

First, it helps to know the dish’s key components and cooking styles:

Rice: South Asia’s most famous rice export is the aromatic Basmati, but regional varieties of biryani use a number of native grains, such as sweet jeerakasala or almost corn-flavored seeraga samba, both grown in South India.

Meat: Chicken, mutton, goat, fish, prawns, beef–all are used in biryanis, based on regional preferences and availability. Coastal sub-cuisines along the Arabian Sea are generous in their use of fish and shrimp, for example.

Marinade: Spiced yogurt marinades are the most common, as yogurt is a commonly used acid to tenderize meats across South Asian cuisines.

Spices and aromatics: Biryani’s richness and complexity comes, in part, from its layers of spices. Both ground and whole spices, as well as spice mixes, such as garam masala, are used in the cooking process, as are fresh herbs and seeds, such as poppy. Biryanis are garnished with nuts, dried and fresh fruits, caramelized onions, and more fresh herbs.

How it’s Cooked

There are three main biryani cooking methods to keep in mind:

Dum: A slow-cooking method in which the cook layers parboiled rice and raw, marinated meat in a heavy-bottomed vessel, sealing it with dough and cooking it for hours over a low flame.

Kacchi biryani: A method in which raw marinated meat is layered with raw rice and cooked together, dum style.

Pukka biryani: An alternative method in which meat and rice are par-cooked separately and assembled and steamed together.

Hyderabadi Biryani

The pièce de résistance of biryanis, and a prime example of the kacchi style. Hyderabadi biryani is moist, robust, and spicy, and the rice and meat are infused with a heady blend of aromatics: cardamom, clove, cinnamon, saffron.

Malabar Biryani

This pukka biryani hails from the Malabar Coast in northern Kerala, where descendants of Yemeni traders who arrived in the first century and brought with them their own ingredients and culinary traditions, which they then adapted to their new circumstances.

In northern Kerala, biryani is made with jeerakasala (a.k.a. kaima) rice, a sweet, extraordinarily aromatic short-grain rice only grown in the southern state. It often features seafood or meat marinated in cilantro and mint, and is seasoned with coconut and curry leaves.

Calcutta and Dhakai Biryani

Both pukka styles, these biryanis incorporate potatoes, which absorb the meat’s juices and the spices’ aromas during cooking, especially bitter turmeric and mustard oil, both unique to this variety of biryani.

The marinade incorporates nutmeg, mace, and subtle touches of black pepper and pandan. It is nearly always garnished with halved hard-boiled eggs.

Chettinad, Ambur, and Dindigul Biryani

A trio of biryani from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. They’re prepared with seeraga samba, a starchy, almost egg-shaped short-grained rice grown in the state.

Chettinad cooking hails from Tamil Nadu, 250 miles south of the city of Chennai. It’s fiery and aromatic, and heady with black peppercorns, star anise, and cinnamon. The region’s biryani incorporates all of these flavors, with an added dose of heat from ground green chiles.

Ambur biryani is a kacchi biryani from Vellore in northern Tamil Nadu, and traces its lineage to the court of Nawab of Arcot, according to legend. The biryani is traditionally made with mutton marinated in a mint-infused yogurt sauce, which makes it herbier and milder than its Chettinad cousin.

Dindigul biryani, also called thalapakatti biryani, originated in a mountain village of the same name in Tamil Nadu. This kacchi biryani combines seeraga samba rice, whole spices, and cubed chunks of mutton. It’s moist and tart, using both lemon juice and yogurt as souring agents in the marinade.

Bohri, Memoni, and Sindhi Biryani

A trifecta of biryani was created by communities in Gujarat, India and Sindh, Pakistan.

Dawoodi Bohras are followers of a sect of Shia Islam who migrated from Yemen to western India in the 16th century. Their bohri biryani is characteristically mild and smoky, and uses dried fruits, including prunes and raisins, to create its distinctive sweet-and-sour flavor.

Memoni (a.k.a. kutchi) biryani and sindhi biryani both originated in Sindh in Pakistan, and are similar in many ways, but diverged as these communities’ diasporas scattered. Memonis were 15th century Hindu converts to Islam; they originally settled in Bhuj, Gujarat, but many migrated to Karachi after the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Their biryani is a spicy-hot pukka style, and features lamb, blanched tomatoes, potatoes, and prunes.

Sindhi biryani is the biryani I grew up with. My mother’s biryani stars chicken, although mutton, prawn, and shad fish often found their way onto our table. (In Sindh, my grandmothers would have used palla machli, a herring native to the Indus River). Sindhi biryani is tangy, because the marinade is heavy on the tomatoes and yogurt, and is seasoned with mint and coriander and garnished with prunes.

Now Go Cook Some

Hyderabadi-Style Steamed Chicken and Rice (Kachi Yakhni Biryani)

Pooja Makhijani is a New Jersey-based journalist, essayist, and children’s book writer. Visit her online home at poojamakhijani.com.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Biryani, the Ultimate Rice Dish appeared first on Saveur.

The word yogurt comes from Turkish, but the food is near universal and—according to some researchers—partially responsible for converting Stone Age societies into the first urban civilizations. As cities spread around the world, so, too, did yogurt, turning up all over Asia, Africa, Europe, and eventually the Americas. A tasty, nutritious snack and advancer of society? Basically the perfect food, if you ask me.

Depending on where and when you grew up, though, what yogurt is—and how it’s served—varies widely. Growing up on the West Coast of the U.S. in the ‘80s, my health-conscious parents kept me frightened of the stuff through their allegiance to fat- (and, often, flavor-) free versions with sickly-sweet “fruit on bottom” that had to be stirred in. Thankfully, at some point I was introduced first to the rich, creamy French style of yogurt, then thick Greek versions, before delving into the entire rest of the world of yogurt.

While, at least in the U.S., you’d have to be living under a rock to have missed out on Greek yogurt’s meteoric climb, it’s closely followed by oh-so-many-more different styles of yogurt around the world.

Vietnam: Sua Chua

While the most famous culinary vestige of the French occupation of Vietnam is the banh mi, they also left behind some sour milk. That’s the literal translation of sữa chua, Andrea Nguyen says, of the “delicately tangy-sweet” version she remembers from her childhood in Vietnam on her blog Viet World Kitchen. The tropical adaptation uses condensed milk, keeping light and sweet.

“My mom never cared much about controlling the temperature for incubation,” Nguyen notes, now that she makes her own fresh-milk version. “She just put the milk outside in the Saigon heat. I remember it sometimes came out really tart but we ate it anyway.”

Bulgarian-Style Yogurt

Traditionally made from sheep’s milk, Bulgarian yogurt is thinner than Greek, a double zinger of tangy and tart. The yogurt is a distinct source of pride for the Balkan nation, whose seven-million people consume 400,000 tons of yogurt each year.

As with many foods, there are a number of origin stories for yogurt, but Bulgarian legend pins its invention on shepherds putting milk into lambskin bags carried close to their person. Their body heat caused the milk to ferment, and thus created yogurt. Whether that actually happened, who knows, but a Bulgarian scientist (Stamen Grigorov) was definitely the one who identified the bacteria used in almost all yogurt around the world—that’s why it’s called Lactobacillus bulgaricus.

Scandinavia: Viili

Originating in Sweden and beloved in Finland, this version is one of the few yogurts that doesn’t use the Bulgarian bacteria mentioned above. Instead, this “ropy milk of Scandinavia” (as per the Nordic Food Lab) uses specific bacteria which impart a texture most often identified as slime. But the good kind of slime, obviously—other sources describe it as reminiscent of Nickelodeon Gak, which will make any child of the ’90s rush out to make it.

South Africa: Amasi

In his memoir, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela tells of nearly being caught hiding out in a white part of town because he left his amasi fermenting on a windowsill. The Southern African yogurt, traditionally fermented in ash-smoked gourds, is usually thinned and has a sour taste that is “an acquired profile for some,” says South African food and culture journalist Ishay Govender-Ypma.

“We lived near Durban on the east coast and the local Zulu people drank it frequently. They still do,” she explains. She describes her mother using it to make dahi (raita) to go with biryani, or to bake yogurt-based cakes and breads: “My mother also served it sweetened with sugar, smoothing the cottage cheese lumps with a fork.”

Swiss Yogurt

Another yogurt that has made the jump into American supermarkets, the Swiss version is stirred, rather than strained, resulting in a silky-smooth, but not very thick texture best for eating—as the Swiss do—plain, with muesli or fruit mixed in.

Iceland: Skyr

Skyr (Icelandic Yogurt Cheese) With Parsley and Dill

Skyr is hot on the tail of Greek yogurt in popularity in the U.S., but like quark (see below), it’s not technically a yogurt—its deep, dark secret is that it’s actually a cheese. But the yogurt-like cheese is naturally just barely sour, barely sweet, and mostly cool, rich, and admirably thick—which appeals to Greek yogurt lovers looking to step up the girth of their spoiled milk. It’s also made with skim milk, making it naturally fat-free, but not in the flimsy, flavorless ways of my childhood.

It also, apparently, makes a good weapon: in 2016, when the Prime Minister of Iceland’s name appeared in the Panama Papers, Icelandic people through containers of skyr at the government building.

Germany: Quark

Like skyr, quark is technically a cheese, not a yogurt, but its texture and uses are similar enough that it’s often called “yogurt cheese.” But unlike most cheese, it’s smooth and creamy, made so by stirring the curds rather than letting them set.

Because it’s not technically a yogurt, it is much less tangy, without the hints of souring, making it easy to flavor and eat as you like, but also perfect for baking with—and it makes a mean cheesecake.

Ethiopia: Ayib

As a kid, Lebawit Lily Girma, an Ethiopian-American travel writer and photographer, had a very low tolerance for spice. “Ayib (Amharic for yogurt) was always a happy sight,” she says, as it would temper the heat of spicy stews like doro wot. “I love spicy now,” she says, but still wouldn’t eat wot without ayib, because it’s just a better match.”

To eat it, she describes, “You cut a piece of the injera with your fingers. You use that piece of injera in your fingers (right hand), to scoop up a bit of stew with it and then a bit of yogurt (at the same time). Then you eat it together. This helps neutralize a little bit of the spiciness in the stew, and the tangy taste to it all. It’s like the perfect pair.”

Chinese Yogurt

In Beijing, rows and rows of small jars with blue and white paper lids sit for sale around the city, hard to miss. “It’s an incredible staple in Northern China,” describes food writer Clarissa Wei of Beijing yogurt.

The thinner texture of the yogurt, she explains, comes from the process: unlike the super-thick trendy Western yogurts, the Beijing style is never stirred. The result is tart, a touch sweet, and drinkable—if you purchase one of the ubiquitous jars, you’ll also be handed a straw, not a spoon, with which to consume it.

Mongolian Yogurt(s)

Another yogurt-origin legend (one promulgated by Alton Brown on Good Eats) says that it came from nomadic Mongolians riding with mare’s milk in their saddlebags. This one has all but been proven wrong, but yogurt, filed under “white foods” of Mongolia, remains quite popular and also quite varied, including various forms of tarag, which is made from the milk of cows, yaks, sheep, or goats, and koumiss, which comes from fermented horse milk.

Because of dairy’s ubiquity, there’s no one kind of yogurt—sweet, tart, served with mutton, or even sun-dried as aaruul, which are like chips made of yogurt.

Iran: Doogh

Yogurt has a rich (pun intended) tradition in the Middle East, from thick strained labneh (a similar product to Greek yogurt) to refreshingly herbed yogurt soups, but Italy-based Iranian-American food writer and tour guide Coral Sisk favors a drink called doogh, which she describes as a salty yogurt drink sometimes called “the Coke of Iran.”

Plain, carbonated, or served with dried mint, the drink accompanies most meals, but particularly a sweet called “zoolbia bamieh” fried flat pieces of doughnut pastry accented with rose water & saffron. “Doogh was special to me because as an adult,” says Sisk, “it served as a sort of bridge to Middle-Eastern culinary identity. It was a familiar habit which imparted a sense of culinary belonging during travels in Iran and Turkey.”

The post How Many of the World’s Great Yogurts Do You Know? appeared first on Saveur.

Lettuces are lovely and herbs are essential, but they’re hardly the only foliage deployed in cooking. For centuries, European cheesemakers have aged their wares in deciduous tree leaves, and the oak’s naturally tannic greenery has acted as an antifungal agent for generations of pickled vegetables. Before the advent of the paper and plastic industries, leaves were an ideal material for food wrappings, either as edible enclosures or as fragrant, inexpensive packaging. Many of these practices persist, if not out of necessity, then out of cultural preference and tradition.

Look around. Leaves shiver with possibility all summer long, just waiting to be plucked. Snap a fig leaf from the branch for savory simple syrup; soak chestnut leaves in brandy to wrap around fresh pats of goat cheese; pickle perilla for a salty, herbal Korean snack; or dry vibrant sassafras for a winter’s worth of gumbo filé.

Lotus Leaves

Tropical Asia and Queensland, Australia Similar to water lilies, lotuses have wide, flat leaves that emerge just above the surface of shallow bodies of freshwater. The plant’s edible seeds and rhizomes are widely used in Asian cuisines, and in southern China, the durable, waxy leaves are often dried and used as a wrapping for lo mai gai, a dim sum dish of steamed sticky rice, meat, mushrooms, vegetables, salted egg, and aromatics.

Banana Leaves

Native to Southeast Asia, and cultivated in tropical regions across the world These enormous leaves have culinary uses just about everywhere they grow, from the Indian Subcontinent to Puerto Rico, Central Africa and Thailand. They are easily available frozen outside of their native regions; the packaged leaves come cut into wide strips or squares and then packed into large envelopes before freezing. When thawed, they retain their moist and flexible texture and grassy-sweet aroma that make them such a popular cooking ingredient. The leaves are not typically consumed whole, but rather they are used as a natural wrapping for cooking foods, as plate liners, or as a flavoring.

Oak Leaves

Cool temperate to tropical latitudes in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and North Africa A symbol of fortitude and prosperity, the oak tree has a high level of tannic acid, which means it can thrive in the midst of insect or fungal attack. This natural and nontoxic preservative lends itself to pickling; a few astringent oak leaves in a jar of fermented Russian pickles is a traditional way to keep summer cucumbers crisp.

Shiso Leaves

Native to Japan, Korea, and India, and cultivated in the United States and Canada This teardrop-shaped leaf is called shiso in Japan, and perilla or deulkkae in Korea. Smaller and softer, Japanese shiso can occur in green or purple varieties, the latter of which are used for coloringumeboshi (Japanese salt plums). Green shiso is often enjoyed fresh as an herb or garnish. Korean perilla is more substantial, with a spicy flavor similar to cinnamon and anise. When marinated and fermented, deulkkae are called kkaennip jangajji and are a popular Korean banchan (snack served with rice).

Sassafras Leaves

Eastern North America Sassafras roots traditionally flavored root beer, but the leaves are a necessary ingredient in Louisiana gumbo. Dried and ground to a powder called filé, the earthy, mild green (similar to oregano or marjoram) acts as a traditional thickening agent, and lends body and substance to soups and stews without additional starch.

Fig Leaves

Native to the Middle East and western Asia; cultivated globally Rife with religious and artistic metaphors, the leaves of the fig are mostly overlooked for the tree’s sweet fruit. But they’re good for more than concealing biblical people’s unmentionables. Try steeping them in hot water for a soothing, nutty alternative to green tea or in simple syrup for a grassy and refreshing cocktail mixer. Fig greens also make a sophisticated surface for serving runny cheeses.

Nasturtium Leaves

Native to the Andes; now naturalized in temperate areas of North America These delicate, floppy, vibrant-green leaves (whose colorful flowers are also edible) have a peppery bite. Add a handful to salads for a refreshing crunch akin to watercress, or use the large lily pad–like foliage for a quick-cooking variation on dolmas.

Hoja Santa Leaves

Northern South America, Central America, southeast Florida Appearing in Mexican dishes such as Oaxacan mole verde and the soothing hominy soup, pozole, hoja santa is a wide aromatic leaf comparable in flavor to licorice, sassafras, and tarragon. Paula Lambert of Dallas’s Mozzarella Co. wraps them around wheels of her fresh goat cheese, which imparts a grassy, aniselike flavor.

Grape Leaves

Native to the Mediterranean and Middle East Grape leaves are a staple of southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond, with each cuisine bringing its own variations on stuffings and seasonings. They’re most commonly used to make dolmas, rolled and stuffed leaves filled with anything from rice and herbs to meat and dried fruit. Whenever possible, use fresh grape leaves, which taste, as you might guess, more fresh and vibrant. Choose young tender, blemish-free leaves throughout the spring and early summer and store them flat, layered with paper towels, in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them. Out of season, chef Ana Sortun uses beautiful salt-cured leaves from Sevan Bakery in Massachusetts, but sometimes the jarred version are all you can find. There is a huge variety of brands out there and they vary wildly in quality; Sortun recommends Orlando brand leaves from California. Read our Complete Guide to DIY Dolmas »

Bamboo Leaves

Native to East, Southeast, and South Asia; cultivated worldwide. When dried, rehydrated, and used as wrappers for fillings like Chinese zongzi, bamboo leaves release a green, tannic, walnutty perfume unlike anything else. The dried leaves should be soaked in cold water for 24 hours at least, but some cooks prefer to give them a few days. It’s also wise to purchase extra leaves, since they have a tendency to split along their center vein when folding.

The post 10 Flavor-Packed Leaves From Around the World to Bring Into Your Kitchen appeared first on Saveur.

If you want to eat the best of the Indonesian island of Bali, skip the shiny tourist restaurants lined along the beach and get yourself to a warung. These small roadside food stalls don’t have signs, printed menus, or even consistent ours, but if crisp-skinned suckling pig and a peanut mix with fried anchovies gets you hungry, warungs are the place to go.

Your best tool for navigating warungs is your eyes. Long lines are a good sign, and when the suckling pig spinning around the fire looks particularly crackly, you know you’ve struck gold. But the eating the best will take some legwork.

Babi guling is roast pig filled with lots of good stuff: coriander, peppercorn, lemongrass, candlenut, chile paste, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and shallots. It’s then roasted for hours over an open fire until the skin blisters and cracks, then turns a deep golden brown. The dish’s cult following is so strong, people have been known to travel to the island just to eat it. And it’s unique to Bali: While most Indonesians are Muslims that don’t eat pork, many Balinese practice a form of Hinduism that permits it.

After asking around for a few days, the local consensus was that eating Bali’s best babi guling would require trekking to the remote town of Buduk, about 30 miles north of Canggu, to visit a warung that’s only open from the middle of the night to 9 a.m.—or until they run out. I was in for either the best babi guling in all of Bali, or doomed to hungrily wander the streets until sunrise.

Luckily for me, my driver knew the general area to drop me off, and offered this advice: “Follow anyone you see walking the streets—babi guling is the only reason people are out here at this time.”

For a split second I questioned my decision to risk my life for some suckling pig, but then I spotted a group of giggling and tipsy twenty-somethings who seemed like they’d be on their way to the Indonesian equivalent of a greasy spoon at this time of night. With every twist and turn down the narrow alleyways, the wafts of smoke and the smell of burning wood told me that I had to be on the right track. When I was hit with the sharp smell of ginger, chilis, and garlic, I knew I was getting closer, and once I could see the long line that already snaked through the streets, I knew I had actually found it.

The family that owns this warung starts preparing their pork at 3:30 in the morning, so when I got there they had already peeled off the crackling and were cutting through the buttery flesh. If I had wanted the best pieces of skin, I should have left even earlier. I knew what I was missing—I spent much of my childhood lurking at the lechon table at Filipino birthday parties, slyly picking off and eating the crunchiest bits of skin. As I made my way to the front of the line, I wished more than anything that I could do that with the glorious sheet of crackling right in front of me.

For a shack in the middle of nowhere, this place was a well-oiled machine. There’s the tray of pig on one end, and a kitchen on the other, where plates of rice, juice meat, glistening shards of crackling, and lawar come together. Lawar is a traditional salad made of minced meat, spice paste, grated coconut, snake beans, and fresh pig blood. If you look like you don’t belong, the lady serving may ask if you want your salad without the blood. I’ll leave that choice up to you.

Here are five other snacks to try while hunting for suckling pig.

Snakeskin Fruit

While wandering through the Taman Sari Market in Seminyak I came across a peculiar, egg-shaped fruit that looks just like its name: salak, the snakeskin fruit. Peel away its leathery, reptile-egg skin to reveal a delicately aromatic fruit reminiscent of honeyed pineapple.

Rempeyek

Though typically a Javanese specialty, this salty snack makes its way to Bali too; look for the warung near the Ubud Art Market. A mix of peanuts dipped in rice flour batter seasoned with candlenut and anchovies, then deep fried, it becomes a lacy, airy, and deliciously crunchy cracker.

Mie Goreng

From street stalls to warungs to fancy restaurants, you will find mie goreng in nearly every kind of eating establishment in Bali. Thin curly noodles are stir-fried with shrimp, chicken, pork, and vegetables such as bok choy, cabbage, shredded carrots, tomatoes, and sprouts. Kecip manis, a thick and sweet Indonesian soy sauce, creates a perfect balance of sweet and salty. Mie goreng is usually topped with a fried egg, and garnished with cilantro, limes, and shrimp chips.

Kuih Ketayap

On my first day in Seminyak, I took a cooking class where I was introduced to pandan, a grass-like plant used in many Southeast Asian desserts and responsible for kuih ketayap’s neon-green hue. As we cooked the the thin pancakes, the pandan sent out notes of jasmine with nutty undertones. The cakes themselves are slightly chewy and fluffy, and filled with a sticky sweet mixture made of grated coconut and palm sugar. Keep an eye out for them whenever you get a sweets craving.

Satay Lilit

Sate lilit differs from the usual grilled, and marinated variety of Indonesia satay in that it’s made with minced meat (usually chicken or pork) and mixed with grated coconut, coconut milk, spices, and lemon juice. The coconutty meatloaf mix is formed into round shapes around sticks of sugar cane or bamboo, and then grilled, resulting in a tender and slightly smoky bite that’s full of flavor right to the core.

The post One of the World’s Best Suckling Pigs is Worth a 3 A.M. Drive Around Bali appeared first on Saveur.

Rhubarb is popping up at markets here and there, but early spring belongs to alliums. The many members of the onion family share similar basic flavors, but they’re all so pretty and rewarding on their own that it’s hard not to pick up every single one (at least if you’re me).

Spring alliums have brighter bouquets and more interesting flavors than the storage onions we use year-round. To make the most of them, here’s a guide to the ones you may see at your local market.

Garlic Chives

These flat green spears, also known as Chinese chives, have nothing in common with the European kind; they’re an entirely different species, and are often cooked as a vegetable (like string beans) rather than used as an herb.

They do indeed taste garlicky, but they’ve also got a vegetal thing about them, and a hint of sweetness. They’re good on their own, just gently steamed, or added to any dish you’d add garlic to, such as pork dumplings. If you want to keep them raw, be warned: a little go a long way.

When shopping for garlic chives, make sure there aren’t any slippery blades in the bunch. Remove the rubber band that holds the bunch together, wrap a dry paper towel around them, and keep them sealed in a plastic bag. If they’re kept cold and dry, garlic chives should last for up to a week.

Garlic Chives with Pork (Cang Ying Tou)

Green Garlic

Green garlic is just immature garlic. It’s harvested before it can form bulbs or cloves, and can range in size and shape depending on when it’s harvested. It’s usually at farmers’ markets from late spring to early summer.

The entire plant—from the stalk to the baby bulb—is edible, and it’s brighter and milder than mature garlic. Texture-wise, it’s succulent and crisp, but if the stalks are tough, keep them for making stock. Avoid bruised stems and wilty-looking bunches.

Store these wrapped in a damp paper towel and sealed in a plastic bag. Green garlic is best enjoyed within a week of harvest (which is probably the day or day before you got it from your farmer).

Leeks

Leeks are kind of always around, but in the springtime, they’re cute and small and more delicate. They’ve been cultivated for so long (ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and Scots were fans) that it’s unclear where they originated. Not that it really matters, because the most important thing about leeks is that they’re delicious.

Spring leeks tend to be on the smaller, paler side, which means they’re more tender. Look for taught greens and avoid bulging bulbs. Always check the white parts: You want them to have a little give. If they’re completely hard, they’ve got woody cores and won’t soften no matter how long you cook them (though they’re fine for making stock).

Store leeks just like green garlic, for no more than a week.

Stuffed Leeks with Blue Cheese, Raisins, and Almonds

Spring Onions & Scallions

Spring onions are just like green garlic: onions harvested before they’re fully mature. Their green tops and white and purple bulbs are completely edible, they’re tender, and they’re less likely to make you cry than their fully-grown relatives. They also have less heat, and are a little friendlier when eaten raw.

If your spring onions have little bulbs forming at the bottom, they’re young allium cepa (common onions), if they’re stick-straight, they’re young allium fistulosum (Japanese scallions, which never form bulbs).

Although scallions are available in supermarkets most of the year, really cute ones have been popping up at my favorite farm stands, and I keep bringing them home with me. What’s the difference between scallions and spring onions? They’re basically the same thing—they can come from either the common or Japanese varietal—they’re just picked at an even earlier stage.

Look for spring onions and scallions with happy-looking and upright leaves. Avoid droopy, slimy, or yellowing greens. Keep them stored in the coldest part of the fridge, and try to use them up before you notice any signs of sadness in the greens.

Ramps

What’s a spring allium guide without at least a tiny mention of ramps? They’re here, they’re photogenic, they’re the funkiest member of the allium family, and they tend to cause a little springtime frenzy. Ramps are wild leeks. They’re native to America and can be found growing in forest soil from Canada, through New England, to Georgia. Cooking will mellow their flavor.

Buy ramps with firm, springy, and vibrant green tops. Store them in the fridge with a damp paper towel wrapped around their roots. And be sure to keep them well-sealed to keep everything in the fridge from taking on their smell.

Jose Enrique’s Ramp Escabeche

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