Parsi Food: Part 1

Do this four more times. Don't ask why. Just do it. It's magic.

By the time I got to this line in a panir recipe, I was in love with My Bombay Kitchen by Niloufer Ichcaporia King.

The panir never looked like a cloudy sky breaking up, leading me to believe I just don't know how to coax curds from milk. Nonetheless, I packaged up the cheese cloth, pressed it with a can of coconut milk, and enjoyed it spread across hot chapatis with turmeric/ginger pickle and yogurt cheese.

I spent yesterday grinding spices and ginger for two of the triumvirate of Parsi spices: Parsi garam masala and dhana jiru (a garam masala of 17 spices). I tied a scarf around my nose while I ground then pressed the toasted spices through a strainer (see the dhana jiru above).

I then processed 3 oz each of garlic and ginger to make a paste that was the beginning of wafer par ida (aka eggs on potato chips) - King assures me that Bombay is filled with potato-chips works (Liam wasn't convinced).

Consider it Parsi breakfast food for dinner. The chapatis with cheese and pickle to build our immune systems (and my yellow, yellow hands) and eggs steamed on top of potato chips fried with ghee, onion, chiles, and coriander.

Next time I'll heed the advice of King's acquaintance who tells her "next time, try it with a little bit of cream poured over the chips before the eggs go on."

Le Diner Etrange

Only in Paris, with a group of French people expected at a dinner themed Le Diner Etrange would the first thoughts of what to cook be peppered, excuse the pun, with the ingredients above.

Chili. Strange to French. Espresso Chili. Strange to the few Americans.
Chiles. A heavy hand with both the whole ones from Passage Brady and the flakes from Istanbul and homemade chili powder.
Spicy Hot Chocolate with the Mayan Chocolate from San Sebastian.
Donuts. Savory ones. Sprinkled in paprika. Sel de cannelle. Fleur de sel.

The strangest event of the day was the 80F temperature while I cooked kidney beans for hours and then melted chocolate into milk before steeping it with some cinnamon and more chile.

What am I doing? I emailed Dana , why am I cooking these spicy things as I sweat in my 5th floor apartment?

How can I make jello shots out of sheet gelatin? Dana replied, and thus the collaboration of 2 American girls feeding a table of French people strange food began.

I served up fat bowls of the chile, which after cooking all day had the creaminess of mole ("it's a savory dish with chocolate!" I'm later explaining, with the help of the lone Chilean, to a Frenchman. "Chocolat?" he clarifes. 5 times. Then asks for exactly what I mean by the fact that there is espresso in the chili.).

I watched as people picked, very politely, bean by bean, mixing in the creme fraiche as their last hope - "there's more creme!" I offer, but they all assure me they love this chili, before putting it down and blowing their noses.

We 2 American girls and mostly-American Liam have cleaned our bowls and are salivating over the others'.

Dana cooked up amazing broiled shark and a watermelon and feta salad and people picked at the Lemondrop Jello-shots.

I spent a long time re-heating hot chocolate spilled so many times in transit that I was relieved to see Dana pull out shot glasses to serve it with fruit and donuts that failed miserably. Gourgeres. Sans fromage et avec sel de canelle.

"These are quite wet in the middle," a Frenchman cautioned me, "they should be more dry."

I attempted to explain how I didn't know how to use Dana's oven, how the hot chocolate had spilled on the parchment in my bag, and then I dropped it, winking my eye to say .. ."etrange? eh?"

DIY Spice Mixtures

I've been reading about bloggers make tea infusions and listening to cookbook authors chat about their quick chutneys so I found myself coming home from Velan weighed down with everything from amchoor to cinnamon to sumac and wondering what to do with it all and how I could be expanding the choices of my small-fridge French life.

Both of the cookbooks on my shelf offered lots of ideas. The amchoor in particular I picked up after reading Bittman rave about it one chaat masala addition after another. So that's what I made first (pictured far left) - a mixture that he assures me will do its duty on everything from paneer to pita to rice. Then, as I added to my list of spices to pick up when I'm in NY next month, I thought it best to make something from a different part of the world and whipped up a batch of heavy-on-the-chipotle chili powder. Both Bittman and Jaffrey extol the complexities of Za'atar, the Turkish mix of sumac, sesame and thyme that I think was on each of the puffed breads we had in Istanbul, so when I fill up my sesame stash, I will make this too.

I am limited here without my trusty spice grinder or mortar/pestle, but I do have the item you can see on the far right - a Turkish spice grinder. I admired one when we were at the Spice Market but left the idea alone since I felt so overwhelmed. Then, with 13 Turkish Lira burning holes in our pockets, we went to the Grand Bazaar of Ataturk Istanbul Airport and lo and behold, for 13 YTL, a gleaming spice grinder.

I didn't have hopes for an airport purchase, and I didn't quite understand how it exactly worked (I was waiting for the whole coriander for the chaat masala to come out of the bottom like a pepper grinder, but this device only has one place to put it in and take it out), but it seems to be holding up just fine - not in a fine grinding sort of way, but in a great look-what-I-bought-on-vacation-that's-useful-way.

Now I just need to make some paneer, or pita, or just bake up a potato and transform it, this is the promise Bittman has made to us (vegetarians). I'll report.