Chana-kah Masala (with Helen Zaltzman and Josey Baker)

Home Cooking

In this season finale of Home Cooking, hosts Samin Nosrat and Rishi Kooser celebrate the holidays with guests Helen Zaltzman and Josey Baker

Key takeaways

• Samin Nasrat describes a shishito burger at Kusaki in LA that triggered intense nostalgia for McDonald's Sausage McMuffins.
• Josey Baker discusses using Dorie Greenspan's carrot cake recipe for her birthday celebration.
• Vanilla is highlighted as an incredibly labor-intensive crop due to its extremely limited pollination period.
• The high price of saffron is attributed to the backbreaking manual labor required to harvest individual threads by hand.
• Josie Baker explains that T70 flour is classified by its mineral content, specifically 0.7% ash.

Main topics

• Nostalgic food memories
• Economics of vanilla and saffron
• Caramel pronunciation debate

Notable quotes

Life is short. Live large.

Conclusion

A warm, celebratory episode that connects high-end culinary science wi

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:02) I'm Samin Nasrat. And I'm Rishi K. Shirwe. And we're Home Cooking. This is episode 27 of our four-part series and episode eight of our eight-part season. This is the end. We've come to the end of the year. Which means we're at the holiday episode. That's right. I'm very excited. Speaker 3 (0:22) Have you eaten or cooked anything good recently? Speaker 1 (0:25) Lindsay and our friends Amit and Mindy and myself, we all went to a restaurant in LA called Kusaki, an all plant-based Japanese restaurant. Kusaki means plant in Japanese. Speaker 3 (0:36) Okay. Speaker 1 (0:37) They had a bunch of different vegan sushi, but I saw one thing that caught my eye and I felt a little bit like, I actually asked the waiter, I Speaker 3 (0:43) was Speaker 1 (0:43) like, would it be silly if I ordered a burger here at this place where you make these like beautiful plant-based sushi dishes? And he was like, no, no, it's... Really, really good. Really good. And so I said, okay. And so I got this shishito burger, which was an impossible burger on a brioche bun. And it had cashew cheese, shishito, shiso leaf, maitake mushrooms, and a yuzu kosho aioli. I don't know what kosho is. Kosho is when Speaker 5 (1:09) Japanese citruses are turned into like the equivalent of the Japanese version of preserved lemon paste. But usually there are spices involved too. Speaker 1 (1:18) Yeah. Speaker 5 (1:19) Wow. And that was on top of the Impossible Patty or ground into it? Speaker 1 (1:24) On top of it. And the craziest thing happened with the combination of all these things. The first bite that I had reminded me so much of previously one of my favorite all-time foods as a child, the sausage McMuffin from McDonald's. Speaker 3 (1:46) That's so specific and so weird. I know. It's so amazing. It Speaker 1 (1:50) was such a strange collision of sense memory and the thing that I was eating, but it made me so, so happy. As I ate more of it, I could appreciate the depth and complexity and originality of the thing itself. But to be able to have both, this very new feeling thing and also this really nostalgic flavor at the same time, incredible. I Speaker 3 (2:13) feel like that's the best thing that like, fancy cooking does is sort of connect Speaker 5 (2:17) to some like childhood nostalgic version of something that's totally unexpected. You know, just like some quotidian food that you're all of a sudden like, but these people made this like highest version of it. Speaker 1 (2:29) It's so awesome. It was fantastic and an incredible experience. And then really sadly, it turns out the restaurant is closing this month. Speaker 3 (2:37) Oh no. By Speaker 1 (2:38) the time this episode comes out, it will be closed. Oh, Speaker 3 (2:41) that's really sad. Speaker 1 (2:42) Yeah. Speaker 5 (2:42) In 20 years, you'll have something that gives you a memory of this. Of this, yeah. Speaker 1 (2:49) Sausage McMuffins. There would be one specific context in which I would have them, which is when we would go on a road trip as a family and we'd leave early in the morning. We'd get like trundled into the car in our pajamas, like my footie pajamas or whatever in the back seat, and basically be sleeping from the house until we make our first stop, which was the McDonald's drive-thru or whatever. And then I would kind of... wake up and then I'd get to have that. That's so cute. It was the best. Speaker 3 (3:15) I also can picture exactly the Rishi because that's the Rishi that I have saved in my phone who calls me is the kid Rishi in the pretty pajamas. Speaker 1 (3:23) I love that that's what you decided to put in your dress book. Speaker 1 (3:29) Do you have something like that, that you just absolutely don't eat anymore, but you feel so fondly about and was a regular part of your life when you were a kid? Speaker 5 (3:37) I guess it was round table pizza, but I don't know if it's quite the same. But I'm sure if I eat a round table pizza again, you know, the taste of the sauce is very specific. The dough is very specific. It was the closest pizzeria to our house, and we had it on Wednesdays. That was kind of like our treat. Speaker 1 (3:53) That sounds, yeah, that sounds like a perfect equivalent. That's great. But what about more recently? Have you had anything good recently? Speaker 5 (4:00) It's my birthday this week. So last night at Monday dinner, it was my birthday Monday dinner. Speaker 1 (4:05) Yes. And Speaker 5 (4:05) I was asked what I wanted. And I had like trigger finger. I was ready to go. I wanted Zuni roast chicken with the bread salad, chicory salad. And then when they said, what kind of cake? I said, carrot cake. Speaker 3 (4:16) This Speaker 5 (4:16) was all prepared very lovingly for me. It was so delicious. And then the kids helped decorate the carrot cake. And they decorated the top with orange cream cheese frosting. And then they... piped little frosting flowers that were green around the edge. And it was very cute and sort of felt carrot-y. But what we didn't expect and kind of like didn't click until Kara sliced the slices was once she sliced the slices into triangles, the orange frosting on top with the green flowers on the outside looked like an individual carrot on each slice. It was so cute. Wow. Speaker 3 (4:50) It was so cute and it was so good. She used Dory Speaker 5 (4:52) Greenspan's carrot cake recipe. And then the kids of the house have been like OG home cooking listening fans. Speaker 1 (5:00) Yeah. So Speaker 3 (5:00) they've taken to calling me like Samini, Tahini, Panini, Sardini. Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:05) That Speaker 3 (5:06) was just in the air last night. So instead of singing me happy birthday. Speaker 3 (5:12) Our friend Tao, who you know because she also used to host Song Exploder while you were filming the TV show, who's Speaker 1 (5:18) a Speaker 3 (5:18) musician, was there. So Tao started like, I don't know what's the word, creating a rhythmic song out of Samini, Sardini, Tahini, Panini. Speaker 3 (5:37) And we were all clapping and laughing. And that was what I like blew my candles out to. So it was pretty fun. Speaker 1 (5:42) That's really so nice. And happy birthday. Speaker 3 (5:45) We definitely were like, why wasn't Rishi? Speaker 1 (5:48) I feel like I was there a little bit because you started the Speaker 3 (5:52) whole thing, man. Well, Speaker 1 (5:53) we have a lot of questions that I'm really excited to play for you. You know, my brain is already always geared towards sweets, but in the holidays. Speaker 5 (6:03) It's all sweets all the time. floodgates are open. Speaker 3 (6:07) It is time. I've already been thinking Speaker 5 (6:10) about cookie swaps. Speaker 1 (6:11) Here's Speaker 3 (6:11) a Speaker 1 (6:11) question that we got from Reagan. Speaker 6 (6:14) Hi, Samin. I had the pleasure of seeing you on your tour in Denver, and now I'm in the process of reading through Good Things. And I just got to the part about vanilla beans and how hard they are to grow. And so I was just wondering how that became. such a common flavor for desserts since they're so difficult to grow and how it became normal to just say something is like plain vanilla. Thank Speaker 5 (6:41) you. I love this question and I wish I were a little more. I know a lot about vanilla. I don't know everything and this makes me want to go learn more, but I will share what I do know with you. Speaker 1 (6:51) Okay. Speaker 5 (6:52) Vanilla beans originated in, I guess what is now, what we now know as Mexico and some parts of South America. And through trade and colonialism, they made their way into other regions. And so now the main sort of places where they're grown are, they're actually within like a certain latitude of the equator. Speaker 1 (7:13) The vanilla attitude. Speaker 5 (7:14) The vanilla attitude. Yes. It's like where vanilla lattes come from. Speaker 5 (7:22) And vanilla is the seed pod of an orchid. It's the only orchid that produces something edible for us. Basically, like vanilla gives forth a seed pod once a year. And in order to get the seed pod, there's like a very limited, I believe it's like less than one day pollination period for when the flower has to be pollinated. So in the wild, before vanilla started being cultivated, it was just very rare and very special. This is all sort of building up to show that vanilla beans themselves are some of the most, maybe the most labor-intensive crop there is. By the time you are using a vanilla bean in your kitchen, it has been handled by so many people. So once you understand how much work and how much sort of human labor and human touch has to go into this, you start to understand why a single vanilla bean costs $5, $6, $7, $8, $10. A Speaker 1 (8:17) single bean? Speaker 5 (8:18) Yeah. A single bean can go really far, right? Like the inside of it comes, you know, I think tens of thousands of vanilla seeds, which are the little specks, right? That we have then you're speckling your custard or your ice cream or your panna cotta or whatever. So like a very, very, very sort of luxurious recipe would call for the use of a whole vanilla bean. Speaker 3 (8:40) Right. Speaker 5 (8:40) Often you use half a vanilla bean or a quarter of a vanilla bean. And then to my mind, you would never throw away the pod. The pod still has... you know, many more beans still in there that you can't get out, plus so much fragrance. So there are many things you can do with that. People will jam them in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar. Speaker 1 (8:57) Or Speaker 5 (8:58) you can actually make vanilla extract with them. You can just put the used pods in a jar, cover it with some booze of your choice, vodka, bourbon, whatever, and let it sit. And so you need many, many, many spent pods though to like really get good vanilla flavor in there. There is a lot of work involved and it doesn't necessarily make sense. This is a good question. Speaker 1 (9:18) Yeah, I think what Reagan asks is so interesting to me because I do kind of know and appreciate what a rare commodity it is. And yet, the flavor of vanilla is so ubiquitous that, as she says, like part of our language is to describe things that are absolutely blah as just being plain vanilla. Speaker 5 (9:36) Yeah, and I think that's a real mistake. How did this happen? I don't know how it happened. I can only surmise. But my guess is, you know, when I was reading in Kate Lebow's book, which is so beautiful, like she does basically say that in ancient Mayan times, they realized that the aroma of vanilla was a very good complement to chocolate. And so they would actually add some into the sacred chocolate drink that they would make. And I do think there is a way where vanilla and chocolate have been pitted against each other. But also I think... Because chocolate is so obviously flavorful and rich and has all of these qualities and vanilla, if you're not paying attention, it's quite subtle. You know, vanilla doesn't have a flavor. Vanilla is pretty much entirely aroma. Whereas chocolate cacao has flavor itself, right? And the different types of chocolates have their own aromatic. qualities. Some are bitter, some are sweet, some are citrusy, some are fruity, some are nutty, all of these things. And so vanilla is kind of this amazing thing because its power is it's just so, so, so strongly aromatic. And it makes a very beautiful complement to sugar. So there is a way where like vanilla in our minds has become a substitute for sweetness, even though it itself is not sweet. There's not a sugar molecule in there. It's a substitute in our minds for sweetness. Speaker 1 (10:55) Yeah. I remember as a little kid, trying a drop of vanilla extract, thinking that it was going to taste like vanilla ice cream. And Speaker 3 (11:03) then you're like, it's booze? Speaker 1 (11:04) Yeah, it was not a good surprise. Speaker 5 (11:06) No, it's not a good surprise. And so I think because vanilla is so labor-intensive and hence expensive to produce, at some point along the way, people developed an artificial vanilla flavor, which is not at all as complex, as multi-layered, as rich. as true vanilla. But I think then if you think about like a real crappy piece of chocolate versus a real crappy piece of something flavored with artificial vanilla, the real crappy chocolate thing is probably a little more enticing. Like there's a way where like there are two artificial sort of replacements are not equal. Speaker 1 (11:45) Yeah. Speaker 5 (11:46) And because of, you know, modernization, capitalism, mass production, all of these things, like we are so rarely now exposed or it just costs more to be exposed to the real thing. And so I think in our minds, what we're thinking of when we call something vanilla is artificial vanilla. When in real life, it's hardly plain boring or simple. And in fact, plain vanilla rice pudding or plain vanilla custard can actually be transcendent. Because if you use like a half of vanilla bean or even a whole vanilla bean in a pot of rice pudding, it's actually an incredible luxury. Speaker 1 (12:23) Yeah. Speaker 5 (12:24) Usually what happens in like the history of most flavors is it's discovered or quote unquote discovered by colonists who, you know, like stumble upon some ancient civilization who's been using said ingredient for a very long time and then becomes a delicacy or a luxury. And so it becomes this very treasured and prized thing globally. Speaker 1 (12:48) Yeah. It becomes like a status symbol and then it trickles down and then people want it. Speaker 5 (12:52) Exactly. And then it trickles down and then along the way it's diluted and then just is sort of part of the broad culture. And this is a really interesting example of like something that's so precious and special if you sort of just take the time to trace it. To me, the argument to be made is find a really good... source for vanilla and support them. And there are some farms that are doing their best practices to treat their workers really well. There's, I think, an organization called the Vanilla Bean Project. They're really cool. And I'll put up some other resources, but to me, it's really worth it. My friends come over and they're like, they see my vanilla and they're like, well, you're a vanilla bean millionaire. A Speaker 1 (13:33) vanillionaire. A Speaker 5 (13:34) vanillionaire. Speaker 5 (13:38) I think actually a really cool holiday present is to make either vanilla sugar or vanilla extract. You can make bottles of it and share that with people. And that's just, it's pretty cool. Speaker 1 (13:48) That's Speaker 5 (13:48) a Speaker 1 (13:48) great idea. This conversation is leading me to a question that I want to ask, but there's a question that we got that I think will help set this up. Okay. Speaker 2 (13:56) Hi, Samina Rishi. This is Mike from Fairfax, Virginia. In the Sorry Not Sorry episode, Samin answered a question about her favorite comfort foods and started with saffron and lemon chicken. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I've never cooked with or even tasted saffron. And just so you know, I just turned 70 this year. I see saffron all the time in risotto recipes, but wonder if it's really worth the price. It's so expensive. Could you help me justify the cost? Thank you. Speaker 3 (14:28) Mike, life is short. Live large. Speaker 1 (14:32) Have some saffron. Speaker 3 (14:33) Call Sumesh uncle and have him send you some saffron. Speaker 5 (14:38) So each thread of saffron has to be harvested by hand, again, by a human. It's like backbreaking labor. And, you know, I don't even know how many flowers you would have to harvest these threads from to get like a pound or even. you know, 100 grams. It takes so much time and so much work, which is why this spice is so expensive. And it is a very specific perfume. It's kind of like floral, a little bit green, like hay maybe. It's kind of