In the U.S., South Asian food is quickly becoming more easily accessible and better understood, which has helped propel the growing appetite for regional flavors among Western consumers.  Thankfully, young entrepreneurs from countries like India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, as well as first- and second-generation South Asian Americans, have begun to share their love and passion for the foods they grew up with by bringing their own essential pantry staples to market. Fourteen years ago, when I immigrated to Upstate New York from Pakistan for culinary school, finding high-quality chaat masala and achaar was nearly impossible. I would bring chai back in my suitcase with me whenever I took a trip home. Now, with a click of a button, I can easily stock my shelves with all my favorites from anywhere in the country—and even trace my spices right back to the South Asian farms they came from.

I’ve pulled together some of my favorite new South Asian food businesses below. All are deserving of your attention and support for bringing super-fresh spices, vibrant condiments, and aromatic teas to a national audience. So if you want to recreate that cup of masala chai you had at your favorite local Indian restaurant, elevate your cheeseboard with some new spreads and preserves, or are just looking for a great new hot sauce to spice up your morning scramble, these brands prove that South Asia is a great place to start.

The Sampler Pack by Sach Food

Most of the packaged paneers available in the U.S. are rubbery and squeaky between the teeth, but not this one from Sach (pronounced “such”) Foods. Born from the need for high-quality protein, the two vegetarian founders are Indian immigrants who couldn’t find a version of the firm fresh cheese they had back home, so they decided to make their own. The California brand’s sampler pack includes three flavors—plain which is great for any application, Spicy Habanero, which I love in eggs, and Turmeric Twist, which is my aunt’s favorite in saag paneer. Made with organic, grass-fed milk, Sach’s cheese is exceptionally creamy and smooth, yet still firm enough to hold its shape when cooked. Try it marinated and cooked on the grill, lightly battered and pan-fried for paneer pakoras, or simmered in a light tomato gravy for ruangan chaman. Or just eat it like me and my daughter do, thinly sliced and layered on toast with jam.

Sweet Clarity by House of Waris

Whether it’s to start the day, to rebound from the mid-afternoon slump, or as a soothing end to a long shift or a big meal—anytime, really—a cup of tea is a non-negotiable in South Asian homes. Bringing his Indian heritage to House of Waris, actor, designer, and Brooklynite Waris Ahluwalia is advocating for tea as an important form of self-care, and a moment to slow down. My favorite is the brand’s Sweet Clarity herbal blend. Loaded with roots and spices including tulsi, rhodiola, and ginger which are traditionally used to treat brain fog, fatigue, stress, and circulation issues, I find it to be a flavorful, caffeine-free alternative to coffee after lunch.

Panjiri by Babo Concept Kitchen

Traditionally eaten by women in Pakistan and India for nourishment and recovery after childbirth, panjiri is now widely consumed throughout South Asia by anyone in need of healing, energy, or for those looking to keep their body warm in cold weather. The sweet, dry crumble is made with nuts, ghee, sugar, and warm spices such as cumin. Homemade panjiri, easily found in the subcontinent, was hard to find in the West when I became a mother, and so the accessibility of Babo’s fresh and balanced panjiri is thrilling. A small business from California, Babo is owned by Rubab Waheed, a self-taught cook who prepares traditional Pakistani foods with a modern sensibility. The mix is typically eaten with a spoon, or by the palmfull, however, I’ve found it also works nicely in Western applications as well. Try it as a filling for cinnamon rolls, sprinkle it over yogurt or ice cream, or swirl it into your cookie doughs.

Luminous Capsule by Brightland

Honey is a culinary and medicinal staple in South Asia, where it’s widely used to soothe sore and scratchy throats, and sweeten teas, breads, and other dishes. Aishwarya Iyer, a Californian with Indian heritage, initially launched Brightland as a premium olive oil company, but I’m particularly taken with the brand’s orange blossom honey. With its subtle savory notes, and delicate citrus, caramel, and floral aromas, it’s extremely versatile in the kitchen. Add it to dressings, marinades, drinks, or like me, enjoy it right out of the jar by the spoonful. You can either buy this honey paired with a darker Hawaiian version, or as a part of the Luminous Capsule set, which includes a bottle of Brightland’s robust, extra-virgin olive oil and a citrus-scented chardonnay vinegar.

Tomato Achaar by Brooklyn Delhi 

Often used to elevate the simplest dahls, tomato achaar is an essential pickled condiment in Indian and Pakistani homes, where it’s typically handmade. Loaded with the usual aromatic suspects—turmeric, garlic, tamarind—and of course, tomatoes, Brooklyn Delhi’s achaar has just the right balance of sweetness, salt, acidity, and savoriness. Started by cookbook author and Saveur contributor, Chittra Agrawal, the New York brand specializes in plant-based condiments and sauces which I like to add to soups, eggs, or even pasta. You can find these fresh and flavorful products in national grocery stores, including Whole Foods, local specialty markets, or online.

Teeno Bundle by Peepal People

Translating to “bundle of three,” Peepal People’s Teeno Bundle is a great way to sample everything from this Pakistani-owned Texas brand. From the mild and mellow to fiery, the family-run business has tried to fill the gap of South Asian flavors in a familiar American form: bottled hot sauces. Hot sauces as we know them here are not found in Pakistan, but spice and chile heat most definitely are. By combining traditional Pakistani achaar-making techniques with Texas-grown chiles, Peepal People has created an easy-to-love range of condiments that crosses cultural borders. Try these sauces in marinades, over chicken, or even in ramen. The mildest blend, Hara Bhara has bright green flavors that shine in beans and lentils. The spiciest, Bhoot Bangla (which, hilariously, translates to “haunted house”), is loaded with ghost chiles and draws further sharpness from lots of garlic; it’s not for the faint of heart and is best reserved for hearty dishes like steak and barbecue. My favorite, though, is their Peela Patakha sauce, which splits the difference with a moderate heat and boasts beautiful floral, and pepper-forward flavors that go well on eggs. The latter is sold out at the moment, but keep an eye out because it’s due back in stock in July.

Immunity Essentials by Atina Foods

Founded by Suresh Pillai and Carrie Dashow, in New York’s Catskills, Atina Foods’ recipes are rooted in Ayurvedic practices, where food is considered medicine. Suresh is from Kerala, India, the home of Ayurveda, and he brings to his brand years traveling, and knowledge from the women in his family. Atina’s Immunity Essentials box includes three incredibly versatile herbal jams and pickles featuring antioxidant-rich Ayurvedic powerhouse ingredients believed to boost immunity and protect against inflammation. The Turmeric-Ginger Jam is great for elevating a cheeseboard or your morning yogurt, while the Inji Puli (a ginger-tamarind herbal jam) shines in both sweet and savory applications—think topping a chocolate cake, or mixing into mayo for your next sandwich. The Garlic Scape Pickle is great for finishing simple, fresh dishes like pan-fried fish or pasta. Lastly, the box also includes an Indian-style pickling kit with instructions, for whenever inspiration hits at home. Contrasting and layered flavors of sweet, salty, and savory, the package was made for the holidays, but really is an evergreen gift.

The 6 Pack Masala Collection by Spicewalla (6 pack Masala, Aleppo, Ajwain, Black Cardamom)

Where do I go when I’m looking for beautiful whole spices or hard-to-find powdered blends? Spicewalla, founded by Indian-born and Asheville, North Carolina-based chef Meherwarn Irani.  Irani is a restaurant-owner and a core member of Brown in the South, a series of pop-up dinners celebrating Indian chefs who have made the American South their home. His spice company, Spicewalla, offers dozens of options, all packaged in small containers, which ensure your pantry is always stocked with fresh, flavorful ingredients. The Six-Pack Masala Collection includes some great classics to get you started. Stir the tandoori masala into yogurt for a fantastic lamb chop marinade, sprinkle the chaat masala over hot french fries, steep the chai masala in your next pot of tea, use the garam masala to perfume a pot of biryani, and add the pakora masala to the batter for my asparagus pakoras. The mild, Madras-style curry powder is wonderful added to soups and stews.

Original Chai Concentrate by One Stripe Chai

You’re probably already familiar with cold brew coffee concentrate, but chai concentrate? Genius. Farah Jesani, Chief Chai Officer of Portland, Oregon’s One Stripe Chai, created this tea concentrate for chai drinkers on the go. Her Indian heritage means she’s a tea drinker, and she created her business so she could find a pre-made blend that was neither bland nor too sweet. The chic glass bottle holds enough for 8 cups of chai, which can be easily mixed either hot or cold. Pre-sweetened with honey and jaggery, and brewed with black Assam tea, it’s a great solution for anyone looking for a quick and un-fussy cup. Try it as a midday pick-me-up, or for that first jolt of caffeine in the morning.

Turmeric Latte by Kola Goodies

Sajani Amarsiri founded Kola Goodies to bring the flavors of her home country, Sri Lanka, closer to her in San Francisco. In recent years, thanks to a plethora of purported health benefits, turmeric milk has exploded in popularity in the Western wellness world, so she decided to offer this traditional South Asian drink and other milk-based Sri Lankan beverages in a convenient just-add-water form. With cinnamon and turmeric sourced from Sri Lanka, and ashwagandha, a plant traditionally used to treat stress, this turmeric latte is particularly flavorful and soothing.

Pantry Refresh by Diaspora Co. 

When she moved from Mumbai to California, Sana Javeri Kadri quickly realized the need for an equitable spice trade, so she began Diaspora Co. an online source for 30 single-origin spices that can be traced right back to the people who grew them. If you’re curious about the brand but don’t know where to start, I suggest the Pantry Refresh. This set includes my own two kitchen essentials—medium-heat chile powder, and ground turmeric—as well as black mustard seeds, ground ginger, (which I love for baking,) coriander seed, and my absolute favorite, the versatile and floral black pepper.

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“When people come here, they often ask us, ‘What’s CHamoru?,’” Chef Shawn Naputi tells me from Prubechu, the celebrated CHamoru restaurant he co-owns with longtime business partner Shawn Camacho.

Technically, CHamoru (also stylized Chamorro, a Spanish exonym) refers to the Indigenous people, language, and culture of Guam—the U.S. territory and western Pacific island where Naputi and Camacho were born and raised—and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariåna Islands in Micronesia, which includes Rota, Tinian, and Saipan.

Conceptually, however, it’s difficult to distill the character of CHamoru cuisine. Food from Guam is at once exotic and familiar: you’ll swear you’ve tried some dishes before—and you probably have, as there are many CHamoru interpretations of dishes that are popular in other cultures, such as lumpia, empanådas, and potato salad—while others are wholly distinctive.

To get a firmer grasp on CHamoru cooking, it’s important to consider the Mariåna Islands’ geographic location and history. The first islands to be settled by humans in Remote Oceania, the Mariånas were long a coveted outpost on the Pacific trade route, strategically located in relation to the Philippines, Hawaii, Japan, and Oceania. The Indigenous people of the islands are primarily of Austronesian descent, with the majority residing on Guam, the largest of the island chain. But beginning with the Portuguese explorer Magellan’s arrival in the 1500s, CHamoru natives have had to incorporate and adapt to a constant influx of outside influences, including 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, as well as occupations by Germany, Japan, and the United States. Today, you’ll see an amalgamation of these influences—in addition to those of Latin American and other Asian and Micronesian cultures, brought by people who have immigrated to the islands—reflected in CHamoru cuisine.

Naputi and Camacho say that, over time, CHamorus have adopted the dishes they liked most from these other cultures, adding them to their native repertoire and iterating them in their own distinct way. (One could also argue that CHamoru culture has influenced other cultures in return: the Indigenous CHamorus first settled the Mariåna Islands more than 3,000 years ago and developed their own culinary practices, from which foreigners likely drew inspiration during their visits to the islands or occupation of them.) In Guam, the result is a continually evolving culinary landscape.

“I think all the technical questions regarding ‘Where does this dish come from?’ only happens outside of Guam,” Naputi says, citing the oft-futile scenario of trying to pin down the provenance of any culture’s cuisine. Growing up, he and Camacho didn’t even realize that some common CHamoru dishes had originated outside the island because they were so inextricably woven into local Guamanian culture. A dish, therefore, becomes distinctly CHamoru “when CHamorus decide to put it on their table,” Camacho says.

Camacho and Naputi, longtime friends who originally moved to California for college and culinary school, respectively, opened Prubechu in 2014 after years of cooking their native cuisine for friends and colleagues. Though California has a large CHamoru population compared to most other states in the mainland U.S., CHamoru food is still highly underrepresented in the country’s culinary landscape. Naputi and Camacho are trying to change that.

“Food is a focal point of every gathering, and plays a central role in family and our culture,” Camacho explains. Dishes are often prepared in large batches—sometimes with the help of the whole family and neighbors—and enjoyed communally. Camacho and Naputi strive to capture that energy at Prubechu, where they serve shareable plates and regularly host fiesta-style events, often partnering with local and Guamanian-owned breweries.

Engaging the community through food is important to Camacho and Naputi, both in Guam and at Prubechu. Naputi and Camacho credit their own community for not only helping them launch their restaurant, but also supporting them during a brief hiatus in 2018—when they were between physical restaurant spaces—and through 2020’s pandemic-related closures. Their community also connected them with their third business partner—D-Scheme Studio president and architect Marc Dimalanta, another Guam native—who helped bring to life Naputi and Camacho’s vision for their newest space in 2019.

“We started our original restaurant with less than $10,000 and staffed it with family and friends,” Camacho remembers. “Truthfully, we wouldn’t be here without the community that built us up —the guests, the encouragement and support from industry pros, the farmers who were super enthusiastic about how we were using their ingredients in very unfamiliar ways.”

Despite the multifaceted influences that express themselves in the cuisine, CHamoru cooking relies heavily on two main pillars, Naputi says: “High-acid, high-char.” Grilling (also colloquially referred to as barbequing in Guam) and the use of vinegars and citrus are prominent in many dishes. Spice from fresh chile peppers and coconut, which Naputi and Camacho call “the tree of life on Guam,” also make frequent appearances, balancing and heightening the other flavors.

Naputi and Camacho, committed to offering patrons a genuine CHamoru dining experience,  suggest certain dishes like chicken kelaguen should always be prepared as traditionally as possible. However, applying some creative spin when cooking CHamoru food is generally acceptable. At Prubechu, Naputi draws upon his experience working at an Italian restaurant early in his career, as well as his access to fresh produce in the San Francisco Bay Area, to create original takes on prominent CHamoru dishes. He might swap pasta for rice in a dish, or add ingredients that aren’t available in Guam—if and only if the flavor profiles work, he emphasizes. For example, Prubechu serves a rendition of tinaktak, a coconut-braised beef that features flavors reminiscent of beef stroganoff and is traditionally served over white rice. To help diners make the connection, Naputi layers tinaktak over noodles, which he believes makes the dish more accessible to a wider American audience without disrupting the soul of the original dish.

“Our cuisine is very classic—we just add another ingredient, but we do it with the utmost care,” Camacho says of Prubechu’s way of inviting both Guamanians and non-Guamanians to the table through creativity. But no matter the dish, the goal is the same: “If someone from Guam flies in and eats our food, we want it to taste like it would taste in Guam.”

Cooking CHamoru Food At Home:

Before embarking on your own exploration into CHamoru cooking at home, Naputi and Camacho recommend stocking your pantry with the following staples, most of which can easily be sourced at your local grocery store, or at Asian or Latino markets. In addition to the ever-important barbeque grill, some tools that come in handy in CHamoru cooking are a citrus squeezer, coconut grating tool, and tortilla press—the latter of which is used to make CHamoru titiyas (coconut-infused flatbread) and empanådas.

Tropics Grated Coconut

Grated coconut is a key ingredient in many iconic CHamoru dishes, including kelaguen, and sweets like coconut candy. At Prubechu, the team uses Tropics-brand frozen grated coconut, which doesn’t include added sugars or preservatives, when they are unable to grate fresh coconut on the kåmyu, a traditional Guamanian tool with a seat and star-shaped blade.

Kikkoman Soy Sauce 

Soy sauce is the backbone of many CHamoru marinades and sauces, including piquant fina’denne’, which Naputi describes as the “mother sauce” that is a permanent fixture on CHamorro tables. Prubechu’s aromatic barbeque marinade also relies heavily on soy sauce as its base, conjuring Asian-inspired flavor profiles with its mild sweetness and addition of ginger. Naputi and Camacho grew up using Kikkoman-brand soy sauce in Guam, so it’s become a reliable go-to at Prubechu.

Heinz Distilled Vinegar

In addition to citrus, vinegar also helps achieve acidic flavor profiles in CHamoru cooking. Heinz distilled white vinegar or apple cider vinegar are versatile liquids to have on hand. Naputi also incorporates white rice vinegar into dishes like escabeche, and whips coconut vinegar into Prubechu’s creamy tuba butter.

Chaokoh Coconut Milk

Coconut milk features in many traditional CHamoru dishes at Prubechu, including lechen biringuenas (smoky eggplant in a creamy coconut-soy marinade) and appan mendioka (coconut milk-braised cassava). Fresh coconut milk is always the best and most traditional option, but it’s labor-intensive and not always possible to execute at home. The Prubechu team tested several different brands of canned coconut milk and found Chaokoh to be the next best thing.

Mamacita’s Achiote Powder

Made from ground annatto seeds, achiote powder derives from the prickly red Bixa orellana shrub and was likely first brought to Guam by the Spanish, who had also colonized Mexico. In CHamoru cooking, its subtly sweet, earthy flavor enhances CHamoru empanådas and red rice (hineksa’ aga’ga’), a mealtime staple that is typically the first dish placed at the head of the fiesta table. The Prubechu team often uses a pre-made powder from Mamacita’s, a Filipino brand, when fresh achiote from Guam is not available. “In California, there are a lot of cultures that use achiote, so if you get a Latino or Mexican variety, it’s usually mixed with some kind of liquid, which turns it into a paste,” Camacho explains. 

Yours Brand Lemon Powder

Though fresh lemon is preferable in certain recipes, some dishes require the acidic profile of citrus without the additional liquid. That’s where lemon powder comes in. In Guam, Yours Lemon Powder is such a sought-after pantry staple that it’s often stored behind the counter at stores to avoid theft, according to Naputi and Camacho. While Prubechu works directly with a distributor to obtain their stock of Yours, the rest of us can either order it online for a premium price (about $10 to $18 for 5.2 oz., plus shipping) or buy it in person in Guam.

Bird’s Eye Chiles

Fresh red chiles add heat to dishes and sauces like fina’denne’ and donne’ dinanche, a spicy paste that’s used as a condiment for grilled meats and white rice. While the Guam pepper varietals donne’ sali and donne’ ti’au aren’t always easy to find on the mainland U.S., Camacho and Naputi say red bird’s eye chiles—which are more readily available at Asian markets and some grocery chains—mimic their flavor and heat profile well, offering high-intensity heat without lingering on the palate too long. 

Diamond G Calrose Rice

Rice has been important to CHamorus for centuries, and was even used ceremonially in ancient CHamoru culture. Today, steamed rice is a staple that accompanies most CHamoru dishes, either served plain or prepared as red rice with achiote. Naputi and Camacho prefer Diamond G Calrose rice because it’s the only brand they grew up eating on Guam (likely due to the island’s limited product availability), lending a taste of home to the dishes they serve at Prubechu. 

Maseca Instant Corn Masa Flour

Mexicans once traveled through the Mariåna Islands on the Mexico-to-Manila trade route and likely introduced corn to the ancient CHamoru diet. For hundreds of years, CHamorus ground the corn by hand, but in modern culture, cooks use processed corn flour to make CHamoru corn titiyas and empanådas. Naputi prefers Maseca-brand masa harina (corn flour) but also sources fresh masa dough from Latino markets in San Francisco.

Recipes

Chicken Kelaguen

Get the recipe >

The post Prubechu’s Essential CHamoru Pantry appeared first on Saveur.

The word tahini derives from an ancient Arabic verb, “to grind,” a fitting origin for an ingredient as mighty as this pure sesame paste. Made by soaking, toasting, and grinding sesame seeds, tahini unlocks the incredible power hidden in these tiny kernels. In the ancient Levant, only the olive matched the sesame seed’s potential for nutrition, flavor, and a potent burst of energy. So if you’ve been leaving tahini to lurk in the background of your hummus and coast in your kitchen, it’s time to give this essential ingredient another look. Here are a few ways to make the most of your tahini.

A Versatile Salad Dressing

Tahini’s nutty flavor sings when you add acid and spice. In a mortar, crush two cloves of raw garlic with a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of cumin seeds. The salt and cumin act as abrasives, so after a minute of mashing you’ll have an aromatic paste that doubles as vampire repellent. Then, in the same mortar, add a couple spoonfuls of tahini and a squeeze of lemon juice along with a tablespoon of water to loosen everything up. Stir the mixture together and add more lemon and salt to taste, and you’ve just made a traditional Middle Eastern condiment that’s as happy dressing a salad as it is enriching a pot of beans. 

Use this dressing on a summer salad of tomatoes and cucumbers, or a winter version with radish, pears, and thinly sliced red cabbage. The tahini brings a nice creamy body while the garlic and cumin keep things punchy; it’s even good tossed with mixed greens. But you’ll also want to keep this condiment around for your soup pot; that tahini heft makes it a winner in a simple pot of beans or a bowl of pasta e fagioli. You can even mix the condiment with your favorite chile oil to dress an easy take on sesame noodles.

Salty Meets Sweet

Another way to unlock tahini’s potential is to pair it with something sweet. Date syrup, also called silan, is a traditional classic: a dark, almost caramelly molasses that’s great with a smear of tahini together on a toasted pita. When the two are drizzled over savory dishes, they function almost like balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, with a dazzling burst of flavor that highlights the sweet and umami elements of a recipe. 

Falafel loves this treatment. So does roasted lamb, chicken, or cauliflower. But the real winner here is cubes of roasted sweet potato, which pair perfectly with nutty tahini and fruity date syrup.  Sprinkle on some chopped pistachios for crunch and you have a dish worth adding to your Thanksgiving table.

Spicy Magic Marinade

Tahini readily forms the base of a marinade for meat or vegetables. On the grill or in the oven, the paste develops a satisfying crust that locks in herbs and spices while forming tasty nuggets of extra-browned crackling for the cook to enjoy. Mighty Sesame Co.’s harissa tahini is the perfect thing for such a marinade, as it adds the sunny heat of North African pepper paste right from the start; the brand’s convenient packaging makes this versatile ingredient even easier to use—just shake, squeeze, and serve. Start with a quarter cup of harissa tahini and a heavy pinch of salt, then add glugs of lemon juice and olive oil that you measure with your heart, along with your favorite herbs (parsley and cilantro are good starts) and crushed black pepper, cumin, and coriander. Try it with chicken thighs or a nice lamb shoulder, or cubes of liver for skewered kebabs. Chewy, grillable halloumi cheese is also nice. And don’t forget carrots! Two of the key spices in harissa—coriander and caraway—belong to the same botanical family as the orange taproots, and they complement each other nicely.

The post Three Easy Ways to Make Tahini the Star of Your Pantry appeared first on Saveur.

Like most Hawaiians, Sheldon Simeon stocks his kitchen with the ingredients that reflect the Pacific culinary diaspora, from Filipino bagoóng, a fermented fish paste, to Korean gochugaru chile flakes. He has a Zojirushi rice cooker on his counter, and stacks bags of arare—Japanese soy-glazed rice crackers—in the pantry. In his new book, Cook Real Hawai’i, Simeon guides us through how to prepare the family-style dishes he loves serving his own ’ohana, as well as recipes that represent the comforting meals (huli huli chicken, saimin, kalbi ribs) at the local places he grew up eating—plate lunch wagons, drive-ins, okazuya delis, pau hana bars.

According to Simeon, the essential ingredients for cooking local Hawaiian food are easily sourced from any well-stocked grocery or a trip to your nearest Asian market. He also recommends mail-ordering from Snack Hawaii, which is almost as good as landing on Maui and heading straight to his restaurant, Tin Roof, a love letter to the mom-and-pop joints of his childhood. Here’s a short guide to the only-in-Hawai’i essentials, and where we source them.

’Alaea Sea Salt

This heritage ingredient gets its characteristic red hue from the volcanic red clay which is added to the salt pans as seawater evaporates under the sun. Traditional ’alaea made by Hawaiian salt harvesters, like the families of Hui Hana Pa’akai on Kauai, is considered sacred, so it’s mostly unobtainable unless you’re related or a kahuna performing a blessing. In place of the sacred stuff, Simeon suggests two brands of commercially produced ’alaea that are nostalgic for locals—Hawaiian Pa’akai and Aloha Spice—both of which are also produced on Kauai. Another brand of ’alaea is made with deep sea salt harvested off Kona on the island of Hawai’i, and is used to season such regional specialties as poke and laulau.

Aloha Shoyu

Simeon’s favorite shoyu is the Aloha brand, which has been brewed on Oahu since 1946. It’s a smooth and mild soy sauce that will work for all of his recipes. In a pinch, he also likes Yamasa, made in the mellower, rounder Japanese style; he says some locals even mix it with a tiny splash of sugar water to mimic the softer taste of Aloha.

Guava Jelly

Fresh guavas are great in season, and are essential in Simeon’s recipe for tropical fruit bread, but he also recommends stocking your pantry with guava jelly and jam, sweet, sticky condiments beloved by locals. Order a farm-made, small- batch version from Hawaiian Farmers Market. 

Hapa Rice

According to Simeon, this Hawaiian word means “half,” and hapa in pidgin often refers to someone who is mixed race—usually half haole (white), half something else. Hapa rice is a cheeky play on that: half white rice, half brown rice. Early in plantation days, when rice farming in Hawai’i became popular, low-quality rice husking equipment resulted in grains that were only half-milled, somewhere between white and brown rice. Locals developed a taste for this hearty, textured variation. To make this healthier blend, mix equal parts white with brown (same grain size) and cook according to standard directions in a rice cooker. Short- and medium-grain rice brands most often used in Hawai’i are CalRose, Kokuho Rose, and Nishiki, but here’s where to source premium-grade white and brown Koshihikari rice.

Li Hing Mui

Li hing mui is a dried, salted sour plum that originated in China’s Pearl River Delta and eventually found its way to Hawai’i, becoming a cult favorite snack sold in crack seed (snack) stores that stock dozens of flavors and varieties. Red li hing mui, which has a certain medicinal, sweet licorice taste, is most popular in its dried, leathery fruit form or crushed to a salty-sour powder, which is used to coat everything from gummy bears to shave ice. Simeon also adds the powder to vinaigrettes and to his gorgeous preserved prune mui, a dried fruit compote infused with Chinese five spice and splash of whiskey. Look to Honolulu’s mom-and-pop Kaimuki Crack Seed Store for an encyclopedic selection of dried plum treats.

Macadamia Nuts

Despite the hype, mac nuts are native to Australia, not Hawai’i. However, they were introduced to the islands during the 1920s and quickly became one of the state’s top exports. Macadamias are sold roasted and salted or dipped in chocolate at Waikiki tourist shops as well as raw and fresh-picked at rural farm stands and weekly markets. Buttery and rich but mild in flavor, macadamias are an excellent substitute for kukui, or candlenut, traditionally used by kanaka maoli (indigenous Hawaiians) as an ingredient in inamona or poke. Small producers like Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company on the island of Hawai’i make some of the tastiest. 

Ogo

Ogo is a type of limu, or Hawaiian seaweed, known by its brownish-red color and lacy appearance. Most commonly added to poke or salads, the fresh oceanic flavor and crisp texture make it great in sauces, too. Fresh or frozen ogo is hard to find on the mainland, so Simeon suggests ordering a dried version available from Noh Foods and rehydrating it according to the package instructions. (The closest substitute is dried wakame or hijiki seaweed, soaked in water until tender.)

Ti Leaves

Ti (Cordyline fruticosa) was introduced to Hawai’i as a “canoe plant” by Polynesian voyagers, who thought they brought good luck, and its frond-like leaves are used in celebration leis and for wrapping steamed foods like laulau (the leaves are discarded after use). They have a unique astringent scent. Order kitchen-grade ti leaves from With Our Aloha. Simeon also recommends substituting milder banana leaves for his recipes, sold in major supermarket freezer aisles and online or fresh at many Asian markets.

Use Hawaiian Ingredients in These Recipes

10 Hawaiian Recipes to Transport You to the Islands »

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Like many during the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself taking up new hobbies—especially in the kitchen, where I tried my hand at traditional Vietnamese recipes that I wouldn’t have dreamt of attempting before. (I’m not the only one: working from home and with more flexibility than ever, one in six Americans took up a new pastime and 36 percent of respondents said they found themselves cooking.) 

Yet, as the world reopens—and with the always-on WFH culture still going strong—my schedule is somehow more packed than it was before the pandemic. On the hunt for time-saving ingredients, I’ve relied heavily on Omsom, a company specializing in convenient, shelf-stable “meal starters” for classic Asian dishes curated by seminal Asian American chefs and restaurateurs like Nicole Ponseca, chef Deuki Hong, and chefs Chat and Ohm Suansilphong of Fish Cheeks. Just buy your meat and veggies, add Omsom, cook, and serve. Since launching in 2020, they’ve sold out a whopping seven times, shipped to all 50 states, and partnered with Disney for the release of the Southeast Asian-inspired animated film Raya and the Last Dragon. 

Aptly translating to the Vietnamese word for “rowdy,” Omsom’s unapologetic success reveals a wider appetite for Asian food products that speak directly to the hearts and palates of Asian Americans—while also offering more widespread accessibility for less visible food cultures. As a generation of immigrant kids have come of age in the past decade, they’ve begun to shape and redefine the country’s supermarket shelves—and digital, direct-to-consumer marketplaces—with marinades, hot sauces, spices, and other condiments. If there are a dozen options for ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise, why not have the same choices for fish sauce, chutney, achaar, or chile oil? 

“Growing up, we never felt seen by this ‘ethnic’ aisle in mainstream grocery stores,” explains Boston-born Vietnamese American entrepreneur Kim Pham, who co-founded Omsom with her sister Vanessa. “It’s wild, considering the changing DNA of this country—where a third of the U.S. population comprises immigrants and their children, and yet this aisle continues to perpetuate an antiquated view of BIPOC cuisines and cultures.” 

Lockdown-era innovation found its way into many kitchens across the States. During the pandemic, dozens of acclaimed chefs launched independent condiment brands. Perhaps inspired by the smash success of Fly by Jing, a truly all-purpose Sichuan condiment that debuted in 2018, chile oil has become quite the hot commodity. In New York City, Nowon’s Jae Lee recently released a standout version with Korean chile flakes, Sichuan pepper, and sesame seeds; meanwhile, Junzi Kitchen’s Lucas Sin partnered with The Metropolitan Museum of Art on a three-jar chile oil gift set featuring one inspired by historic Silk Road spices like Egyptian fennel and Afghan cumin. Then there’s Mẹ’s Way, a new brand of hand-batched chile sauces made with umami-laden anchovy and spotlighting the oft-forgotten Central Vietnamese region.

Beyond dipping and seasoning sauces, several food startups have launched with a focus on ready-to-eat and packaged meals in newfangled formats. On a recent trip to Whole Foods, I discovered an array of paneer (a fresh, non-melting Indian-style cheese) from Sach Foods. Made with grass-fed California milk, each version—including original, spicy habanero, and turmeric—can be enjoyed as a snack straight out of the box, or thrown onto a pan for a quick sear or stir-fry. Even instant ramen, perhaps one of the most essential Asian pantry staples, has been given a nutritious, new-school revision with immi, founded by Kevin Lee and Kevin Chanthasiriphan, who were inspired by their childhoods working in family markets in Taiwan and Thailand, respectively. 

By offering a greater plurality of offerings and pushing for mainstream representation, Asian American chefs and entrepreneurs have opened doors for deeper understanding of cuisines, allowing for more regional foodways and homestyle dishes to come to the forefront. Take Vietnamese food: while many American diners recognize pho and banh mi, those aren’t necessarily daily staples in a Vientamese household. So when the Pham sisters tapped Chef Jimmy Ly of Madame Vo to curate a Vietnamese recipe for Omsom, I was pleased to find a starter for a more practical, daily, homestyle dish: lemongrass chicken. 

This type of culturally specific innovation often starts simply with necessity, says Chitra Agrawal, SAVEUR contributor and founder of the small-batch Indian condiment company Brooklyn Delhi. After all, it was only in the past few decades that many Americans could name more than a handful of dishes from Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as the plethora of regional cuisines from the Indian subcontinent. One of the earlier pioneers in the Asian craft condiment space, Agrawal launched her first line of achaars (Indian-style pickles) seven years ago. To date, Brooklyn Delhi remains the only American-made achaar sold widely in Western grocery stores. Agrawal says it hasn’t been easy. 

“When you’re first to market with a product that is not as known, the onus of education falls on your shoulders and can be challenging if you are a small business with no funding,” Agrawal explains. “It gives me hope to see new food brands coming out with regional products, because I believe a rising tide lifts all boats. Together we can educate consumers and make grocery shelves more representative of today’s America. Americans are ready to see supermarkets expand their offerings in this way.”

Thankfully, with the dogged persistence of these POC chefs and innovators, the country’s palate has rapidly expanded, signaling a degree of open-mindedness for “weird foods” as well as long-maligned ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG). With a mission to tackle stigmas around Asian food, Omsom recently released a limited Thai krapow collaboration with Pepper Teigen that’s distinguished by its unabashed use of the stuff. 

“For years, there has been a really negative stigma around MSG—people think it’s bad for you, but research shows that it’s truly safe,” says Teigen, who’s become an ambassador for Ajinomoto’s educational “Know MSG” campaign. “I’ve always used MSG in my cooking and when I travel with my family, I even bring MSG with me because it makes everything taste better!” 

Indeed, it’s the connection to tradition that makes these products “authentic” in the sense that they reflect the real lived experience of immigrants and their children in America. And there’s been one recurring theme in my conversations with these food founders: Their a-ha moment came at the dinner table, sharing a meal with family. 

“You know that saying, ‘Sometimes the person you’re looking for is staring you right in the face and you don’t even notice them’? That’s what maazah has been for me my whole life!” says Yasameen Sajady, who created the Afghan chutney brand Maazah with her mother and two sisters. “One day, we were having lunch at my parents’ house and the table was quiet. The only thing people were saying was, ‘Can you pass the chutney?’ And I slammed my fist down on the table and said, ‘This is it! We have to share this with the world.’ ”

With immigrant children leading the charge to make our traditional foods more accessible, there’s never been a better time to make Asian food in America—whether you’re of Asian descent or not. But for those of us who’ve been starved of representation, this acceptance also feeds the soul. 

“It seems like almost overnight, we’ve grown this incredibly engaged audience of Asian Americans—many of whom are first- and second-gen like us,” Pham says. “They’re the ones who help us pick future tastemakers. They’re the ones who keep us accountable when we make mistakes in our content. They’re the ones who give us super helpful feedback on products. It is both an honor and privilege to serve these folks who are often underrepresented in the mainstream grocery store, so it’s rad to build a brand that helps folks feel more seen.”

The post How These Asian American Entrepreneurs Are Redefining the Millennial Pantry appeared first on Saveur.

Many bitter foods have been cast out of the good graces of the Western world, but not in India, where all are afforded parity in the country’s culinary landscape. 

No matter where you go in the subcontinent, bitterness is grained deep into the culture. Fenugreek seeds and leaves (both fresh and dried into kasuri methi), bitter gourd, spinach, guar beans, papdi (hyacinth bean), and vaal (field beans) are staples, but you will also find the leaves of the neem plant, night jasmine, pointed gourd, and amaranth, amongst others. It is likely that this affinity grew spontaneously; many plants, such as the bitter gourd, the neem, and the guar bean are indigenous to the country. Ayurveda also had a hand to play. 

Across India, bitter foods are friend and salve, powerhouses of nutrients, and often rich in fiber. Sometimes, the health is besides the point; the brace of bitterness that sluices our taste buds is these ingredients’ most enduring appeal. 

Indians consider bitterness a crucial building block of flavor. Sometimes it stands in solitude without any accompaniment, as with a finely-sliced bitter gourd or with neem leaves, spiced and deep-fried to crisp. Other times, it is one within a symphony of flavor, as with the tenebrous acridity of papri (hyacinth beans) piercing unctuous, ghee-steeped mutton kebabs. Sometimes, it works the other way round, the bitterness of toasted fenugreek seed puncturing the monochrome sweetness of a vegetable like pumpkin. Bitterness has so many shades and partners; each community finds its own way. 

Even a cursory mapping of ancient Indian writings shows that bitter foods are unshiftably ensconced in the Indian kitchen. The first in this roll call of texts is bitter gourd, mentioned in the Vedas as well as in Jain literature that stretches back to 400 BCE. The gourd has even inspired febrile flights of fancy: the Ksemakutuhalam (a 1550 Sanskrit treatise on diet and health) refers to that vegetable as “an emerald without and a coral within.” Similarly, our dalliance with fenugreek goes way back. Native to southern Europe and mentioned in literature written as far back as 800 BCE, remnants of the plant have even been excavated from the littered ruins of Harappa, a South Asian Bronze Age civilization that flowered around 4,500 years ago. 

But bitter foods are perhaps most reified by Ayurveda; a philosophy that holds resonance with some Indians even today. Ayurveda looks at the pantry as pharmacopeia, believing that when the humors become imbalanced, they lead to disease (this is contested of course by modern medicine). “The treatments using food are based on the six tastes (‘rasa’ in Sanskrit)—sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent,” writes restaurateur Camellia Panjabi in The Great Curries of India… Foods with bitter taste eliminate bacterial elements, purify the blood and are light on digestion.” This purported ease of digestion makes these ingredients popular summer or monsoon-season foods. 

For tongues that might find bitter flavors aberrant, consider these simple dishes as an entry point, before abseiling into the cavernous repertoire of bitter vegetable recipes.  

Steep finely sliced bitter gourd or spinach leaves in a gram flour batter, then deep fry until the fritters grow gold and crisp. Work chopped fenugreek leaves into paratha dough (then mix and match your methi paratha with knobs of your favorite pickle and a scoop of fresh yogurt.) Or you might sauté some spinach or fenugreek leaves with tomato, onion, turmeric and chili powder until they wrinkle, then fork them into a cup of cooked toor dal. When confronted with sweetness, bitterness yields its belligerence. Maharashtrian fenugreek curry, for example, pools vaal beans with coconut, kokum fruit, and jaggery. Caramelized onions perform the same function for the Kayasth community’s bharwa karela (lightly browned onions stuffed in the cleft of a whole bitter gourd), as does the oblique sweetness of coconut flesh, by way of Kerala’s pavakkai (bitter gourd) thoran. 

Meat mates well with it too. Sadia Dehlvi writes about the conviviality shared between bitter gourd and ground lamb (“qeema” or “keema” or “kheemo”) in her book Jasmines and Jinns: “Karela qeema is my favourite qeema and I make it all through the summer months, when karela and raw mango are in plenty…Most friends try it for the first time in my home and seem to love it.” Similarly, the Parsi community tames the bellicosity of the bitter papri (hyacinth bean) and its seeds with minced mutton kebabs, which are dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried. 

Less commonly, bitterness is constrained with legumes, as with the Maharashtrian methichi usal (sprouted fenugreek curry), which marries fenugreek seeds with toor dal (pigeon peas), jaggery, and coconut. Sometimes, bitterness is just a spectral taste, like in a lime peel pickle tasselled with salt and spice. 

For those who wish it, there are many ways to flush the bitterness from a plant: a trickle of salt or a long soak in brine usually helps. But mostly the triumph of a bitter dish comes through its accompaniments. Each dish must have a companionable balance of flavors, rather than a jostle of contrapuntal tastes thrown together pell-mell. Bitterness acts as a fine foil to the pucker of acidity, the sting of salt, and the plush of sweetness.  

But often, the bitterness is the point of a dish—a taste to be treasured on its own, uneroded by palliating flavors. 

Parsis do nothing to allay the bite of fenugreek leaves in their bhaji dana; they choose the small-leaved varieties, then cook it with a splatter of green peas. The greens are shot through with ginger-garlic paste, flayed with chile, then gentled with caramelized onions. The more carnivorous might also fork in pieces of mutton to make bhaji dana ma gos. In Assam, teetaphool (orange-crimson bitter flowers) are tossed in batter and crisp-fried. In Bengal, bitterness is almost a cultural signifier; few communities are as prodigious eaters of bitter foods as the Bengalis. In Bengali Cooking: Seasons and Festivals, Chitrita Banerji writes about how belief in the specific attributes of different foods has long flourished in Bengal “because of a long tradition of Ayurvedic medicine practised by local physicians….The association of healthy properties with a bitter taste and the subsequent appreciation of that bitterness as a taste is a Bengali peculiarity that outsiders find incomprehensible.” She also credits its popularity to the charismatic Bengali founder of the vegetarian equality-and-non-violence-driven Bhakti movement, Chaitanya, who was fond of dishes containing shukuta (dried neem leaves). There are so many bitter Bengali recipes: neembegun (eggplant fried with neem leaves), tetor dal (mung dal with crisped bitter gourd), ucche bhaja (fried rings of bitter gourd). But perhaps the best known one is the shukto. 

Shukto is a mixed vegetable dish eaten as a sort of starter for the midday meal. “Shukto’s unique value is based on the gastronomic theory that it prepares the tongue and stomach for the courses that follow,” Banerji writes. It is a covenant of reciprocity, the bitterness of the gourd (or neem leaves, or patol, the climbing gourd) palliated with eggplant, white radish, green banana, potato, green papaya, or even fish. Shukto offers tremendous leeway, yet each ingredient must serve to edify the other. Only an experienced cook can know the exact pitch of bitterness that makes an excellent shukto, that “balance between the bitterness of the vegetables and the seasonings, which include ground ginger, poppy-seed paste, and the typical Bengali five-spice mix called panch phoron,” as Banerji notes. Ghee, the final tile in the mosaic, is spooned in just before the dish is lifted from the flames. 

“You won’t find shukto coexisting with chicken tikka masala in Indian restaurants abroad,” writes Banerji. “Even in Bengal, it is essentially a home-cooked item.” And so it is with all these dishes. It isn’t restaurant food, tweezered and bowdlerized to make it palatable to the coddled tongue. Bitter foods resist conformity; they refuse to be constrained by the choke-collar of popular opinion with its bias towards sour, savory, and sweet flavors. They are aberrant pockets of comfort, Banerji writes in The Hour of the Goddess, “the perfect representation of the intersection of tastes, which lends mystery and delight to food.”

Recipes

Parsi-Style Karela Ma Kheemo

This recipe will quickly convert bitter gourd haters to fans. Get the recipe for Parsi-style Karela Ma Kheemo »

Bhaji Dana

Eat this highly versatile dish of fenugreek leaves on its own, with a cooked egg on top, or as a side dish with chicken or lamb. Get the recipe for Bhaji Dana »

The post India’s Beautifully Bitter Flavors appeared first on Saveur.

When I was growing up, my mother made wok-tossed mussels on Friday nights. As she placed the platter of green-tinged shells onto the table, I would immediately push the briny shellfish aside, then covetously ladle their glossy dark sauce over my bowl of rice. For me, the mussels were never the star of this meal. Instead, it was all about that salty, spicy fermented black bean sauce. 

My mother was born in Guangdong Province in Southern China. She left her homeland on the precipice of the cultural revolution, and eventually settled in Sydney, Australia. Here, without the English language skills or education needed to find work, she cooked the food of her youth with fervor. From big breakfasts of fried rice or macaroni soup, to the fermenting pork, fish, ginger, and eggs she prepared for future meals, to her generous, banquet-style dinners, food was an unbreakable tether to her homeland. And for as long as I can remember, dou si (also known as dou chi to Mandarin speakers, or fermented black beans in English) has been a prevalent ingredient in her flavorsome Cantonese home cooking. 

For her favorite classic vegetable dish, she stir-fried bitter melon with dou si. For a meatier course, pai gwut, she added the beans to juicy chunks of pork spare-ribs. And for ju yook biang—her signature steamed “pork cake” and a staple throughout my childhood—tiny beads of black beans burst through tender meat with an intense and irresistible saltiness. On the few occasions my mother wasn’t up to cooking a lavish dinner, she rewarded my siblings and me with canned fried dace. The rich and oily fish packed with salty dou si right in the can was a special treat, and the only accompaniment we needed with white rice. 

The world’s oldest known soybean product, dou si is laced with history and significance to the Chinese. In 1972, it was found inside a tomb in South Central China that had been sealed since 165 BCE. The beans were also mentioned in Shiji, a monumental history of ancient China completed in the first century BCE by a Western Han Dynasty official, Sima Qian. Still today, dou si remains an important and widespread ingredient not only in China, but also throughout East and Southeast Asia. In Korea, the beloved noodle dish jajangmyeon is topped with a black bean sauce called chunjang; in the Philippines, bangus sa tausi is a tomato and fermented black bean fish stew; and in nearby Indonesia, the beans are used to season kakap tahu tausi, a dish of fried snapper and tofu. 

Made from black soybeans that have been inoculated with mold, dou si is then salted and left to dry. Time—six months or so—imparts a robust, multi-dimensional flavor, reminiscent of other aged foods like parmesan cheese and olives. In my kitchen, the ingredient is a weeknight workhorse, and a quick way to add nuance and complexity to a meal with minimal effort and ingredients. It can be added to stir-fries, stews, braises, or even salad dressings to enhance more subdued flavors. And while store-bought black bean sauce is a useful convenience, having a stash of the whole fermented black beans in your pantry is even more useful. Fortunately, fermented black beans are very shelf-stable, and making your own intensely aromatic black bean sauce at home is surprisingly easy: Simply soak the beans to rehydrate, then mash them up with a bit of water, a few seasonings, and a little oil. Here are three of my favorite ways to use this essential ingredient at home. 

Blend Dou Si Into a Fresh and Funky Vegan Dressing

My most recent discovery is incorporating dou si into salad dressings. While not a traditional use for this ancient ingredient, dou si is perfect for this purpose, as it injects both savoriness and sharpness—notes which are sometimes lacking in vegan recipes. Use the beans as you would soy sauce to add salty depth to a vinaigrette, or add to chile oil and rice vinegar for an assertive Asian-style dressing. Dou si also has a lovely dense consistency and is a great thickener for loose sauces. It blends particularly beautifully in a plant-based Caesar dressing—simply blitz the beans with silken tofu and nutritional yeast to pack a creamy punch, without the need for anchovies, eggs, or parmesan. This dressing should not be reserved for vegans, as dou si brings a confident swagger to this classic sauce which will have you rethinking the possibilities of a Caesar salad.

Punctuate Soups, Stews, and Braises with a Savory Kick

Dou si lends a lovely richness and depth to cooked vegetable dishes. My mother’s vegan mapo tofu typically features doubanjiang—the other fermented bean sauce, which is made with fava beans—but to cater to my children’s more sensitive palates, I often use dou si instead. The black beans provide plenty of savoriness without doubanjiang’s added spice. 
You can also use whole or mashed dou si as you would miso, by adding it to soups and sauces, or even to top savory oat porridge or jook (congee). It can be added at various stages of cooking to achieve different effects—incorporate at the beginning to deliver an umami note to the overall dish, or add at the end for a sharp, funky flavor.

Make Your Own Chile-Black Bean Sauce

The bold taste of dou si has a natural affinity with fresh seasonal vegetables. Steamed eggplant with black bean sauce is a classic dish, in which the savory jewels coax both sweetness and earthiness from the silky nightshade. Dou si stir-fried with fresh seasonal vegetables is a staple in my home, and one of the simplest, quickest, and most delicious weeknight meals I make. The punchy sauce lends itself well to a crisp, barely-fried vegetable like cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, or green beans. My stir-fried green beans recipe features a black bean sauce made from scratch, and even with this extra step, it comes together in just a few minutes. So much flavor, so little effort. 

Hetty McKinnon is a Chinese Australian cook and food writer based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of four bestselling cookbooks, including her latest, To Asia, With Love: Everyday Asian Recipes and Stories from the Heart.She’s also the editor and publisher of multicultural food journal Peddler and the host of the podcast The House Specials.

The post Fermented Black Beans are the Savory Superpower Every Pantry Needs appeared first on Saveur.

Every Navroze starts out the same. I’m at the fire temple. The cacophony of the city is fading away, replaced with a carillon of prayer chants and the crackle of the holy flame. The air is gray with smoke. Devotees drop to their knees at the altar for a scurf of holy ash to be pressed to their foreheads, then turn away to lean their heads on framed pictures of the prophet. A thaal of oil lamps burns feverishly under a dimly lanterned hall. The sun spills light onto wooden window seats.

For Parsis, my tiny Indian community that traces its line to Zoroastrian (pre-Islamic) Iran, Jamshedi Navroze brings the promise of spring, a new year, and a time for the world to remake itself—a renaissance for the soul. But for greedy me, it’s mostly about the food.

Parsi cuisine stands out for its abundance of seafood, eggs, and meat, the lifeblood of our people. Most vegetables are cooked with carefree amounts of protein to sheathe the taste of the former, and there is even an entire range of dishes called “par eeda” which translates to “egg cooked over something.” On their own, vegetables are often dismissed as ghas poos, or “grassy nonsense.” Another Parsi signature is the undercurrent of sour-sweet spice that forms the base of most of our dishes. And then, of course, there’s that most-vaunted Parsi dish, dhansak, a potage of meat,vegetables, and lentils always eaten with caramelized rice. But never on Navroze, Persian New Year.

My own Navroze reveille, as regular as an Angelus bell, is malai pao, the slick of cream on top of heavy milk, scooped up with a loaf of white bakery bread; bowls of creamy rawo (semolina pudding) speckled with butter-fried raisins, pistachios, almonds, and charoli nuts; sev, vermicelli fragrant with cardamom and nutmeg; or mitthoo dahi, gently sweetened yogurt—all sugared auguries for the year ahead.

Then there’s lunch, never varying at my home: rice and butter-yellow mori dar (plain toor lentils), turreted with garlic flakes fried to a crisp and eaten with a heap of basmati rice. The classic accompaniment is prawn or fish patio, a seafood condiment bright with vinegar and chile, its gravy the color of oxblood. This is cardinal festive eating in any Parsi home, made to celebrate the highest occasions—new years, birthdays, and anniversaries. When the dinner plates are cleared, out comes the mawa ni boi, a confection shaped like fish meant to attract sweetness and blessings for the new year.

In the evening, after a long nap, the festivities continue with a party and a rambunctious Parsi play, or gahambar. At gahambars (community feasts), guests sit at long trestle tables, threads of dance music like “Chaiye Hame Zarthosti” unspooling around them. There is usually mutton pulao dar (mutton pilaf with lentils); saria (sago) crisps that fizz and crinkle as they melt on the tongue; chicken legs cowled by beaten egg froth; pomfret with green chutney, wrapped in banana leaves or dunked in vinegar-egg sauce; and sweet, dried fruit pickles. Revelers spoon it all off banana leaves, feasting until the sky darkens to a midnight blue.

As cliché as it may sound, food is the glue that binds my tiny community, which numbers fewer than 70,000. Our cuisine is webbed together by a cosmos of influences drawing from the community’s peripatetic history. Parsis are Zoroastrian Iranians, followers of what is possibly the first monotheistic religion, and one that saw divinity reflected in the purity of fire. Once founders of the mighty Parthian, Sassanian, and Achaemenian empires, later dynasties were felled in the 8th century by Arab invaders. A small band of gritty Zoroastrians took the sea route to India, beaching their boats on the shores of the western Indian state of Gujarat. In return for shelter, they relinquished the Persian language for Gujarati and dressed to local custom; our saris are still draped in the Gujarati fashion. In the 17th century, Parsis seeped through to Mumbai, where they contributed immensely to India’s vivid cultural and economic landscape.

Most Parsis have long shed Iranian customs such as setting the haft-seen table (a table arrangement of seven foods beginning with the letter S, a custom followed by Zoroastrian Iranians who migrated to India in the 19th century). Yet we are still threaded to Iran through our food—hence our predilection for meat and offal dishes and dried fruit and nuts. In the History of Bukhara, for instance, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Jafar Narshakhi counts 1,000 shops in the lavish bazaars of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 AD) selling everything from pistachios to spices.

Parsi dishes featuring accoutrements of the coast—seafood and coconuts—are drawn from Gujarat. Fueled by Dutch, Portuguese, and English trading communities of the 17th century, Gujarat also became an incubator for bakeries. The legendary bakeries of the city of Bharuch have long shuttered, but in Surat, the Parsi-owned Dotivala bakery still claims descendance from the Dutch bakeries of the time.

Parsi custards, stews, saas (eggy sauces), and roasts also ripple back to colonialism. Parsis took anodyne English dishes and vivified them with spice: “Saas […] is the creation of the Parsi housewife—the origin is the bechamel sauce of the West,” writes Bhicoo Manekshaw, Parsi chef and author, in Parsi Food and Customs.

Lastly, the foods and cooking techniques of the Indian states of Goa and Maharashtra also irrigate our cuisine, a testament to the waves of immigration of Parsis to Mumbai.

Parsi food is resilient, complex, and layered, like most cuisines of the Old World, and yet, it is so often reduced to dhansak and patra ni macchi. For a community already in its gloaming, it is urgent to chronicle the richness of its culinary culture and to make it accessible to all. In sharing my list of Parsi pantry essentials, I like to think I’m doing my own small part to further this cause.

Tari (Toddy)

Neera is the sap wicked from the palmyra palm. It tastes like sweet, carbonated coconut water immediately upon extraction but deepens, sours, and ferments soon after harvest to create tari (aka toddy). In The Parsees at the Court of Akbar, J. J. Modi writes that, in the 16th century, tari was “as much known in Gujarat, as the beer of Munich is known in Europe.” Tari was so deeply entrenched in Parsi culture, and irresistible to all, that in 1570 a few priests signed a declaration stating that they wouldn’t partake of tari during certain religious ceremonies.

Even today Parsis find ways to chivvy tari into their meals somehow. We sluice it through our meat stews and yogurt curries (kadhi), poach fish in it, add it to biscuits and dumplings (popatjee), and even use it to palliate upset stomachs.

Sugarcane vinegar

Tartness runs through our cuisine, gutting and hollowing, leaving its mark. Most Parsis turn to Kolah’s dark, treacly aged sugarcane vinegar made exclusively in the Gujarati town of Navsari. Patio, fish saas, and—of course—Parsi pickles (we pickle everything from fish roe to mutton) are doused in vinegar, whose sting is often soothed by a lick of jaggery or sugar.

Dried Bombay duck

Parsis love their Bombay duck (the curiously named lizardfish that Parsis call boomla) both fresh and sun charred, its flesh shriveled into spindles. The dried version is crisp-fried or roasted, a superb accompaniment to a flagon of beer. We also fashion them into cutlets and torch them with chile powder and vinegar to make Tarapori patio, a specialty of the Parsis of Tarapore, in Gujarat.

Ginger garlic paste

A near-universal requirement across much of India, ginger-garlic paste bolsters many Parsi dishes, both as a marinade for poultry and meat and as an earthy base in many of our dishes such as goat and sheep brain cutlets and aleti paleti, stewed chicken liver and gizzards. I usually grind half a cup at a time in my mixer; it keeps for up to three weeks in the fridge.

Coconut

Coconut muscles its way into much of our food. Its freshly squeezed milk is swirled with cooked tomatoes to make kharo rus, a light, savory gravy eaten with rice. The flesh, which we traditionally excavate using a coconut scraper, is worked into chutneys and masala pastes and fashioned into sweets such as khaman na larwa, sugary coconut confections with dried fruit and cornflour.

Sali

These skin-thin fried potato matchsticks add salt and scrunch to dishes like sauced chicken and mutton (Sali marghi and Sali boti). For a quick, decadent meal, we plunk a handful into a saucepan, crack an egg over it, let it cook, then add cilantro leaves to finish.

Spice mixes

Parsi dishes are powered by a variety of spice mixes and while packaged versions are available, most Parsi home cooks make their own—naturally, every household thinks their version is the finest. These include Parsi dhansak masala, Parsi sambhar masala, Parsi garam masala, and Parsi dhana jeera.

The post The Festive Parsi Pantry appeared first on Saveur.

In Latin American and Caribbean markets, next to the mountain of limes, you will almost always find a bin of wrinkly, splotchy citrus fruit. These humble orbs—Seville oranges—shouldn’t be overlooked. They impart a unique combination of bracing bitterness and subtle acidity to savory and sweet dishes alike.

For many, this roughly baseball-sized fruit may be familiar from its headlining role in orange marmalade, to which it lends its characteristic bite. Others might know it as the key flavoring agent in orange liqueurs like Curaçao and Grand Marnier. The fruit was also used in early versions of duck à l’orange. But this particular orange is, especially in Latin American and Caribbean cuisines, much more fundamental to savory home cooking.

Like all citrus fruits, the Seville orange—also known as the bitter orange, or sour orange—is best when firm and heavy, becoming soft and somewhat mushy with age. However, a bit of time doesn’t compromise the flavor and fragrance of its tart juice and aromatic zest. Many Latin American groceries (and of course, Amazon) stock bottled versions of the juice, which are often labeled “naranja agria” and are typically shelved by the vinegars and marinades. The packaged product is a decent substitute, but it lacks the lively nuance of the fresh stuff.

In a good Seville orange, oily and aromatic skin easily gives way to thick, bitter pith, followed by its heavily seeded segments. In her book Gran Cocina Latina, chef and culinary historian Maricel E. Presilla describes the fruit’s flavor as a “careful blend of lime, grapefruit, and orange juice with a small amount of grapefruit or sweet lime zest.” Ana Sofía Peláez writes in The Cuban Table: A Celebration of Food, Flavors, and History that, absent Seville oranges, “equal parts of freshly squeezed orange and lime juice can be substituted.” For me, though, the Seville orange is inimitable, with an aroma and elegant tartness that can lift flavors without turning foods sour.

Presilla, an authority on the cuisines of Latin America, suggests that the fruit likely originated in Southeast Asia and was brought to the Middle East and North Africa, where it is still used to make orange blossom water. The oranges were likely introduced in Spain by Moorish invaders from North Africa sometime around the turn of the 8th century and, for 500 years or so, long before the popularization of sweeter varieties, were Europe’s de-facto citrus. Southern Spain was historically—and still is—the center of European cultivation, and its Andalucian city of Seville gave the fruit its name.

Miami-based Miguel Massens—the Cuban American chef behind the Caribbean restaurant, Antilia—was working at restaurants in Andalucia and learning about the origins of Cuban cuisine when he encountered the fruit growing plentifully in the region; he recognized the Seville variety from the Cuban food he grew up eating. But beyond marmalade, the fruit didn’t feature in Spain’s local cuisine as he had imagined. In fact, he only encountered one paella master who used the pruned branches as cooking fuel.

As with many foods that the Spanish and Portuguese brought to the Americas, the Seville orange became an integral part of Latin American cooking. Seville orange trees were likely the first citrus to take root in the Western Hemisphere after Columbus introduced them to the island of Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) on his second voyage in 1493. Because it adapts particularly well to a wide range of climates, the fruit subsequently propagated throughout the Caribbean islands, the Yucatán Peninsula, and eventually into Central and South America.

Massens encountered another source of Cuban food traditions when he visited Spain’s Canary Islands. The chef was already familiar with mojo, an essential condiment and marinade in Cuban cuisine, but the Canarian mojo he tasted was different. Whereas the Cuban sauce he knew combined Seville orange juice, lard, garlic, and oregano, this Canarian version was made with wine vinegar, olive oil, chiles, garlic, cumin, and smoked paprika. Nevertheless, the connection was clear.

Many Canarians arrived in Cuba as early as the 17th century, when government officials in mainland Spain believed that the islands had an overpopulation problem. The Spanish Crown decreed that Canarians would be subject to a so-called “Tribute of Blood.” This tribute forced five Canarian families to be relocated to the American colonies in exchange for every ton of goods those colonies shipped back to Spain. In both the 19th and 20th centuries, economic struggles forced subsequent waves of Canarians to emigrate to the Americas; Cuba was usually the first stop on the voyage, and many made their home there. These immigrants, no longer able to grow olives and grapes, likely adapted their traditional mojo recipe to use locally available citrus juice and pork fat.

Seville oranges also play a significant role in Haitian cooking. Luz Bryson, a Haitian American home cook based in Atlanta, described to me how her mother uses zoranj su (the fruit’s Haitian-Creole name) “to clean meat before marinating it.” Bryson explained that “the bitterness of the sour orange not only removes strong, gamey smells from the meat, but also tenderizes it.”

Bryson’s mother is not alone: Many cooks—from Haiti and beyond—extol zoranj su’s tenderizing abilities, which are similar to those of papaya or pineapple. Chef Massens, for one, notes that the juice can “tenderize meat in the same way that lime can affect protein in a ceviche.” In fact, my own Peruvian grandmother told me that ceviche was originally made using Seville orange juice. While key lime is now the citrus of choice for most contemporary Peruvian ceviches, some regional recipes still incorporate Seville orange juice, including ceviche de pato, a hot, cooked duck dish from the northern parts of the Lima Region, especially around the city of Huacho.

However, Seville orange juice doesn’t denature animal proteins (effectively “cooking” them) as aggressively as limes, which makes the oranges more versatile. Massens laments that despite the fruit’s potential, many cooks are “stuck on it for marinades.” Its juice can replace lemon or lime in desserts like key lime pie or lemon squares; in citrus-forward savory dishes like chicken piccata; or even in a Caribbean-inspired black bean hummus.

Mandy Baca, a Nicaraguan American food historian, mentioned to me that the Seville orange is one of two ingredients brought to the Americas that form the base of the Nicaraguan flavor profile. (The other is onions.) It even appears in one of Nicaragua’s oldest dishes, a nixtamalized cornmeal and meat stew called indio viejo, which is believed to have pre-Columbian roots.

Personally, though, my favorite way to enjoy naranja agria is closely tied to the nightlife of my hometown. In pre-pandemic Miami, I always looked forward to last call because I knew we would end up at a fritanga. These informal, cafeteria-style eateries, which originated in Nicaragua, are famous for offering affordable, freshly made food like Nicaraguan tacos (similar to Mexican flautas), vigorón (cabbage slaw with boiled yucca and pork rinds), queso frito, and carne asada. Many serve food into the early morning hours, some even 24 hours a day. Miami-Dade County—particularly the city of Sweetwater—has the largest concentration of Nicaraguan immigrants in the United States, so it’s no surprise that this beloved Central American dining institution would also find a home in the Magic City.

Two favorite Miami fritangas, Yambo and Pinolandia, have been serving Miamians heaping plates of inexpensive, stick-to-your-ribs food for decades. Their specialty carne asada is a char-grilled skirt steak marinated in bright Seville orange juice and onions. Inspired by that aromatic dish, I developed my own recipe to recreate the sensory pleasures of this fritanga staple at home. With a side of gallo pinto (red beans and rice), curtido (a vinegary cabbage slaw), and fried sweet plantains, it’s the perfect meal at the end of a long night and a welcome introduction to a truly beautiful fruit.

Get the recipe for Nicaraguan-style carne asada »

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Lemon, olive oil, chiles, fresh herbs—everyone is familiar with these pan-Mediterranean flavors. But zoom in on Palestinian ingredients, and you’ll find a distinctive combination of spices, sauces, and aromatics that—once you get to know them—will become essential pantry mainstays. At least that’s the case that Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley make in their Palestinian cookbook Falastin, published in June.

Palestine comprises Gaza and the West Bank, an area roughly the size of Delaware. Because it’s so densely populated, with around 5 million people, regional differences in cooking are becoming less pronounced. “Everyone is cooking everyone else’s food nowadays,” Tamimi told me in an interview, “but in Gaza, seafood and fish are everywhere, [whereas] Bethlehem is known for its cheese and bread.”

Ascribing a national identity to a recipe or ingredient is always problematic, especially in the Middle East, but there are undeniable through-lines in Palestinian cooking: stuffed vegetables, stewed beans and legumes, fresh salads with handfuls of herbs, creamy spreads like hummus and baba ghannouj, and syrup-soaked sweets, to name a few. To recreate these, and such show-stopping Palestinian dishes as roasted cod with cilantro crust and pomegranate-cooked lentils with eggplant—both in Falastin—it pays to stock up on a few flavor-packed essentials. With the below items in your cupboard and fridge, you’ll be off to a running start.

Za’atar

Penzey’s

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Palestinians sprinkle this tart, heady blend of herbs, sesame seeds, sumac, and salt on everything from kebabs to flatbreads to salads. The earthy dried herb mixture—a combination of hyssop (the ancient plant for which the za’atar blend is named), thyme, oregano, and others—plays marvelously with the acidic ground berries of the sumac tree.

Za’atar is subtle, so you can really heap it on. As with all dried herbs, it will lose its fragrance quickly, so be sure to buy the greenest stuff on the shelf and to use it within six months. There’s perhaps no better way to savor freshly blended za’atar than on jammy boiled eggs drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice, a weekend treat in Tamimi’s childhood home. ($7.49 for 1.7 ounces, Penzey’s)

Preserved Lemons

Amazon

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Preserved lemons have a floral, slightly medicinal flavor that adds oomph to poultry dishes, stews, and salads. In Palestine, market vendors sell preserved lemons, which Wigley calls “little flavor bombs,” alongside the olives and pickles, but they’re a cinch to make at home: All you need is lemons, salt, and time. That said, Belazu’s jarred ones made with thin-skinned beldi lemons are great in a pinch. Most of the flavor of these preserved fruits is in their pungent skin, which should be minced before using. ($6.59 for 7.75 ounces, Amazon)

Pomegranate Molasses

Snuk

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At once fruity, sweet, and bracingly sour, pomegranate molasses is a pinch-hitter condiment that Palestinians use in (mostly) savory dishes such as meatballs, stews, and spreads. The top-shelf stuff (e.g., Mymouné brand) contains nothing more than syrupy reduced pomegranate juice. Though pomegranate molasses usually fades into the background, lending a hint of sugary tartness, you can really taste it in muhammara, the addictive roasted red pepper and walnut dip in which it’s a key ingredient. ($19.99 for 8 fluid ounces, Snuk)

Rose and Orange Blossom Water

Amazon

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These highly fragrant distillates, both of which double as perfume, are made from Damask roses and Seville orange blossoms. Often used together, they add an unmistakably Mediterranean scent to cakes, pastries, custards, cookies, and, occasionally, decadent stews and rice dishes. Falastin has a terrific recipe for Palestinian shortbread cookies called ghraybeh, whose combination of pistachios, butter, and rose and orange blossom waters explains their name, “swoon” in English. (rose water, $8.78 for 10 fluid ounces; orange blossom water, $12.99 for 8.5 fluid ounces, both Amazon)

Dried Limes

Kalustyan’s

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You could probably play ping-pong with these hollow, brown to brownish-black limes,, which get tossed whole into soups, braises, and rice dishes for added acidity and depth. To get the fresh citrus fruits to their shelf-stable rock-hard texture, they’re boiled in heavily salted water then thoroughly dried. Beyond their Palestinian applications (see Falastin’s recipe for “upside-down” rice called maqloubeh), dried limes are also mainstays of Omani and Iranian cuisine. ($5.99 for 3 ounces, Kalustyan’s)

Date Syrup

Just Date Syrup

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As if Palestine’s Medjool dates weren’t sweet enough, they get chopped and boiled to make an even sweeter date syrup. Rich like molasses but without the bitter bite, date syrup can be swapped out for honey or brown sugar in savory dishes like South Asian curries and American-style glazed pork ribs. Tamimi and Wigley recommend drizzling it over toast, swirled with tahini for Palestine’s answer to PB&J. ($12.17 for two 8.8-ounce bottles, Amazon)

Tahini

Soom

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For a condiment containing just one ingredient—sesame seeds—tahini sure runs the gamut in texture, color, and flavor. So-so tahini, often produced in southern Europe (no offense, Cyprus), is gritty, bitter, and a shadow of the sweeter, pourable Middle Eastern versions. Use it like peanut butter, spread on toast and pastries and even beaten into cookie dough. Its savory applications are far more numerous, from sauces (just add lemon and garlic and voilà!) to salads (use it to add richness to dressings) to roasted meats and fish (drizzle it on just before serving as you would good olive oil). Most tahini is of the light variety—it’s the only type called for in Falastin—but toasty, pleasantly bitter dark versions, made from unhulled sesame seeds, and even black tahini, made from black sesame seeds, are also available. ($14.05 for two 11-ounce jars, Soom)

The post Palestinian Pantry Staples We Live For appeared first on Saveur.

Tamarind Paste

This tangy pulp made from the tamarind fruit lends acidity and dark sweetness to pad thai sauce. It is available in a variety of forms. Look for it in a block like this one at Asian and Caribbean markets. Fresh paste should be soft and pliable.

Kung Haeng (Dried Shrimp)

Eva Kolenko

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Found readily in Asian markets or online, medium-size versions of these dried shrimp (about the size of a pencil eraser) are ideal for pad thai. After a quick soak and toasting in a dry wok, they take on a satisfying chew.

Soybean Sprouts

For freshness and crunch in an otherwise soft and sweet dish, add a generous handful of sprouts to the noodles in the final minutes of cooking. A few more raw sprouts, sprinkled on after plating, add an extra layer of cooling crispness.

Peanuts

While these New World groundnuts are not particularly popular in Thai cooking, they are a key textural component of this dish. Buy unsalted, roasted peanuts, and chop them coarsely by hand. Ricker goes a step further: He sifts the dust off after chopping, saving it for satay sauce.

Palm Sugar

Similar in flavor to maple sugar, this rich and butterscotchy sugar is made from the sap of the coconut palm. Look for a soft and scoopable version, which is available in small tubs, and be sure to buy 100 percent palm sugar. Lesser versions are cut with cheap refined sweeteners.

Thai Herbs

Consider serving something astringent to nibble on between bites. Fresh bitter herbs like thinly sliced fresh banana blossoms, bai boa bok (pennywort), and long stalks of kuay chai (flat garlic chives) are all palate cleansers commonly served with pad thai.

Protein

Just about any combination of meat, seafood, or vegetable proteins can be added to pad thai. Pork should be very fatty and either coarsely ground or hand-minced. Ricker recommends using pressed tofu, which will hold its shape through even the most vigorous stir-frying.

Wide Sen Lek (Semi-Dried Rice Noodles)

Fully dried noodles may be easier to find, but semi-dried are faster-cooking and have a more delicate texture. After a quick soak, the water still clinging to them when you add them to the wok is enough to finish cooking them during stir-frying.

Fat

Pork lard is the most common cooking fat used for pad thai in Thailand. Buy a freshly rendered, non-hydrogenated version from your butcher. For pork-free, seafood, or vegetarian versions, a neutral vegetable oil such as canola, corn, or rice bran makes a fine substitute.

Hua Chai Po (Salted Radish)

Look for a Thai brand of shredded or “stripped” salted radish packaged in vacuum-sealed bags. It adds saltiness, a fruity sweetness, and fermented notes. The vegetable retains a lot of salinity, so be sure to soak the pieces in cool water for 10 minutes and drain well before using.

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