While polenta is often associated with wintery comfort foods, SAVEUR contributing editor Farideh Sadeghin decided to make a quick summery version. Homemade chimichurri and a simple tomato-onion salad offset the richness of the creamy dish. Throw an egg or some scallops or skirt steak on top or serve the polenta as is—either way, it’s bound to be one of the best things you’ll eat all summer.

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SAVEUR contributing editor Farideh Sadeghin got the recipe for this refreshing melon drink from her Iranian-born father, who makes it by grating fresh cantaloupe and combining it with water, sugar, and mint. You can also add a little gin for a cooling summer cocktail.

Featured in “Chasing the Perfect Persian Rice.”

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Texans and New Mexicans have locked horns for decades over who can lay claim to the irresistible creation that is Frito pie. Daisy Dean Doolin, the mother of Frito-Lay founder Charles Elmer Doolin, is often given credit for creating the dish as a way to use up leftovers in Texas in the 1930s, while a woman named Teresa Hernandez lays claim to inventing it at a Woolworth’s in New Mexico in the 1960s. The dish can also be found across the Midwest, where it’s sometimes called a “walking taco.” Whatever you make of its contested origins, there’s no debate about Frito pie’s appeal. Preparing it is as simple as topping a pile of corn chips with chili, cheddar, onions, sour cream, and sliced jalapeños. You can also go meatless by making it with vegetarian chili. Either way, serve it right inside the Fritos bag for the easiest, most festive presentation.

Featured in: “Our Most Mouthwatering Recipes for Super Bowl Sunday.”

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This homemade blend of warm baking spices from recipe developer Farideh Sadeghin makes for a cozy and aromatic addition to both sweet and savory dishes, from roasted root vegetables and stews to cookies, pies, and (yes) pumpkin spice lattes.

Featured in “Pumpkin Spice Is Here to Stay—Let’s Embrace It.”

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A warming blend of DIY pumpkin spice ups the coziness factor in these soft and simple pumpkin cookies from recipe developer Farideh Sadeghin.

Featured in “Pumpkin Spice Is Here to Stay—Let’s Embrace It.”

Our Best Pumpkin Recipes Celebrate the Flavor of Fall

The post Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles appeared first on Saveur.

It’s that time of year. The days are getting shorter; we’re saying goodbye to tomatoes and corn; and apples and squash are front and center at the market. Which also means that around every corner and in every shop is something flavored with pumpkin spice. 

Pumpkin spice lattes. Pumpkin spice candles. Pumpkin spice popcorn. Pumpkin spice soap. 

While the relentless ubiquity of pumpkin-spiced everything can get a little overwhelming, I’m not mad about it. It’s warm and cozy, like pulling on a flannel, a sweater, or a favorite beanie.

According to McCormick & Company, the fall season accounts for about 80 percent of the company’s retail sales of its signature Pumpkin Pie Spice, which debuted in 1934. By 2019, the blend was the brand’s fourth best-selling retail spice from September through November. But how—and why—did the combination of ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger come to so thoroughly signal the start of autumn?

Many credit Starbucks. 

The Seattle-based coffee empire unveiled its Pumpkin Spice Latte (aka the PSL) some 20 years ago, and in doing so, inspired a flavor profile that famously heralds the incoming season. 

Much like spring, autumn signifies change. As we emerge from the heady days of summer, we enter a season marked by routine and tradition. The start of the school year; for many of us, freezing temperatures; and attempts to enjoy the outdoors while we still can. There’s also the steady stream of holidays, each with its own set of traditions. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi lead into Dia de los Muertos and Halloween, which give way to Diwali and, in the U.S., the biggest pumpkin pie holiday of the year: Thanksgiving. 

While Starbucks may have invented the PSL, and McCormick may have popularized the blend, neither really invented pumpkin spice. Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery (1796)—purportedly the first American cookbook—includes two recipes for “pompkin” pie, both of which incorporate many of the spices we associate with the dessert today. The spices that make up the pumpkin spice blend have, of course, been around and similarly combined for ages. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves are native to Asia while allspice is native to the West Indies, Mexico, and Central America. All were introduced to North America centuries ago via colonialism and trade.

It’s likely that pumpkin spice blend entered the retail market as a response to the introduction of Libby’s canned pumpkin in 1929. Let’s be honest: pumpkin isn’t the easiest ingredient to prepare, so shelf-stable canned pumpkin not only made life much easier for the home baker—it also made a once-seasonal ingredient available year-round.

And pumpkin spice? In an era of convenience and financial hardship, buying a single jar of spices (rather than four or five) was a wallet-friendly convenience, and McCormick answered the market’s demand.

Which brings me to pumpkin spice-flavored things. While some might feel pumpkin spice mania has gotten out of hand (a quick search for “pumpkin spice recipes” turns up over 100,000,000 results), I prefer to embrace it. For freshness, I like to make my own homemade blend, then have fun with it. I add my DIY pumpkin spice to everything from my morning coffee (why mess with a good thing?) to roasted fall vegetables (think carrots and squash and, yes, pumpkin). I might add some spice to a quick chicken marinade or fluff some into rice with raisins and nuts. Any number of soups and stews would benefit from a scoop of pumpkin spice—especially with a kick of chile and a little salt to make it more savory.

At the end of the day, though, nothing beats a really great pumpkin-spiced dessert—like these sweet-as-pie pumpkin spice snickerdoodles. Soft, spiced, and everything nice, these cookies have a crackly surface and a bit of tang from cream of tartar, which is cool and fun. They’re also cakey and cute, and I guarantee you’re going to eat one, then another, and by the time the day is over, you will have had at least five and go to bed with a slight tummy ache. But it will be worth it.

Recipe

Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

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Pumpkin Pie Spice

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I wish I could remember eating my first BLT. That first bite into its toasted bread slathered in mayonnaise sandwiching crisp lettuce, thick, streaky bacon, and perfectly ripe—and perfectly seasoned—tomatoes. The juice from those tomatoes running down my forearms and dripping onto the table before me. The way the toasted bread grazed and cut up the roof of my mouth, leaving me with a raw souvenir for my tongue to caress for days after the sandwich was long gone. 

But I can’t. And while I may not remember my first, I have long known that the BLT is the ultimate sandwich. I’ve worked as a chef for almost 20 years, in restaurants, private homes, and test kitchens, and still, making—and eating—sandwiches is one of my top pastimes. The BLT is by far my favorite, so I make the most of eating them every year while tomato season is at its peak. Nothing beats a late-summer tomato, so you likely won’t see me partaking in a BLT outside of late July through October. 

Ok, that’s an absolute lie; I’ll fuck with a BLT year-round, but will most likely complain about the mealy tomato as I down it.

It’s often said that sandwiches were invented in England in the late 1700s by John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. Of course, sandwiches existed long before that—at least since the first century BCE, when Rabbi Hillel the Elder sandwiched lamb and herbs between sheets of unleavened matzoh during the year’s Passover Seder. At best, we can attribute the name “sandwich” to the eponymous Earl, who some suggest popularized the lunchtime fixture while in the midst of a winning streak at the gambling table. It’s said that, rather than interrupting his lucky run with the typical plated meal, he was presented with a dish requiring no utensils: a bit of beef, sandwiched between two slices of bread.

For those of you living under a rock, BLT stands for “bacon, lettuce, and tomato.” As a kid, I was a nerdy smarty pants who would argue to anyone that cared enough to listen that the BLT should actually be called the BLTMB, because *pushes glasses up on nose* technically it ain’t a BLT without the bread and the mayo (and you better not forget to season that tomato with s+p). 

The abbreviation is believed to have come about in the U.S. in the 1940s with the rise of diners, where waitstaff often used shorthand to quickly convey orders to the kitchen. The BLT then grew in popularity after World War II, when supermarkets began popping up across the country and seasonal ingredients, such as tomatoes, became more readily available year-round.

Any discussion of the BLT’s origins merits a nod to its sister-cousin, the club. New York’s Saratoga Club in Saratoga Springs claimed to have invented the multi-layered club sandwich (which is a close second to the BLT on my list of favorites, TBQH) in 1894. One of the first written club sandwich recipes appeared soon after, in the Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book (1903). I truly have no idea how the club (which typically also includes turkey or chicken and an extra layer of bread) morphed into a BLT, but not everything has to have an answer. 

Let’s also take a moment to acknowledge the assorted BLT deviations, which incorporate other ingredients, such as a fried egg (the BELT), avocado slices (the BLAT), or even avocado AND sprouts (the BLAST). Meh. When it comes to sandwiches, I’m a traditionalist. What really matters is this: The allure of the BLT lies in its simplicity. Since its ingredients are so few, and since each component is as important as the next, it’s wise to ensure that you take care in choosing (and preparing) the best versions of those ingredients you can find.

The Bread.

We begin our BLT journey with bread, the foundation of any good sandwich. Simple flatbreads date back more than 20,000 years, though the first known leavened versions appeared around 1000 BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia. 

The far more modern squishy white sandwich bread is the common diner enclosure for a BLT, but I recommend you take a bit more pride in your homemade version. Get yourself a good loaf from your local baker or hit up that neighbor who took up sourdough baking during the pandemic. Slice your bread thick—but not too thick. I suggest around ¾ of an inch. 

And sure, you could throw those slices in the toaster and get to cooking your bacon on the stovetop, but have some respect for the bread and for yourself, for god’s sake. Instead, heat up equal parts ghee and some good olive oil in a cast-iron skillet. 

Ghee (or clarified butter) has a higher smoke point than butter while still adding plenty of excellent buttery flavor, but you can also use butter if you’re so inclined. The olive oil will help cut through some of the ghee’s rich flavor. Frying your bread in a skillet as opposed to the toaster is a game changer. I don’t even own a toaster anymore, that’s how strongly I believe in toasting bread in a skillet (also, I live in an NYC apartment and counter space is a luxury). Melt the ghee with the oil over medium heat in the skillet and toast the bread, flipping once, until golden and crisp, about 2 minutes per side, et voila! Bread perfection. (I also season the bread with a pinch of flaky salt afterwards.)

Anyway, let’s move on to the real MEAT of the sandwich.

The Bacon.

(You see what I did there?)

Bacon dates back to about 1500 BCE, when the Chinese first started preserving pork belly using salt from the mines in Zhongba, in the Three Gorges region of China’s Yangzi River valley. Still made today, the chewy preserved meat, known as lap yuk in Cantonese, is frequently eaten around the Lunar New Year. 

The word “bacon” comes from the Middle English “bacoun,” a salted, pressed, and dried—but unsmoked—pork product made in Medieval England. During the 17th century, they were finally smoked, resulting in a version of bacon similar to what you know and love today.

Some might advise you to cook your bacon in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, arranged neatly on a cooling rack set over a sheet tray, until crisp, for anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes (depending on the thickness). But why on earth would you want to turn your oven on in the summer? Cook those slices right there in the skillet over medium heat; it’s gonna be just fine (although you may have to give your stovetop a bit of a wipe afterwards). 

You’ll want to be sure to start the bacon in a cold skillet; this allows the fat to render more slowly while also ensuring you get super crisp bacon. Either bust out a second skillet, or just cook the bacon first then wipe out the grease before toasting the bread.

And now, lettuce talk about the greens of the BLT 

The Lettuce.

(I’m on a roll, aren’t I?) 

As early as 2700 BCE, murals depicted Min, the Egyptian god of fertility, eating lettuce for increased stamina in the bedroom. Eventually, the Egyptians began cultivating the leafy greens for food. 

Some people prefer iceberg on their BLT. While I love iceberg on a turkey club or in a cold wedge salad, I find that green leaf lettuce adds a nicer color and texture to a BLT. Besides, the bacon and bread bring all the crispy crunch this sandwich needs.

Moving on to…

The Tomato. 

It’s believed tomatoes were first cultivated in what is now Peru. From there, the fruit eventually made its way up to the Aztecs and Mayans in Central America, then on to Europe via Spain’s conquistadors in the 16th century. Initially, many Europeans feared the tomato,  which was primarily cultivated as a decorative plant and many believed to be poisonous. The fact of the matter is that European aristocrats ate off of pewter plates, which had a high lead content. In all likelihood, the otherwise harmless tomato’s acidity leached lead from said servingware, resulting in its deadly reputation. 

I’m sure your knife is not sharp enough to slice through the skin of a ripe tomato (and if it is, give yourself a pat on the back right now—you are an exceptional human being and deserve it). The rest of us mere mortals, who rely on knives as dull as this article, should use a serrated blade to slice a tomato. I love a Jersey beefsteak or another heirloom variety from the farmers market, but I’ve also grown some cute little cherry tomatoes on my roof this summer, and, thinly sliced, they have been a real treat on a BLT. Whatever variety you use, you’ll want to slice the tomato about ¼-inch thick, and don’t forget to season with salt and pepper.

The Sandwich.

Ok, you’ve made it this far; it’s time to talk assembly. (I won’t argue with you on mayonnaise brand—that’s another story for another time.) First, slather one side of each of your toast slices with mayo, then top one slice with some lettuce leaves. I like to add the tomato next, followed by the bacon, and then another slice of bread. We all know that if you make a sandwich with the bread touching the tomato, the juices will turn that bread soggy. Nobody wants a soggy sandwich after all that work. So please, PLEASE, layer your sandwich with the tomato in the middle, then call it a day.

With its fuzzy origins and few ingredients, the BLT will always hold the top place in my heart. It remains one of the most popular sandwiches in the U.S.—and with good reason. You can go to any restaurant or diner with a BLT on the menu and nearly always sit down to a sandwich that will make you happy. There is, however, no pleasure greater than making one yourself, using the ideal bread, bacon, lettuce, and tomato—and also sharing the love with someone special (because no sandwich tastes better than one made by someone who cares). This one is uniquely satisfying and gorgeous… and worth cutting up the roof of your mouth for.

The post The Complete(ish) History of the BLT appeared first on Saveur.

Food writer and chef Farideh Sadeghin started cooking in college, when she collected all of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks and often had friends over for entire meals based on the British chef’s recipes. This soup, which she adapted from a pasta e ceci recipe in Jamie’s Italy, is a meal in and of itself, full of lots of vegetables, chickpeas, and pasta. As the soup cooks, its ingredients absorb lots of the cooking liquid, transforming the dish into a thick and comforting stew. Feel free to thin with a bit of extra stock when reheating leftovers.

Featured in our cookbook: SAVEUR: Italian Comfort Food

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Americans know this dish as chicken cacciatore (Italian for hunter), but the correct term is “alla cacciatora,” or hunter’s style, applied to many kinds of wild game stewed in wine with tomatoes and onions. This version ran alongside Robert Ragaini’s 2002 story, “Summer in a Can,” which profiled the famed San Marzano tomato.

Featured in: “Make this 1-Hour Italian Chicken Braise for Dinner Tonight.”

Find this recipe in our cookbook: SAVEUR: Italian Comfort Food

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In this Italian American classic, sautéed shrimp are tossed with a sauce of white wine, garlic, lemon juice, and butter, then served with pasta. This recipe is inspired by the shrimp scampi served at New York’s legendary Rao’s. Tossing the shrimp lightly in flour before adding them to the pan gives the shrimp some extra color.

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Munchies culinary director Farideh Sadeghin’s miso marinade for grilled shrimp doubles as a dressing for a flavorful salad of watercress, scallions, and soba noodles. She likes to add a handful of Rhode Island chef Benjamin Sukle’s toasted seeds for a little extra sweetness and crunch.

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