Spice Rack Challenge August: Cumin

Michael has had a distaste for Mexican and Southwestern food ever since he roomed for a few years with a blonde haired, blue eyed, Hispaniophile.  Dan was a great guy and pretty much the perfect room mate except for his love of all things south of the border touristy kitsch.  Dan's idea of great Mexican/southwestern cuisine was pretty much on a taco hell level and so every time it was his turn to cook that's what he imitated.  It's close to twenty years since Michael roomed with Dan and only in the past year or so that he's actually started to enjoy food with a southwestern flair.  I'm a lot okay with that because the boys and I used to have to wait for Michael to go away on business to indulge our cravings and since they've grown up and moved out I haven't had a reason to cook it.  Now I can!

This is the first year I've canned salsa since I met Michael.  We like it straight with chips, stirred into our guacamole, and I like it on eggs.  It was a happy coincidence that the tomato lime salsa I decided to put up contained cumin and I happened to be ready to can it at the same time as the challenge!

Spice Rack Challenge July: Basil

Coconut Scallops with Crispy Shallot, Basil and Sesame Sprinkle

This month's challenge is timely since I just harvested the first overload of basil from the garden.  This year we planted Genovese, Lemon, and Lime basil.  So in addition to the recipe for the challenge I put up more than enough pesto to get us and a couple of other households through the winter.  And that was just from the first harvest!  The tomatoes haven't started coming in yet but they will shortly and it's nice to know I'll have enough basil to be indulgent with it!

The recipe I adapted for the challenge came from an advertisement in the July 2005 edition of Food & Wine that I came across while sitting in a waiting room.  I really hate it when waiting room magazines get defaced by people ripping out pages.  The page that's missing always contains the continuation of the article I'm reading.  So I saved other possible readers that frustration and just swiped the whole magazine.  C'mon, it was 6 years outdated anyway.

Spice Rack Challenge May: Coriander

Pullum Frontonianum/Apicus Chicken/Chicken a la Fronto

While searching for a recipe heavy on the coriander for this month's challenge, I came across Apicus chicken.  This brought back a whole lot of memories.  Michael and I once belonged to an historical society that did early medieval to late renaissance re-enactment.  A period feast was almost always a feature of their events and there were many accomplished cooks with a great interest in researching and redacting period recipes for their menus.  Apicus Chicken is one of these recipes.  It is a Roman recipe from a period cookbook written by Marcus Gavius Apicius.  This is a pretty close translation of the original recipe:

Ingredients
1 fresh chicken
100 ml oil
200 ml liquamen
1 branch of leek
fresh dill, saturei, coriander, and pepper to taste
defrutum

Directions
Start to fry the chicken and season with a mixture of liquamen and oil, together with bunches of dill, leek, saturei, and coriander.  Then cook in the oven.  When the chicken is done, moisten a plate with defrutum, put chicken on it, sprinkle pepper on it , and serve.

I needed to turn this recipe into something everybody could use.

Spice Rack Challenge March: Cardamom

This month's challenge is Cardamom.  Definitely an underused spice in my arsenal.

whole pods

cracked pods and whole seeds

pods removed (mostly)

It's defined as "A spice (whole pods, seeds, or ground).  Seeds are in pods the size of a cranberry, inside of a white or green pod.  Member of the ginger family.  Spicy-sweet pungent aroma, expensive.  Uses: cakes, curries, cookies, fruits, Indian recipes, Scandinavian bread."  ( http://www.abigslice.com/herbsspices.html ).  It's also common in Middle Eastern and Greek cookery as well.

Spice Rack Challenge February: Citrus

Citrus.  Again.  I warned you somewhere back in December that winter is Citrus season.  Thus, this third post on the stuff.  I'm ready for asparagus and strawberries and new peas, tender greens, flowers.  I'm sick of citrus.  Uh, sorry.  That's the cabin fever talking.

This Spice Rack Challenge is all about using citrus as a flavoring or a spice instead of enjoying it in it's more juicy, fruity form.  To do that I'll be using Clementine Dust from the "Of Cranberries and Clementines" post and Single Malt Marmalade from the "It's Marmalade Season!" post.  The star is a beautiful piece of salmon procured from Indigo Farms Seafood of Floyd.