The Art of Comfort Cooking: Exploring the Potential of Ingredients
As the seasons change and the weather gets warmer, many of us crave fresh, vegetable-heavy meals to enjoy outside with friends and family. In this piece, the author shares their experience making zaalouk, a Moroccan salad or sauce, and the comfort that comes from familiarity with ingredients. Mixing together eggplant, bell pepper, tomatoes, and a host of spices, the author is reminded of the joy that can come from simple yet delicious cooking.
The Power of Comfort Cooking
For many of us, cooking can be a source of stress and anxiety, especially when trying to follow a new recipe or use unfamiliar ingredients. But for those who are comfortable in the kitchen, cooking can be a source of joy and creativity. The author highlights the benefits of “comfort cooking,” where one can freestyle and play with ingredients they know well. With a firm understanding of how ingredients work together, cooks can create an endless variety of delicious dishes, from soups and stews to sauces and salads.
The Flavor Wheel: A Creative Tool for Cooking
While a deep understanding of ingredients and their potential is essential for comfort cooking, it’s not always easy to come up with new and exciting flavor combinations. That’s where James Segnit’s “Flavor Wheel” comes in. By choosing an ingredient, cooks can spin the wheel and find pairings that are known to work well. For example, eggplant pairs well with lamb and sheep yogurt. By understanding the why behind these pairings, cooks can start to experiment on their own and create unique yet delicious dishes.
Exploring the Potential of Ingredients
When it comes to comfort cooking, there are endless possibilities when it comes to ingredient combinations. Here are a few ways to get started:
– Add fresh herbs: Whether it’s parsley and cilantro or dill and basil, fresh herbs can add a burst of flavor to any dish.
– Experiment with spices: Cumin, paprika, and chili flakes are great options, but don’t be afraid to try something new, like caraway or cardamom.
– Try new sauces: Instead of tahini, try a buttermilk and feta dressing or harissa with pine nuts and eggs.
– Mix and match: Play with different ingredient combinations to create new and exciting dishes. For example, roasted eggplant and peppers can be turned into a stew with the addition of some rice, or turned into a breakfast dish like shakshuka with some eggs.
Comfort Cooking: Good for the Mind and Body
Not only can comfort cooking be a source of creativity and joy, but it can also be good for our health. By focusing on fresh, whole ingredients, we can create nutrient-dense meals that provide our bodies with the fuel they need to function at their best. Additionally, the act of cooking itself can be a stress-relieving activity, helping to reduce anxiety and promote relaxation.
The Art of Comfort Cooking: Summary
In this article, the author explores the power of comfort cooking and the potential of ingredients. They share their experience making a Moroccan salad or sauce, zaalouk, and highlight the joy that comes from familiarity with ingredients. They also introduce James Segnit’s “Flavor Wheel,” a tool that can help cooks experiment with new ingredient combinations. By adding fresh herbs, experimenting with spices, trying new sauces, and mixing and matching ingredients, cooks can create an endless variety of delicious dishes. And beyond the pleasure of cooking itself, comfort cooking can be good for our mind and body, helping to reduce stress and promote holistic health.
In conclusion, don’t be afraid to get creative in the kitchen. The more you experiment with different ingredients and flavor combinations, the better you’ll become at comfort cooking. Not only will you be serving up delicious meals for yourself and your loved ones, but you’ll also be promoting your own health and well-being along the way.
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First: the hand with the wooden spoon. As I gathered the ingredients to make my zaalouk, a Moroccan salad or sauce that is so perfect for this time of year, when vegetables beg to be charred and eaten outside, with friends and bread, I felt a deep sense of comfort. I was in familiar territory. Bell peppers and eggplant, tomatoes and tomato paste, my happy place. Olive oil, tahini, lemon juice and garlic, my home. Spices from the spice rack: cumin, paprika, chili flakes. Freshly picked herbs: parsley and cilantro.
As I got ready to roast my eggplant and peppers, I considered all the directions I could take with this set of ingredients: a roasted vegetable soup or a deep-flavored, battered or chunky pasta sauce, each with its own unique outcome. With a spoon of rice, it could be a stew. Cooked in a pan with some eggs, it would be shakshuka, my favorite breakfast. Keeping the tomatoes raw, you could make a sandwich on a pita, adding roasted eggplant, some tahini, and parsley sauce.
Warm sauces, hot soups, cold sauces, thick sauces, chopped salads—the potential of the ingredients gave me a kind of thoughtless ease that I don’t always have when trying new recipes. We talk about comfort food and comfort food, but it’s in those cases, when you know your ingredients so well and they know each other, that it makes sense to talk about comfort cooking as well.
To me, this type of cooking feels like being on a firm footing. It means you can freestyle and play. Any herbs you have on hand (dill and basil here, instead of parsley and cilantro) can be substituted; spices can be added or substituted (caraway and cardamom are good candidates here). To top it off, it’s all about opening the fridge and seeing what’s in it: buttermilk and feta dressing, perhaps, instead of tahini, or perhaps harissa, pine nuts and eggs, to poach or fry.
That was the hand with the wooden spoon. The other hand was frantically hopping along Segnit’s “flavor wheel,” the clever device at the heart of this book and its predecessor, “The Flavor Thesaurus.” Choose an ingredient: eggplant! Spin the wheel and Segnit will remind you of the pairings you know are working well. (Eggplants “dream about sheep,” he writes. “Their favorite meat is lamb, the sheep yogurt they choose.”) He also tells you why they work.
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