Evil friends
Dec. 21st, 2005 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI got a present in the mail the other day.
A gift certificate, and catalog for a store.
Penzeys (don't blame me because they don't use an apostrophe).
For those who don't know Penzeys sells spices.
Powdered (useful, if fresh).
Mixes (for those times you don't want to go to the trouble/expense of blending your own crawdad boil, or vindaloo curry).
Extracts (these can be good, or wretched, when good they make lots of things easier... cinnamon oil doesn't settle to the bottom of a custard the way powder might. When bad, well they can ruin something worse than the settling of a powder might).
Whole. This, if one can justify the space, and the money, is the way to go. Whole Nutmegs don't go stale (well, they do, but it takes years, perhaps decades. I have had stale pepper, but the container was at least 20 years old. It wasn't completely unusable, it just made pepper which was barely better than the powdered stuff at tableside in a diner).
I have avoided looking them up online for the very reason I said this was an evil present (anyone who want's to contribute to food porn may feel free to ask me for my address) There is a lot of stuff here I want.
Whole Mace (nutmeg is an interesting spice, because it is the seed of a fruit, and the seed has a wrapper, which is also a spice). Usually I avoid mace because it can't be found whole, and it goes stale fast. I'd have to be baking for an army to go through a small jar before I decided it was past it. Whole mace has a longer shelf life.
Allspice. I can find this, but Penzeys has a reputation of having good spices, and I don't have any in the house right now.
Green peppercorns. Hard to find. A bit more pungent than white, a bit brigter than black.
Rogan Josh. One of my my favorite curries. Absolutely the best curry for lamb.
Turkish Bay. I like bay, and Turkey has some very nice bay (so does Greece, but I don't know a supplier for that). I've had little luck getting it to grow for me.
Vanilla Beans, Madagascar, and Mexican. What more need be said. Flavor sugar with them, make custards, ice creams, cookies with the exotic crunch of the seeds of an orchid.
Double strenth vanilla extract (half again the price, twice the flavor, saves space, and money, since vanilla extract improves with age, this looks like something to buy a fair bit of, and store it up. The price won't drop, and the quality will improve. Takes less space than vintage wines)
Juniper Berries. Just the thing for game meats, and sauerbraten, and duck, and...
All sorts of peppercorns, Tellichery, Sarawak, Muntok, Malabar
Three kinds of Saffron.
Sumac.
Poppy Seeds (ah, the things which can be done with poppy seeds, cookies, pastries, rugala, buns, rolled cakes, side notes in saurbraten, stews, eaten out of hand... if one ever has an urge to just bite something, poppy seeds are great. I used to keep a jar in my car for fighting traffic).
Charnuska. Pleasant on the outside of sharp breads, like rye, as well as sweeter breads, like pumpernickel. Used in garam masala.
That's the list I'm choosing from. I want to buy more stuff, I want to get some of the various cinnamons (they have both cinnamon, and cassia, and more than one type of each).
I want to send myself a gift box, so I can get the nutmegs, the cinnamon and the bay they use as packing material.
I want to go to the store itself (they just opened one in Torrance, so it's not that out of the way) and just walk around with my nose leading the way.
It's going to be an interesting time for people coming to my table next month.
A gift certificate, and catalog for a store.
Penzeys (don't blame me because they don't use an apostrophe).
For those who don't know Penzeys sells spices.
Powdered (useful, if fresh).
Mixes (for those times you don't want to go to the trouble/expense of blending your own crawdad boil, or vindaloo curry).
Extracts (these can be good, or wretched, when good they make lots of things easier... cinnamon oil doesn't settle to the bottom of a custard the way powder might. When bad, well they can ruin something worse than the settling of a powder might).
Whole. This, if one can justify the space, and the money, is the way to go. Whole Nutmegs don't go stale (well, they do, but it takes years, perhaps decades. I have had stale pepper, but the container was at least 20 years old. It wasn't completely unusable, it just made pepper which was barely better than the powdered stuff at tableside in a diner).
I have avoided looking them up online for the very reason I said this was an evil present (anyone who want's to contribute to food porn may feel free to ask me for my address) There is a lot of stuff here I want.
Whole Mace (nutmeg is an interesting spice, because it is the seed of a fruit, and the seed has a wrapper, which is also a spice). Usually I avoid mace because it can't be found whole, and it goes stale fast. I'd have to be baking for an army to go through a small jar before I decided it was past it. Whole mace has a longer shelf life.
Allspice. I can find this, but Penzeys has a reputation of having good spices, and I don't have any in the house right now.
Green peppercorns. Hard to find. A bit more pungent than white, a bit brigter than black.
Rogan Josh. One of my my favorite curries. Absolutely the best curry for lamb.
Turkish Bay. I like bay, and Turkey has some very nice bay (so does Greece, but I don't know a supplier for that). I've had little luck getting it to grow for me.
Vanilla Beans, Madagascar, and Mexican. What more need be said. Flavor sugar with them, make custards, ice creams, cookies with the exotic crunch of the seeds of an orchid.
Double strenth vanilla extract (half again the price, twice the flavor, saves space, and money, since vanilla extract improves with age, this looks like something to buy a fair bit of, and store it up. The price won't drop, and the quality will improve. Takes less space than vintage wines)
Juniper Berries. Just the thing for game meats, and sauerbraten, and duck, and...
All sorts of peppercorns, Tellichery, Sarawak, Muntok, Malabar
Three kinds of Saffron.
Sumac.
Poppy Seeds (ah, the things which can be done with poppy seeds, cookies, pastries, rugala, buns, rolled cakes, side notes in saurbraten, stews, eaten out of hand... if one ever has an urge to just bite something, poppy seeds are great. I used to keep a jar in my car for fighting traffic).
Charnuska. Pleasant on the outside of sharp breads, like rye, as well as sweeter breads, like pumpernickel. Used in garam masala.
That's the list I'm choosing from. I want to buy more stuff, I want to get some of the various cinnamons (they have both cinnamon, and cassia, and more than one type of each).
I want to send myself a gift box, so I can get the nutmegs, the cinnamon and the bay they use as packing material.
I want to go to the store itself (they just opened one in Torrance, so it's not that out of the way) and just walk around with my nose leading the way.
It's going to be an interesting time for people coming to my table next month.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:25 pm (UTC)My mother and I spent about an hour in the store wandering around and smelling all the wonderful spices on Saturday, and we both ended up buying a lot of stocking stuffers. There are four or five distinct types of cinnamon alone. I'm pretty sure that I found
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:27 pm (UTC)About 18 months ago, I bottled my own vanilla. I took two lovely Madagascar vanilla pods, and immersed them in Stolis in a dark bottle. I corked it, dated the label of the bottle, and promptly forgot about it until two weeks ago when I started holiday baking. It's good now, it'll be great in another year. But I felt rather proud of myself for attempting to make my own extract.
I am unfamiliar with Penzeys but obviously I need to go hunt them out now.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:36 pm (UTC)Not only will you buy spices, you will then go buy things to cook the spices into.
You know the vanilla extract you are making is going to be a little on the weak side? Soli being about 40 percent alcohol, and the usual strength of extracts being 35 percent.
The other thing is just how many beans are used to make extracts (about 100 per gallon of good labels).
I've never tried to make an extract, so I don't know how long the steeping can go before it starts to generate off-flavors. When it comes to vodkas I just flavor them for drinking (I have a very nice cucumber vodka in the freezer right now. I was afraid I'd over extracted, because it tasted peel-bitter when I removed the slivers, but has brightened up quite a bit in the months since then).
What I'd reccomend is adding a few more beans.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:42 pm (UTC)stuffed the ballot boxvoted. The Arlington store...mmmmm.no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 07:44 pm (UTC)Zhaneel
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 11:42 pm (UTC)I am afraid I will become that husband.
On a more serious note, the prices at Penzeys seem quite reasonable, esp. for retail users.
Their Mogra Cream Saffron is only about $240 an oz., and can be bought by the 1/4.
Which reminds me I want to get some saffron crocus bulbs. It's a pretty plant, in its own right.
TK
Their stores
Date: 2005-12-21 09:03 pm (UTC)Re: Their stores
Date: 2005-12-21 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 09:20 pm (UTC)Procuring spices is quite an adventure here in Prague. The traditional Czech spices are salt, caraway, mild paprika, and mild mustard. Horseradish and white pepper if you're lucky.
Spices that I consider to be perfectly ordinary, like coriander and cumin, require active effort to source, as they are not in any of the supermarkets. It really is an object lesson in Supporting Your Local Independents, as without Shalimar the Indian grocer, Farah the Middle Eastern grocer and U Salvatore the little spice shop, I'd cook infinitely duller food.
By the way, do you have a decent recipe for an Indian mango pickle? I'm looking for the sour salty sort rather than the sweet syrupy sort.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 09:25 pm (UTC)Penzeys ground black pepper is so good that my husband's given up grinding his own.
Things not to overlook: Aleppo pepper, powdered chipotle, the Maharajah-Style Curry Powder, which is absolutely first-rate, Turkish oregano...
Basically, go ape.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 11:45 pm (UTC)How strange. I like the act of grinding. At present, given the palate of some of my regular eaters, I have to add pepper to taste, on the plate, so I (even as fond as I am of pepper) would be unlikely to use it before it went stale.
Though the shot pepper mix might be worth it (a blend of cracked peppers, to keep the balance even, from start to finish.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 11:30 am (UTC)A top tip for Rogan Josh is that if you live in a town with a Hungarian or Slovakian community, see if you can pick up a tube of Univer paprika paste. It does wonderful things for Rogan Josh.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-22 02:44 am (UTC)