Episode 13: Thanksgiving, Part 2: Umami and Me (with Tracy Clayton and our families)
Happy Thanksgiving! Our special family guests this week include Samin’s younger brothers Pasha & Bahador, Hrishi’s dad Dr Sumesh Hirway, and Hrishi’s niece Asha. Plus, the wonderful Tracy Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) tells us about the Thanksgiving opinion that could get her excommunicated from her old Kentucky home.
This episode is dedicated to Kanta Hirway, Hrishi’s mom. Without her incredible home cooking and mischievous sense of humor, this podcast (and Hrishi) would have never been. Her Thanksgiving mango pie was the connection point for Samin and Hrishi’s first collaboration, and we hope you’ll try making it in her honor. Words cannot express how much she will be missed, but she expressed her love through food, anyway—so eat well and take care of each other.
We’d like to encourage you to contribute to your local food bank. Because of the pandemic, food insecurity is at unprecedented levels — nearly 1 in 4 households have experienced food insecurity this year. If you’d like to make a donation to your local food bank in honor of Kanta Hirway, you can use this handy tool to figure out where you can donate.
Thank you so much,
Hrishi, Samin, and the whole Home Cooking team
For a transcript of this episode, click here.
Food ideas discussed in this episode:
Fancied-up box stuffing
Chop and saute onions and celery. Incorporate into box stuffing that you make according to the directions on the package. Add cashews, thyme and sage. Optionally, mustard seeds and/or white wine.
Homemade stuffing with prunes
Here’s the only stuffing I ever make!
Double stock
Make stock using a mix of raw and roasted turkey and/or chicken bones. Next take some additional bones, onions, carrot and celery, and roast on a baking sheet at 400 degrees until dark. Boil all that in the original stock for a second time. Here’s Helen Rosner on double stock.
Vegetarian stock
Make a flavorful broth using vegetables, parmesan cheese, and mushrooms that have been browned in the oven or on the stove. Add other sources of umami such as tomato paste, nutritional yeast, soy sauce or kombu. Simmer for about 40 minutes. Use that broth to make the stuffing. Here’s a nice veggie stock recipe from Nik Sharma, if you need one.
Chicken pot pie with homemade dumplings
Here is my recipe for the pot pie, and my recipe for biscuits, which you can just place on top of the filling and bake into the pie. YUM!
Fried sage salsa verde
Yet another way to work acid into your meal
Cornbread
Here is a recipe I really like. Or you can get creative and make your own Boston Market-style cornbread by combining 1 package cornbread mix, 1 package vanilla cake mix a la Ocean Vuong’s amazing Instagram story highlight on cornbread. (Somebody please try this and let us know how it turns out!)
Parker House Rolls
These are Tracy’s favorite - Sister Schubert Parker House Yeast Rolls. You can always be your own Sister Schubert and make your own. This is Samin’s favorite Parker House roll recipe that’s super simple.
Kanta Hirway’s Mango Pie
My editors at the NYT have taken the Mango Pie down from behind the paywall for the week to encourage as many folks as possible to make it in honor of Hrishi’s mom. You’ll still have to sign up for a NYT cooking account with your email if you don’t already have one, but the recipe is free!
Kanta Auntie, c. 1998, photographed by Hrishi
Illustration by Mamie Rheingold