Episode 23: Annie, Get Your Gunk
It’s the return of Samini's Teeny Tahini Sardini Panini! Plus: the pleasure and pain of making the ultimate chile crisp; blanching at having to blanch; and finding cast iron treasure in the lost-and-fond.
Food Ideas Discussed in this Episode:
Best thing eaten by Samin lately: this Butternut Squash and Green Curry Soup that she wrote about once upon a time for NYTCooking.
The best thing Hrishi has eaten lately involves a long journey through everyone’s Metabolic Syndrome Era and a call-back to the Starch Nemesis episode with the most painfully named sandwich ever and the long of the short of it is that WE DON’T DESERVE THIS!!
Hrishi has been making Samini’s Teeny Tahini Sardini Panini (say that three times fast). If you actually made it though all of the cringe, prepare to be rewarded because it sounds like a delicious sandwich indeed: Lindsey’s sourdough bread, toasted and rubbed lightly with garlic, sliced heirloom tomatoes, sardines, basil, red onion, Maldon flaky salt. And lemon sometimes. YUM!
We also learned on this journey that according to Google, two cans of sardines per week is the correct amount of sardines.
For more sardine fun, Samin also suggests a fish salad in the style of Sqirl’s tahini based chicken salad.
If you find yourself blessed by an overabundance of chile flakes, you have some options–
Non-culinary: If you are a gardener struggling with pests you can make capsaicin spray by steeping the chile flakes in water.
Culinary: You can make a chile oil to give away as a gift by very gently heating oil and adding chile flakes to extract flavor. Or there is a Calabrian Chile Crisp recipe in Good Things. It’s a project, but you only need one batch a year.
If you’d like to further nerd out about chiles, you should look into the Scoville Scale. This will help you customize your chile crunch to whatever type of bulk chile flakes have landed in your life.
Pastry chef Carolyn Nugent has a bakery in Denver, and sent Samin a very amazing jar of Chile Crisp during the pandemic. This gift sent Samin down the rabbit hole that eventually resulted in the Calabrian Chile Crisp found in Good Things. Stops on the way down included Sohla El-Waylly's Chile Crisp recipe, Genevieve Ko’s Chile Crisp recipe, an excellent shallot frying technique from Nite Yun of Lunette, and a batch of chile crisp so hot that only one person could even eat it.
Important distinctions when dealing with cast iron pans and the residue left in them–
Seasoning is different from fond.
In order to become seasoned, a cast iron pan needs to be coated with a thin layer of non-degrading fat and remain at a high temperature for a very long time. That’s what creates the black color and non-stick texture.
The stuff left in the pan when you cook is the fond or gunk, if you will. Sometimes you should clean that out, and sometimes you might want to cook something else in the chicken fat or whatever is left in the pan.
Rarely do we want last night’s pork chops on today’s eggs, so use your best judgement about the difference between extra flavors and when something may have turned unsavory/rancid.
Soap will not destroy seasoning, so it’s okay to wash your pan out. Just don’t put it in the dishwasher. A great tool for cleaning your pan is a chainmail scrubber. Samin likes the very fine mesh chainmail scrubber made by Field Company.
Hunter wants to know about blanching and what is the laziest way to do it and still be effective?
Cue Samin’s rant (you can blanch lazy!): You do not need the ice bath in 99% of situations. It is only useful to stop boiling eggs (which is not even blanching), basil for pesto, and fava beans (because they get slimy if they take too long to cool down).
To skip the ice bath, blanch for a little less time than recommended. Line a baking sheet with parchment and use a spider or tongs to scoop out your veggies from the pot and immediately spread them out in a single layer. The more time food spends in water, the greater the opportunity for nutrients and flavor to leach out.
Finally, drizzle cooked veggies with a little oil to prevent them from shriveling as they continue to osmose water.
Please call us with your silly, weird, quirky, depressing, joyful, funny, or strange questions. The “phone lines” are open and we can’t wait to hear from you.
Also, Costco, here’s our contact information for any sponsorship opportunities you’d like to approach us with. These girls are still dreaming.
Sidebar About Ice Cream:
Awan – it’s not ice cream but we all agree it’s very delicious. (And maybe causing Hrishi’s metabolic syndrome?)
Salt + Straw Peanut Butter Brittle Caramel Fudge vegan ice cream - Hrishi’s serving size is the whole pint minus one bite. It’s like a revamped Moose Tracks.
In other exciting ice cream news: Samin is living out a dream in the form of a Bi-Rite Creamery collaboration. Together they have made a most-special flavor– Apricot Noyaux Caramel. The base is flavored with Noyaux, the bitter almond-flavored apricot pit kernel, swirled with apricot jam and burnt caramel brittle. It’s even better than the one in her memory!
Can’t get enough of Hrishi’s voice?? You can listen to him narrate the first Sherlock Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet, if you are a paid subscriber to his Substack. Go on, treat yourself.
Aaaand here’s a reminder that Samin also has a Substack, and you might like it, if you like things that are good.
Illustration by Mamie Rheingold