Most canele recipes begin with an instruction to brush $30 copper molds with melted beeswax. Unsurprisingly, I've never made it past the Internet search for 'used canele molds' before giving up.
The cornerstone of every Persian meal is rice, or polo.
Years of cooking have taught me that the harder a flour is, the 'thirstier' it is. In other words, harder flours tend to have a greater capacity to absorb water than their softer counterparts.
When I was young, one Sunday every month or so, my mom would load my brothers and me into our station wagon and drive 80 miles north to Orange County, where we'd meet our extended family at a Persian restaurant for lunch.
Steaming offers no opportunity for either seasoning or developing the brown, crisp textures that sauteing and roasting afford.
Chex mix is this wonderful crunch that you just can't get enough of.
After coating pasta with tomato-rich meat sauce, my mom would drizzle the bottom of a nonstick pot with oil and put it all back in to form a dark crust of tangled noodles. Once she unmolded it at the table like a cake, my brothers and I would excitedly cut into it, verbally laying claim to our preferred pieces.
My mom, who left Iran in 1976, steeped us in the smells, tastes, and traditions of Persian cuisine.
My favorite afternoon snack as a child in San Diego was a still-steaming flour tortilla purchased at the taqueria down the street from my school, and I've yearned for them ever since I moved away.
The people-pleasing and performing is 100% ingrained in me, partly because I was a little brown girl growing up in a very white, homogeneous community in San Diego - where, in second grade, I was called a terrorist.
Fried vegetables, often overbattered and undercooked, tend to disappoint me with their tough or soggy crusts.
For the timid or uninitiated, leaf-wrapped foods offer an ideal and gentle introduction to fire cooking. Liberated from the need to worry about whether the fish is sticking to the grill or burning, pay attention instead to the rate of browning on the surface of the leaf, which you'll get to discard whether it chars or remains pale.
My inability to follow recipes as written - without obeying the devil on my shoulder telling me to replace ingredients or change the temperature - is well documented.
The higher a flour's protein content, the more structure and elasticity it will lend a dough.
I just drink regular drip coffee, but I'm kind of a coffee baby.
I'd never been religious, but I'd always obeyed my elders. My decision to become an omnivore was fraught, not because it was a religious transgression but because it was my first act of self-assertion as a young adult.
By definition, comfort foods are rich and creamy or evocative of childhood pleasures.
There's nothing historically in my life very flashy. I'm not exceptionally beautiful. I'm not exceptionally wealthy.
Tart and sweet, tinged with the faint scent of almonds and flowers, the Blenheim is the ideal apricot for both eating and preserving.
Salt has a greater impact on flavor than any other ingredient. Learn to use it well, and food will taste good.
