Monday, February 09, 2004

What’s That Smell?

Cuilinary updates:

1) The powdered hazlenut flour substitute at Trader Joe’s is great for breading fried fish, but not so great for making pancakes.  Which is disappointing because the idea of hazlenut pancakes was what got me out of bed this morning.  Life is full of these little tragedies.  Which brings me to:

2) It’s time for the pani puri to go.  We got it years and years ago at Haig’s, where a few bucks can bring so many piquant new experiences to your home. I’d done well there with a variety of shot-in-the-dark spice buys in the past.  I liked masala spice mixes anyway and this stuff was cheap, so I bought some - and it sat on the shelf.  I never used it, never touched it.  I couldn’t think of an opportune recipe.  Dust gathered on the cannister.  I suffered from kitchen inertia.  I was lame. 

But a few nights ago I pulled out the pani puri when I was seasoning some flour (regular white and whole wheat, not hazlenut) for chappatis.  Whole mustard seed, turmeric, paprika… pani puri!  I’ll do it!  And devil take the hindmost!

Hindmost indeed, I presciently muttered to myself as I plucked the masala from the rack.  I dumped in about half a teaspoonful - enough to taste, I figured, but not enough to ruin things.  I dribbled in a few tablespoons of water to start kneading the dough and the stink was instantaneous: Bumpass Hell.  Boiling Lake.  Devil’s Kitchen.  Nature’s super stinky sulphur pots.  My stomach turned on a dime.  O the humanity.

Okay, so it stank like a flaming portapotty - but I wasn’t going to let that dictate my behavior.  I may be many things, but I am not a quitter.  Just because the food I’m cooking for dinner makes the gorge rise in my gullet, that’s no reason to lay off.  I kept watering the rancid flour, knowing in my heart that the stench was attributable only to one thing - the fine brown powder I’d added to my otherwise innocuous baking supplies.  As I kneaded the bolus of spiced dough I got used to the odor - or maybe my receptors just burned out.  Either way, when Kel walked in her first question was whether the dog had become gravely incontinent.  No, honey - that’s just supper.

I finished making the chapatis and we ate them anyway - they were there and hot and actually not bad - a little sulphurous, but the other spices contributed a lot and whatever else we were eating as a main course was really tasty and flavorful (in a good way).  And now the pani puri masala is gone from my life, jettisoned at long last after one unsatisfactory usage - but in its wake it has left these now-obsolete ALTERNATIVE NAMES FOR PANI-PURI MASALA:

Raunchy Rancid
Pretty Pukey
Plenty Putrid
Super Stinky
Purely Poopy
Mucho Barfo
Purulenti
Ranko Stanko
- and my personal favorite: Fetid Reeking Stench Powder. 

Variety may be the spice of life, but with spices like this, life seems most like a variety of unmaintained compost dumps.  Seriously, people.  If this is how your kitchen smells, I never want to visit your bathroom.

that made me laugh really hard!!

I felt I should share this: Pani Puri Masala contains asafoetida which also goes by the name Devils dung so your thoughts on the spice are spot on. Here you can find more info on asafoetida http://www.iisr.org/spices/asafoetida.htm

I’m such a cooking wuss that if I put something in the flour that made the whole house smell like “Nature’s super stinnky sulphur pots” I would throw the whole thing out and be own my way to In and Out to recover.  You’re brave, brave people.

Thanks Jeff, that is useful, arcane, and amusing information, giving you a complete trifecta!  I always wondered about asofetida, a name that seems as synonymous with “buttreek” as anything ever was.  The site also tells me that Fenugreek is derived etymologically from the phrase “Greek Hay,” since it was a cattle feed at one time.  I live for this stuff.  The Chucklehut is in your debt.

How about: grandiosely grody.

AND WHAT ABOUT CUMIN?  am i the only one on earth who thinks it smells like bad body odor?

I agree that cumin smells like body odor.  But not “bad” body odor - just the odor of a body.  That doesn’t really offend me.  Sometimes an overly-deodorized and -perfumed pit can really turn my stomach.  The worst, of course, is when someone is just dirty and filthy and their maxillary stench is like feet and cheese gone bad - but that’s not healthy, and it doesn’t smell like cumin.  I like cumin.  A day without cumin is like a day without sunshine.  That may be a euphemism.

I’m going to have to kill you. Pani puri is divine. You completely mis-used the spice. All you had to do was mix it in water to make a light broth.

Then, you buy (or make) crips puri-s the size of silver dollars, pop a hole in the top, fill them with boiled chickpeas and potato, spoon some of the broth into the puri. Eat while they’re still crisp.

BTW, the asafoetida probably didn’t cause as much of the smell as you think. It is vile, but is not widely used (or in nearly the same quantity) in North Indian food, as it is in the South.

What probably hit you so hard was black salt. It smells sulphurous.

still giggling at the image of your wife coming in, smelling your cooking, and going “OMIGOD what’s wrong with the DOG??!!?!!”

sucks, dude.  but that’s what happens when good spices go bad.

No matter how bad your pani pani smelled, it makes my “Mrs. Dash Miscellaneous Spice Seasoning” look more pathetic than it already did.

Speaking of spices, Dan, go to the market and get some Ronrico Greek Seasoning. It’s fabulous! I use it on everything - everything!

I would pay good money to spend a week at your house eating your favorite dishes.  I am caught in such a dinner rut that I don’t even have the energy to claw my way out.

Ever thought of having a recipe section here?  Not that I could find half of the damn spices you use, but who knows.