Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Harold, your host of Cooking News, coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, New York City, Rockefeller Center, New Stand Studios, joined as usual with uh John behind me. How are you doing, John? Doing great, thanks. Yeah.
Got uh Joe rocking the panels. How you doing? I'm doing real well, man. Great to see a full stack studio. Yeah.
So Joe wants me to go back on the mic, but now I realize for the first time in my life that we got a squeaky mic stand. So it made like we gotta like. I'll fix it. We can't win. I'm gonna pull it again.
You guys are gonna hear a squeak. There you go. Uh over there in the upper upper left, we got Quinn. How you doing? I'm good.
Yeah? Good, good. Glad to hear it. Good to have you back on uh regular and then travel down the coast down to Los Angeles. We got uh Nastasia the Hammer Lopez.
How you doing? Great. You sound it. Sound fantastic, Nastasia. What about uh Jackie Molecules?
He always has a brighter sounding tone. You also in LA today, Jack. Uh I am. I was just got back from New Orleans. Oh, nice.
New Orleans is. Oh, that's right. We gotta talk about it. We'll talk about that in a minute. And live in our studio, but from London.
So we'll take it that we're spanning the entire region from Vancouver Island all the way to London. Uh Dina Bagum, uh, who's uh promoting her new book made in Bangladesh, and tomorrow doing a uh a thing with the Museum of Food and Drink. Uh welcome. Thank you. Love to be here.
Yeah, yeah. Well, so before I forget, because I will forget, normally right now we're gonna go into like kind of what we did over the past week, but why don't you, for those who are listening live on Patreon, because you know it goes free on Friday, but for Patreon listeners who happen to be in New York, why don't you tell them what you're doing tomorrow with the museum? So tomorrow I'll be at the Museum of Food and Drink, chatting with Mayuks Sen. So we're having a conversation on flavors of Bangladesh cuisine and just generally flavors. Um and it'll be a really fun event with snacks, Bangladesh Snacks, which unfortunately I haven't cooked, but it'll be fun.
So uh what's next? So I think we're getting Bangladeshi samosas and some lassi. Um I think everyone's familiar with lassi and hopefully some other snacks that um Casey's organizing at the museum. And there'll be a book signing and just kind of you know meeting people. So it'll be like a fun event from 6:30 onwards tomorrow.
And what's the uh what's the name? Uh because you give a recipe for in your book. What's the name for the Bangladeshi samosa that uses? So Bangladesh samosas are Singara's. So there's a recipe in the book, and it's literally handmade pastry with Narjella seeds in the pastry, and then it's a spicy potato mixture with Bengali 5 spice, which includes mustard, Nagella seeds, cumin, fennel, and fenugreek.
Yeah, well, yeah. You know, as I as I say, how many times have I said this, John, that fenigreek is a spice I wish I cooked with more. Every time I smell it, every time I smell it, I'm like, oh, I love fenigreek, and then I don't cook with it. So good. Yeah, you know what?
It it is one of those spices that you have to be kind of you have particular dishes for it. We put it in a kind of a stew or a porridge called Kitchuri. There's also a recipe in there, but that one doesn't use it. But there's two versions, like a dry version, and then there's a kind of like a porridge version, and it's such a nice flavor when you put the seeds into the kind of the porridge. And how close is that dish to the Maggie Thatcher style kegeri English thing?
Completely different, like not even related. I mean it's related by name, right? Yeah. Like it was like stolen in the city. Kichuri or Kejeri, but um, or kitshi in India.
So you have regional variations, but definitely not close, and we don't put fish in it. Oh no fish. It's purely vegetarian dish, so with the rice and lentils and sometimes veggies. Nice, nice. All right, well, so anyway, so this is the point.
I mean, you've been on the road, so have you had any interesting culinary experiences over the past week? Um, well, I just got in here actually yesterday, but then I've been kind of I uh I have had expert interesting experiences yesterday. Just I tried tacos um at to this taco, is that how you say it? Um in uh jazz of city, which was really nice. So I haven't really I told my friends I hadn't tried tacos, like a good taco.
You can't really get them in London, but now they may be, but it's a new thing. People are really into buried tacos and things. But that was really nice actually. So trying papa tacos. And what's what style of taco was it?
Uh it was beef, and I think it was a fried fish one, uh, fish tacos. Um you're stepping into a little bit of a minefield because there's a bunch of people who hate on Mexican food on our side of the co anyway, it's a whole thing, but I'm glad you enjoyed the tacos. It was good. See, I can't say I'm an expert. I don't know anything about it.
I just went along with everybody. So like all of our LA team is like, Moo tacos is cool. LA next. So hopefully can let me know. So these guys can let you know where to go in LA to get uh to get some good uh get some good tacos.
Uh what about you guys? What about the rest of the cooking issues crew? What do you got for me in the week? Uh yeah, like I said, just back from New Orleans. So where do you end up going?
I need to eat out there. Wait, where'd you end up going? Well my God, everywhere. We went for Jazz Fest, which we've never done before, and that was uh an interesting time and a good time. But otherwise we did, you know, Ducky Chase and Um Herb Saint and what's uh Donald Link's other place.
Um, of gumbo. Is Cushon still good? It's still good, stays good. That's kind of like oh yeah. That's been solid for like 10, 12 years or however long it's been there, it's been pretty solid.
You know what I mean? Yeah, they had this like uh crawfish empanada thing, like a fried crop crop fish pie, and it was unbelievable. Um did you have any uh of the gumbo? I have a query? What I have a question for you about gumbo.
Um how do you prefer your gumbo? Because we we had so much gumbo this week, and my girlfriend likes it thinner. I like a more like thick roux. I am agnostic, but I do like okra. So I know some people like fillet and okra, and some people are like filet, but like I like I like them all, but I am agnostic as to the thickness.
I it like if it's thin and under flavored, that's a no. That's no, right? So if it's just thin, see, when you say thin, you make it sound like it tastes thin. Like, is it just a thinner because they're very highly flavored, not as thick items, right? But thin is also a taste descriptor.
You know what I'm saying? Not thin in taste, thin and consistent. I'm agnostic. I'm agnostic. I can have it.
Anywhere you want it, that's the way. By the way, speaking of which, how is that the freaking? I'm not gonna get it. I'm not gonna start talking about the new Fall Guy movie and how they they made Nastasia's least favorite uh journey song as their theme song instead of like the original Lee Major's Fall Guy song. Ridiculous, but I don't have time for that today because we got a lot, we got a lot to talk about.
No time for it. Uh what about you, Stas? Anything this week, cooking wise? I know there's I'm not allowed to talk about it, but I know there's more in the annals of Polly Shore, so I won't talk about it. What?
Stop about that. Anything cooking wise? Um no. Wait, maybe I gotta think about it. All right, all right.
You think about it. I know, I know my man John's got something cooking wise because he's got about 50 kinds of mayonnaise sitting behind me. So what what are all these mayonnaise? What's going on, mayonnaise, man? I'm doing well, now that my ovens are fixed at Temperance, I am doing some R D into uh the Belgian food menu I've been talking about for many months.
And these are a bunch of mayos uh from Belgium that I just had shipped in last week. And gonna see which one I like the best and figure out uh which one I'm gonna try and reverse recipe test uh make it from scratch a temperance. So can't I just buy the freaking mayonnaise, dude? Because you can't buy this stuff in the US and it's a lot of potato chip, yeah, yeah, yeah. But are you gonna make it like are you just gonna take by Hellman's?
You're gonna bring out the best and then add the flavors to it to make it taste like the ones from Belgium. I'm definitely considering that. Yeah, listen. It's not bring out the helms and bring out the whatever. It's bring out the helmets and bring out the best.
Yeah, the best. That's true. Yeah. Any uh any mayonnaise in uh Bangladesh cuisine? Um, not really.
Uh we do have a lot of fast food. Last time we visited for the book research, they had it's the capital Dhaka, obviously, you know, um, it has so many kind of different cuisines. So you wouldn't, it's actually until recently it was hard to get proper Bangladeshi food because everyone was just like into the new kind of you know, fancy things. You've got sushi, kind of Bangladeshi inspired Chinese Thai, all sorts of things. You can get burgers.
Um I didn't try the burgers, but um it's probably a good call. Yeah, I think so. I I did try it like once 20 years ago, and I did not like it. It was nice, but it wasn't a burger. So I think you've gotta try something that's um I don't know, i it's local to where it is.
That's how I feel anyway. But they do love mayo. Um, but in in Bangladeshi mayo, you probably have a side of really hot sauce or hot ketchup. So it's like hand in hand. But I think, you know, um, yeah, good mayo is actually.
I mean, Europe has really good mayonnaise. When I went to Switzerland, there was a mayo. I can't remember the name of it, but I absolutely loved it. It was so creamy and different, you know? And is it one of these?
You know, I don't know. Like, let me see. Like the main, the main Belgium brand. But no, but you know, like it looks the same color. It's more kind of yellowy rather than whitish.
And it has, I think, more of a pronounced mustard flavor. I think that's what I meant. Oh my God. So there's a guy named Ervett. You familiar with Air Vatis?
No. So he's kind of a bit of a crank. And he's kind of like, there's like Airvatis, and there's and there's Harold McGee, or kind of like, you know, of a similar generation of people who are interested in science and cooking, but Ervitis is the crank and and Harold's a good one. Anyway, so like I've heard Air Vatice on more than 12 occasions say, like, what do you put in a mayonnaise? And all of us are like, you put a little mustard in there.
He's like, no, then it's a Remoulade. And you're like, Air V man, shut up. You know what I mean? Just shut up. Anyway, uh, he's one of the few people I will uh I will I'm not bad talking, whatever.
He's still famous, doesn't matter. I can say what I like. I can say what I like. Um, so we're we didn't talk about it. I went, we went off a mayonnaise, oh the mayonnaise, the mayonnaise by it.
Yeah, yeah. Mayonnaise interestingly very good hot weather food because once it's got so much oil in it and with the acid that it doesn't actually spoil. So going back to New Orleans, like the whole theory on old New Orleans sandwiches with the mayonnaise on is how is it everybody's not dying? They don't refrigerate their mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is on the counter.
It turns out, like after you leave it long enough, it's shelf stable and it's good. You know what I mean? You're not gonna die. I mean, not that I recommend leaving your mayonnaise out forever, but you're not gonna freaking die. Good hot weather uh condiment, you know what I mean, uh John?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. So if you're gonna do the fries, because otherwise, why would you have the mayonnaise? If you're gonna do the fries, have you been to uh Superiority and had his new fries yet? No, not yet.
Well, you're a Trump. If you're doing research, I mean it's not like you have that far to go, it's like literally like a half hour walk from the rest of the restaurant. I was there on Sunday too. And you didn't get the fries? Yeah, we just went for dessert.
I went with my cousin. Did your Dunce cap fall off on the way over here? No, well, isn't the fries only for brunch? I don't think they have it on the dinner menu yet. Yeah, so I definitely missed the brunch, but yeah, yeah.
It's funny you say Dunce Cap because I had a question for um Molecules about Confederacy of Dunces if he found any good hot dog carts in uh New Orleans. Confederacy of Dunce Duncan. I did not. Did not. Have you ever had a lucky dog?
Yes. And was it any good? Uh yeah. Okay. I've said this on previous shows.
I'm like the I'm not the biggest hot dog enthusiast, so I'm an unreliable source. Let me ask you this. When you had the lucky dog, how drunk were you? Well, I was in New Orleans. Yeah, because uh they're famously run by people who are drunk serving to people who are drunk.
So it's like uh, you know, I don't think anybody has had one sober or knows what they taste like sober. And so like who knows what the quality is, right? But that's the official Confederacy of Dunks Dunce's hot dog. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, one more thing quickly. Uh my uh my favorite drunk food in New Orleans is a Po boy from Verde Mart. I don't know if anyone who's been there has had that, but it is Which one's that? What street's that on? It's toward Frenchman, I guess.
It it looks just like uh, you know, trashy like bodegas style place, you know. Um and you order at the counter and it takes forever and there's you know a bunch of questionable people outside. It's great. And what is your style? Oyster?
What is your what is your McGillah? Oyster shrimp. Now, let me ask you this. Are they actual Gulf shrimp, which are delicious, or were they bull crab farm shrimp, which are trash filth? Again, I have no idea.
One more time say the name of that place, Joe? Or uh not Joe, sorry, Jack. Jeez. Ver Verdi Mart. Verdi E R E I M A R T E.
Yeah. By the way, before I get hate hate, I don't buy good shrimp normally. I buy the same farm shrimp that we all buy. It's just if you can get saltwater wild shrimp, they are infinitely better. That's all I'm gonna say.
I I don't whatever. I also buy the regular shrimp, okay? I don't want to hear it. A wild caught shrimp? Yeah, it's a salt like And caught wild shrimp.
Individually. You know, like if you have like this is why I was saying this is why I think the shrimp clements so is so good at Dookie Chase, is because they're not using like like fresh water grown in a cement tank shrimp. They're you they're like when they're raised in salt water, they have higher amino free amino acid content, they taste better. Like, period. Like it's not like it's not like, oh, maybe they taste better.
There have been studies. Like they people know this. It's just that's why shrimp now are cheap. That's why shrimp is everybody food now and not like the thing that your parents slap your hands away when you go to get one off the off the counter. Like when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, you reach for the shrimp. You know what I mean? Those are adult shrimp. Anyway, uh, whatever. But uh again, I eat the same ones we all eat because it's a it's a different food.
I just like to think of them as as as different foods. What about you, Quinn? You've been uh you know, like strangely silent on foods you've cooked over the last week. Oh, yeah, well I I'm I'm I've just been waiting for my opening. I've been uh bitty little bee.
All right, all right. What do you got? What do you got? Uh let's see, I got three pounds of local elder flour. So I made uh a flavored salt, a flavored sugar, um, an extract.
I'm fermenting some with ginger, and last night I made uh oil and spindle. Uh, how was the oil? It was late. I actually haven't tasted it yet. Come on, dude.
Have someone bring you some right now. We gotta know now. It was like it was like 10:30 at night. But it's not 10:30 at night right now, is what I'm trying to say. That's all I'm saying.
It's oil. All you gotta do is, you know, have someone go over, boop, boop, boop. You taste, you let us know. And then if it sucks, don't let us know. And then we'll forget it by next week.
You know what I'm saying? Uh now listen, while someone's bringing you some of that, I hope, sell me on flavored salt because I'm not sold. I like I'm just not sold on flavored salt. The only salt in my mind that's flavored that's not like 50-50 salt with something else. You know what I mean?
Is like some smoked salts are smoked enough that I can actually taste it once I've used it. But most flavored salts, by the time I put it on, I can't taste it anymore. So sell me on flavor, sell me on flour-flavored salt. Well, I mean, it's an experiment. So I have it vacuum-packed with the salt right now.
I'm basically gonna sort of drain whatever liquid there is, sort of rinse it lately, and then I'm gonna try to recrystallize the brine, essentially. I guess that's true. Let me backpedal a little bit. There are also salts that I think are okay, but they're not really salts, they're just dehydrated liquids that are salty. Like dehydrate like soy sauce crystals.
That's not soy salt in my mind. That's just like dehydrated soy sauce. That is different flavored from salt. Anyway, let us know. But I'm just saying, I'm uh what's it called?
I'm skeptical. How much do those flowers set you back? They were actually pretty, I mean, I think they were reasonable. It was sixteen dollars a pound. And how big is a pound?
And uh like how light are those flowers? I mean, it's a pretty large volume. There was like three gallon ziplocks, I think. Uh-huh. Right.
Uh I know liquor is infinitely expensive, but did you say you did uh a grain neutral or not? Yeah, I did I'm doing I did um roughly 200 mils of uh uh everclair, basically. And then I just did a you know that syrup is overnight. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That yeah, that and syrup, those are those are what God wants you to do with it. Um in my opinion. Uh oh, my my pen just ran out. Okay.
Uh what did I do? So you know how I talk about how I love those uh stuff, those cheese and prosciutto stuffed uh peppers in oil that like I don't think they're necessarily high quality, but I love them. Yeah. But the jars are really expensive, they're like $10 a jar. I went to DiPalo's, which is my favorite place to buy things of that nature.
And for weeks I've been like, can I get the whole bag? Because I don't want because it comes in a it comes in like like a like a gallon bag. And they're like, you want the whole bag? And I'm like, yeah. I don't, first of all, like the more of those glass jars I bring into my house, the the more my house is filled with those glass jars.
I already have mustard jars like coming out of my ears. We give them away as gifts. That's like how much, you know. And if and secondly, like it's $8 and I'm paying for all this glass. So for $53, I got a gallon bag.
And everyone thought I was crazy. My wife thinks I'm crazy. I'm gonna see how long. I'm already a quarter of the way through it, and I bought them on Saturday. So we'll see how fast I can go through $53 a gallon of these of these peppers.
Because I, you know, whatever. That's uh is that the only thing that I've done this week? Cooking one. Oh, I got one more for you. Uh you guys know how I mill flour, make bread all the time, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Uh, so normally my normal uh thing is sesame on top, because I love sesame. Sesame is delicious, right? But uh my nieces, they don't like sesame crust, which I still don't get, but whatever. Yeah, you know. Oh, speaking of which, let me backpedal a little bit.
So I'm a I asked permission to say this. So my my one of my nieces, Ellery, right, is like super uh, she's a a great hater, right? She's a super good hater. So you know how everyone says, I don't know if they say this in England, don't uh don't yuck my yum. Is this a familiar phrase to you?
Uh nowadays, I think because social media, but not until recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, you know, you're it's not considered polite, right? To be like, ew, you eat that baby. You know what I mean?
Let's consider it to be a jerk move. Well, Ellery, as a world-class hater, right, says the opposite. So she's like, hey, don't yum my yuck. So she hates something, she doesn't want to hear you say how good it is. It like offends her taste buds.
I'm like, huh, that's an interesting turnaround. So she doesn't like sesame crust. So I did Dutch Crunch for and I haven't done Dutch Crunch in a million years. I busted out my mom's old sunset Bread cookbook from 1977. Got the Dutch Crunch recipe.
So for those of you that don't know Dutch Crunch, it is uh is, was, I don't know, I mean, I haven't lived in that part of California since I was three, but uh, you know, it's a coating that you put on bread and rolls where you mix an unconscionable amount of yeast, rice flour, sugar, uh, and uh oil, a little oil and water, into a paste, and you let it rise and get hyper hyper foamy. And then you paint it on the bread after the form and before the last rise, and it itself rises again on top of the bread, and you put it in it, it makes these kind of dark brown, crunchy like striations in it. So uh success. That was my uh cooking success of the week. Nice.
Yeah, there you go. All right. Uh am I missing anything? Oh, well, this taste of mayonnaise is at the end on the two-minute mark. We're gonna at the two-minute mark, we're gonna go.
Do you you're gonna Dina, you're going on a mayonnaise taste account with us. We're gonna go mayonnaise a crap. So it uh when there's two minutes left, you're gonna hear the music come on, and then no matter what we're talking about, mayonnaise is gonna is gonna come out. All right. So uh by the way, your new book uh made in Bangladesh, and uh it's it's it's coming out or it's out now.
It's out. So it came out in November. So like um US, uh, UK and Amer and Australia, but it's available worldwide. Right. But where I want you to buy it is Kitchen Arts and Letters, where you can get uh a discount temper uh what is what is our discount of Kitchen Arts and Letters for Patreon?
20. 20%. 20%. Uh Kitchen Arts and Letters. Uh buy it there instead of uh on Amazon, but you have to be a Patreon member.
You want to tell them how to become a Patreon member and what they get? Patreon.com slash cooking issues. Uh there's a couple different membership levels. You get perks at every level of membership. Uh some levels you can watch us live, others you get all levels, you get discounts to a lot of the great people we work with.
Uh prioritize and questions getting answered, um, just a whole bunch of things, access to our Discord. So yeah, check it out, Patreon.com slash cooking issues. Yeah, and speaking of uh, we have a lot of questions, but like a lot of them are like not related to what we're gonna be talking about today. When's our next no tangent Tuesday? Uh two weeks, I think.
Who do we have next week? Oh AJ Shower, AJ Schaller's on next week from uh from Mush, who's she the mushroom growing person. She's she's gonna be good. She's also was at Cuisine Solutions, so she loves a good technical cooking question. So maybe we can rip through some of these uh some of these technical cooking questions next week.
So it Quinn, look for any that are in our list right now that need to be answered now because somebody has some sort of party or something that they absolutely positively need to know, some piece of technical cooking information for, and otherwise we'll hold those for next week. What? Yeah, I don't think so. Also, the oil's really good. Oh, yeah?
Yeah. So like how uh so it's so if you remember two a couple weeks back, we had uh Kevin from uh Noma Projects on, and so when they were going to do a vinaigrette for flowers, they did a flour vinegar and then added the vinegar to the oil instead of the oil. So you're getting mainly the hydrophobic stuff off of the almost like fat washing, like an enfourage off of the flour. It's probably a different aromatic profile to a water base. Did you do any straight?
I guess your syrup is a straight water base. I didn't do a syrup yet. I just did straight sugar, and I'm gonna let it reach out over a few days. And then what are you gonna call that stuff that comes out? Yeah, cool dealing.
I was looking at your cordial recipes, and uh they're cooked, which is nice. So they're stable, which I thought was yeah, yeah, yeah. And what are we gonna get? All right, all right. All right, so on to on to the on to the book.
So this is actually your second book. Your first book was about uh which I you know what? Last time I I've never been to Brick Lane. Yeah. And I've been to East London, and the only thing I know about it is I was making drinks there at a at a drink place.
But then also I was thankful that the eel shops had closed because there's it's gross. Yeah, you know why? Because they're oh you never try them. I've never tried them. Don't bother.
Like it's the it's I there are very, very, very, very few foods I've had in my life where I'm like, nope. And I don't think it's just the one I had. I just think this is not a good product. I think it's an acquired taste, definitely. I think if you've grown up around it or someone's kind of initiated you into it at from a young age, then you'll probably like it.
But I think anyone who's kind of not familiar with it, you go into it. You wouldn't. I mean, I personally don't, I mean, British people would think, oh my god, how can you say this? This is our traditional food, but I feel like it doesn't look as appetizing. You know, sometimes I feel like you we eat it with our eyes, you know, you look at something and then I I am for me anyway, I just feel like it doesn't appeal to me.
Um and I haven't tried it, I don't think I will try it. Uh it's got all of the bad, in other words, like it's any negative aspect of any person's cuisine to somebody else, it has, right? So like there are aspects of it that are liked by all cuisines, but there's something in it for everyone to hate. Yeah, right. Yeah.
So the ones I had, it was served cold. No. It was snotty, right? So there are people who like all of those things, right? It had like bone bones in it, right?
So that's another thing. Some people like it, some people, some people don't. And it was horribly under seasoned and not salted. So there is no cuisine I know of where not one of those things doesn't offend them. Right.
There's no cuisine I know of that that wouldn't be like, oh, that's gross. But I know that plenty of places, if you just seasoned it, would be like, okay. You know what I mean? Warmed it up a bit or something. Yeah.
Or like made it not snotty or took the bones out. Like there's not one person I've ever met who likes all of those things. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, anyway. Uh so uh do you want to talk a little bit about Brick Lane before we get into the new book or so yeah, Bricklane was the first book I wrote, and that came out about five years ago.
And that the book is based on the immigrant community of Bricklane, and um there's a lot of uh Bangladeshi people, well, there used to be, but it's also got it um it's an immigrant kind of gateway where a lot of people come from different countries or have over the years. Um you've got like a strong like Jewish um history there, French, Huguenot history, um, a lot of um now you know Somali, Eastern European as well, and um as well as a lot of Chinese cuisine, which has been quite new, um, kind of um addition to it. But it's kind of where you know my dad used to work off just off Brick Lane, he used to be a tailor, you know, working in the leather factories. So I used to go with him every Sunday and kind of just you know, the food markets, everything was just so much more vibrant, you know, as it is when you're younger and you're just experiencing things before social media and all everything else took over. So I think I just loved meeting the different communities.
So that book was about kind of celebrating not just the Bangladeshi heritage, but also the other communities that kind of I was kind of I saw growing up. Um so I shared a lot of recipes from different kind of vendors and traders, and um, and it's just like celebrating the diversity of the area. Um, and again, it kind of was a little bit of an introduction to Bangladeshi cuisine for people who weren't familiar. Um, so there's a lot of kind of um Western Bangladeshi cuisine, uh, you know, like a lot of fusion. I hate that word fusion, but you know, like a lot of blended recipes, you know.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's lost a little bit of its sting, right? As like people it had a really, really bad connotation for a long time. But don't you think do you think it's losing its sting? I I think so. Now I think it is a bit more kind of I can I can say it now.
So before I'm like, no, wait, it's not fusion. I don't think that the implication anymore is like uh uncultured white guy stealing two different things and putting them together. No, no, I think that's what I think. No, it isn't because like look, you know, when I was talking about Bangladeshi uh cuisine, there's uh Bangladesh's Chinese, for instance, or Thai or Japanese. It's like it's a cuisine in its own right because you're just blending together, you know, like similar familiar techniques with different flavors or different familiar flavors, different techniques.
And I do love that when you kind of um showcase both of those um kind of parts of um different cuisines rather than trying to just do you know do a mishmash of things without thinking. If thought goes into it and you kind of care about doing the food trace uh good afterwards, there's no reason why you know it can't be good. Um so I mean it's not a problem anymore. And I think you know, there's a lot of things I just love, which are a blend of um cultures and flavors or textures. You know, I love putting kind of spices into my kind of baked goods.
I love baking, so like, you know, spices into cakes and biscuits and or cookies as you guys call them, um, preserves, things like that. Chutneese. I used to kind of actually make um chutneys and jams um around the time Brick Lane um came out, so I'd have a like a stall with Asian influ uh influenced or Bengali influenced kind of chutneese and jams, which I used to kind of sell and stock in local stores. Um and I love kind of preserving. Um so that book is also, and preserving is a kind of a big element of Bangladeshi cuisine.
So after that, you know, I kind of wanted to kind of go back to my roots as it were and just kind of promote the traditional kind of cuisines that my grandma taught me, my mum taught me, things that are kind of in danger of being kind of lost because people aren't cooking that way anymore, or using those techniques, familiar techniques and flavors, because of you know being busy, not having the time or not knowing, really having not having anyone teach them. So on preserve, so a couple couple things on preserves in the book. What first of all, what is an ash gourd? Ash gourd is a winter melon. Okay, when it's so it's I think in the US you probably call it winter melon more than it's a little bit.
And that one's preserved, the one at the back of the bigger. Yeah, so back to the it's a um it's a really famous kind of sility dish, which silit is the region I'm from in Bangladesh, and it's like the northeast of Bangladesh. And it's um, you know, kind of like how you do poach pears, but it's more kind of syrupy, and it's got you know the kind of triumvirate of Bangladeshi dessert spicing, I think, which is bay, cinnamon and cardamom. So those three really pair well together. So yeah, it's like you've got like two types of you've got the one with the central kind of um one vein, and then we've got the three ones, which is the kind of, I think the three one is is that the British one?
I'm getting confused now. But the Indian one or South Asian one is more kind of earthy, I think, and then the British one. Actually, we use a lot of the British one because we grow them at home and um in the garden, and but that's got more of a citrusy note. Um, so I say, you know, like using the British one I prefer over the South Asian one because it's just a bit more kind of fruity in flavour. So any kind of like bay, um, if you have the stronger version, I'd say put less, but if you have the more citrusy, fruity one, then put like in a couple of bay leaves in there.
But it's just such a nice kind of, you know, normally you don't associate bay leaves with desserts, not very often anyway, but in Bangladeshi cuisine, a lot of desserts, you know, puddings, rice puddings and um creamy desserts um have bay leaf in them. And so that's like a preserved ash gourd. And it's, you know, I've got a recipe for sticky rice as well as um coconut morabh, which is um again a preserve, and if you put you have to eat it with sticky rice, the coconut preserve, the ash gourd preserve, and some cream, like heavy cream, and it's just like the most delicious meal. Correct me if I wrong that the stick, the sticky rice you have in here is was it a red sticky rice? Yes, so the red rice is quite popular in Silet's region.
Um it is, you know, available everywhere else as well. And that's um got more of I feel like a nutty flavour to it, you know. Um you can use white sticky rice as well, but that's got more of a flavor. Um, like a um, I think earthy and more nutty. I think more savory than the plain one.
But is it the same as the is it the same as the aromatic sticky rice from West Bengal? What's the name of it? I wrote it down. Um, Gobindabog is actually it's not so sticky, that's more kind of I guess it's a smaller grained rice, you know, like basmati, but it's very fragrant, but it's a small grain rice. So um, but it's not sticky per se, it's probably more starchy.
Um, but then in Bangladeshi cuisine, we've got chinigura um rice or kalojira rice, which is also popular in West Bengal, which are very small grains, they almost look like cumin seeds, just a bit bigger than cumin seeds, um, and really, really amazing in biranis and puddings as well, because it's got more of an aroma, and I think there's a bit more of a resurgence in kind of using these local rices, which are kind of again, you know, with kind of I guess industrialization, people are losing kind of um all the kind of expertise they had in growing um these kind of traditional rice kind of varieties and vegetables and all sorts of things, and I think there is a bit more of a drive now to kind of preserve those things. So, one of the reasons I did kind of touch upon obviously there's a lot more, you know, like the book is kind of providing uh like an overview of everything, but there's so many varieties of rice at Popula in Bangladesh, local rices, and sticky rice, the red sticky rice, as well as regular the chinagura, which I use in my kacchibirani recipe, that's like so much um more unique than using like traditional basmati. Basmati is great, but then sometimes I think for different things, using different rices, like it just brings out, I don't know, it's just different texture because the kacchibirani is made with mutton, so it's like fattier, tougher, and you slow cook the mutton, you cook the mutton raw with the rice, so which is kachi, which means raw. Now, in Bangladesh, how old of a lamb are they using? And then in England, because here it's impossible.
You can only get lamb here. Yeah. Like you can't get mutton here at all. Like, but like in England, I'm a guessing you could probably still get mutton. Yeah, mutton is quite popular in England.
Um, so it is, I mean, I think even in British cuisine, a lot of people do still eat mutton, so you have like mutton roasts and things or stews. Um, and in kind of Asian shops, you always have mutton. I mean, lamb is commonly eaten, but I think for like slow cooking or things like buranis, you know, where you can kind of marinate the meat overnight, um, then you, you know, it just brings it's got a different, you know, it's like more gamey, you know, you've got a big thing. But I've never had it. You've never had it.
No, well, I mean, because like so you go to Keene's, right, which is a famous steakhouse here, right? It's like, you know, our Hawksmore or whatever, you know what I mean? It's like fame, well, it's whatever, we have a bunch of famous steakhouses. But Keynes is famous for their mutton chops, and they bring you like a double saddle out. I was like, so excited, so excited.
It was the first place I went after the pandemic, and they brought it out. I was like, this is good, but it's basically lamb. You know what I mean? I it wasn't like I wasn't like I was like itching to have like this. I want mutton, mutton, mutton, mutton.
And then I was like, nutton. You know what I mean? Yeah. And do you know what? I think mutton tastes better w when it's stewed or in a curry or some sort of like rich dish, like a birani personally, because you know, mutton chops plain, because if you have a, you know, like a nice piece of lamb or lamb chops, you know, it's just amazing.
Or you can have, you know, lamb in other dishes. It doesn't have to have a lot of huge amount of flavour added to it because the lamb itself is nice and it is ten more tender. Whereas, you know, mutton you can make it tender, but I think because of the flavour, it needs something more. It needs to be cooked, you know, slow and slow sometimes for those flavors to come out. Um, so yeah, I mean, I get where you're coming from, because I I mean I'm not a fan of like, you know, mutton that's quite plainly cooked.
Because what's the point? Just get lamb. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, lamb's good, but like I want something else. Yeah.
Uh, you know. Uh oh, uh before before I forget, because I didn't write it down, but you uh made me remember. So you give a recipe here for I believe it was lemon, oil pickled lemon. Uh and you know, I buy oil pickles all the time, but I've never made them. And I've always wondered what is the oil actually doing in a pickle?
Like, what's it actually there for? Uh so the leburacha, which is the lemon pickle with some chilies in it, it's a traditional way, it preserves it basically, because you've ha you when you make the pickle, you know, in the picture you can probably see there's like a whole like layer of oil on top of the pickle itself. So you've got to make sure it's submerged in oil, and that's a kind of preserving technique. And um back in the day, even now, you know, people don't have refrigeration in a lot of places in Bangladesh, and just generally it's a traditional way my grandma used to make, you know, pickles and it adds a lot of flavour into the because the thing is you eat these pickles, they're very rich, obviously, but they're in oil, so you'd have them with something plain. And in Bangladeshi cuisine, we don't have a lot of um our day-to-day staple is plain rice, so it's not like stir-fried or a burani or a palau or something.
So it's uh plain rice, and so you add other elements to give that richness. So you can have a little bit of the lemon pickle on the side with something. And general Bangladeshi cooking is very light, you know, day to day, which you wouldn't know like unless you ate at somebody's house, because you know, it's not that's one of the things, reasons why I bought this book out because people aren't familiar with the home cooking or traditional cooking. So the lemon actually, or you can, you know, even use the lemon oil in um kind of if you make a rice dish or a stir-fried dish. And sometimes, you know, that has a lot of flavor itself because it's kind of cooked down briefly with the oil.
So you don't just add the oil like, you know, I guess uh like a brine or something. So um, and but you cook it for a little bit of a simmer it with the lemon, which uh have to be preserved for about four or five days. So you have you kind of kind of semi-cook them down and kind of in the sun when when we do have sun in the UK, which is not very often. Um, and then you know, it's like so it's you've got to like preserve lemon to begin with, and then you take that preserved lemon and then you kind of cook it gently briefly, um simmer it in oil and all the kind of mustard seeds and other kind of elements, you know, I think it's garlic in there as well and chilies. So all of that kind of you have to let it kind of marinate, I guess for you know, ideally a couple weeks before you enjoy it.
But it just has, you know, like you have chili oil. The oil is just uh really nice on its own. It's similarly with I think pickles with made with oils, that you have that kind of flavoured oil that goes with really, you know, like simple thing. Like again, you can have it with um kitchuri, which is what I suggest having it with, which is the rice and lentil dish. So it it just perks up, you know, um other simple things or plain rice with you know, like some vegetables or chicken on the side or something.
Nice. And the other thing I want to say before I forget is uh where would Joe uh Joe, what camera should I put this up to? Where is the where are you where I'm down? Boom. This book is gorgeous.
Thank you. Uh the super super pretty. Like uh, where was it? Which camera? Uh here you go.
Here, John, take a look at this. My this is like so, like I get cookbooks at my house, and this when you look at it, you're like, Oh, I wanna eat some of that. You know what I mean? It's like, and my wife was like, Oh yeah, this looks good. You know what I mean?
It's like super pretty, like hyper punchy colors. Like there's one page, I forget what it is, but there's like a faint pink cast by the spine. And like you open the book, and it's like, and I I my house is too dark. Uh as I got older, I can't see very well at night, so I I have a headlamp when I'm reading. So I was like, is my lamp pink?
And like there's like a just a light pink glow coming out of the spine of the book. I was like, oh, so pretty. That's amazing. Yeah, there's a bit of colour in each chapter, it's kind of got that kind of main colour theme. And then I love colour, you know, I'm wearing black today, but I generally love it.
Going to your comment, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So, and I just wanted it to be vibrant and colourful, you know, just to show the vibrancy of Bangladesh food. So it kind of, you know, when you look at the dish, it's not just the dish there, but the whole um culture of Bangladesh. And it's a land, you know, as you've looked through the book of many festivals.
So food is what'd you say, 13 festivals in 12 months? Is a saying because there's so many festivals for everything. Literally, you have, you know, the rain festival, summer festival, spring festival, and these are like big events done nationally and even internationally in the kind of the diaspora. Um people um celebrate these things, and anything's a good, you know, any kind of occasion to celebrate with food, especially sweet foods, and it's like a joyous cuisine and culture and a lot of tradition, you know, and I think it's uh food is a great, you know, it's contribute to kind of getting to know a quiz like a country, people, and it's just like a great pathway into knowing something that you're not familiar with. And I think it it wasn't just the food that I wanted to kind of showcase, but people and all the traditions and all the kind of elements that kind of create Bangladesh.
You know, the use, you know, some normally you see all the kind of negativity, you know, you see the flooding and all the kind of disasters, and obviously those things happen, but there's a lot of joy that you know wanted people to see as well and experience, you know, through the food. So festivals, you mentioned there's like a season for weddings, and then you mentioned I had to ask you about it, the fish wedding. Oh yeah. The fish wedding. Everything we love fish, fish and rice makeup Bengali is a saying.
Um so if you don't eat those two, you're not really true a Bengali person or Bangladesh person. Um so yeah, the um during weddings, fish is a huge uh thing. So you have fish-shaped um pastries, um, sweet meats, and you have like a pair of fish, usually row, uh row, um, which is a cup, and you dress them up as a bride and groom and present them on a tray, and so it's like and it's paraded around to everyone to see, and they actually look like you know, uh married couple, you know, got the red outfit, you know, which was a traditional Bangladeshi wedding clothes um for the lady fish, and then you've got like a white uh Punjabi or a tunic for the guy, and then uh sadly they have you know a sad ending, whereas people have to like chop them up and eat them afterwards to celebrate. We all we all have a sad ending, Tina. We all have a sad.
That is true. Uh but I totally I totally want uh now to see like a fish. I wanna I'm gonna I forgot I'm because I'm stupid. I wanted to Google it, I'll go and Google, I gotta see pictures of this. Yeah, you gotta see it, yeah.
I wish I could have in included a picture, I just didn't get ro get round to it, but hopefully people will look it up. But and also cutting a fish like after a wedding, fish is symbolic for so many things, like prosperity, you know, good health, and you know, um so the day after the wedding, traditionally, in some regions, not all the regions, and before the Bangladesh has come at me and say, Oh, we don't do this, you know. But you uh g the bride, traditionally the husband would go and buy or back in the day, fish the biggest fish he could find or get hold of, and then the bride would cut the fish, and then the family would gather together and cook and eat it. So that was kind of symbolic of welcoming a bride into her home. I'm sure it can work both ways, you know, men can do it too, but you know.
But didn't you say they only made her make one cut, they didn't make her work too hard on that day. Yeah, yeah. So like literally, like you'd you you just hold the fish, and um, because most of the time women would be dressed in their kind of the day after the wedding in their kind of wedding finery, you know, in a sari or something. And um, so you wouldn't want like, you know, a a fish drip in your outfits. I mean, um I've known a bride to be like, no, I'm not gonna do it, it's gonna mess up my clothes.
So, you know, um, but yeah, it's just literally sometimes people just hold a fish. Or nowadays, people make like a cake shaped, uh fish shaped cake, so they don't have to actually cut the fish, which can defeat the Yeah, I mean like I don't know, like to me, I I don't know, it's not not my culture, but I want the real fish. Yeah, exactly. I think it's it's a fun thing, you know. Um so I wasn't expecting to go on fish early because I had a bunch of other stuff to ask, but let's since we're on fish, you want to stay on fish for a while?
Sure. Okay. So uh the fermented fish, obviously you say it's a huge uh category. By the way, when I mutilate pronunciations, please just immediately correct me because yeah, so fermented fish in general, uh shut ki. Shut ki?
Shutki, yeah. Yeah. But then the one that you mentioned that uh you say substitute anchovies. Uh how do you pronounce shidol? Shidol.
So shidol is the actual fermented one. The other one, shut ki is generally shut ki is a term for f fermented and dried fish. Right. But shiddle is the actual fermented fish, which is fermented underground in like earthenware pots and things. So can you buy that at a normal market?
You can probably get it in specialist Bangladesh stores if they can import it, but I've only seen it in a couple of stores in London, so I'm not sure about the US. But you can you can substitute that. I mean, with the dried fish, anchovies is a good substitute, but for the shiddle, the fermented, I would say, you know, um, like Thai fish paste, is it balachang? Or, you know, uh, there's a Thai fish paste that's very strong and pungent. It's like looks grey almost in a little tub.
So that's a good substitute for that. Do you say it's close? You think it's closer to that or closer to like uh West African like geg? Uh I don't not familiar with geg, but um how big is the fish? The fish are small, and when this by the time it ferments, it actually turns into a bit of a mush, you know.
So you have like semi-disintegrated small fish, um like small sardines, I would say. Um, and then usually they're made with small fish, and then you you don't actually eat the whole fish. You put it in a broth and you kind of cook it in a broth and then you kind of strain it out so you get the flavor. I thought that was an interesting, it's like a strain and discard. That's like uh it's interesting.
Yeah. Uh so now that's some FOMO, I don't have that. Uh and then the other one that um that I've never had is the dried, the Bombay duck, the dried fish, which you have a recipe for with, I think what obers. And uh I've only ever had that fish fresh. Yeah.
Oh. Which is weird. Uh so it's a lizard fish, a har uh harpadon, right? But have you ever cooked it fresh? No, I haven't cooked it fresh.
Um, I've only, I think it's uh bombay duck is I'd say an easy way to try the dried fish that's popular in Bangladesh because it's fairly easy to get hold of if you go to Chinatown or you know, like a Thai place, you can get it. But the other varieties that my mum would get from Bangladesh, for instance, isn't readily available here. So I haven't tried it fresh, but you know, um you've got um yeah, I mean, I think in India they do um pakuras out of it, I think, or you know, like bombard duck fry. Yeah, I've never but I've never had it that way, but when it's fresh, it's how does it taste when it's like jello. Really?
It's like because it's super cartilage. I guess it is a bit gelatinous, yeah. So what I was wondering is it's like, and so like I used to love to make it like whole fried because the the bones such as they are get real soft because it's card and you eat the whole thing. Yeah, and it's just like it just explodes in your mouth. Like it's crunchy on the outside and explodes in your mouth.
But when it gets cold, I hate it. You know what I mean? Yeah. When it's fresh. But I was wondering if the texture maybe firms up a little bit once it's reconstituted after it's dried.
It does, because I think it's um because I don't like, you know, it's kind of like that eel, isn't it? So you don't like that the gelatinous, you know, what's like gelatinous is not so bad, but um, yeah, sometimes it can be when it's cold. When it's cold. Yeah, exactly when it's cold. So I think it can when it's dried out, you don't really get that.
It tastes more kind of meaty. And when you cook it the way you cook it in the recipe, in the recipe I've got for it, um, it you're kind of essentially like stir-frying it. And so any kind of gelatinousness left is just fried out, and then it's kind of a dry, kind of spicy dish. So um, like, you know, like sambal, you would have like big enough sambal that's quite dry, a bit like that. Um so you don't really taste that.
But there are like for shutki, I mean, I would say if you do have Bangladeshi grocery stores and if you can source it, try to. Probably Queens. It's gotta be queens, right? Yeah. Exactly.
So try and get um uh boremach uh shutki, which is big fish shutki. So um boromach is big fish in Bengali. Um so it's chunkier and flaky, kind of like almost like cod but more flavorful. And um and that's just really amazing. And you could use that in this um obersion dish if you can find that.
If not bombed duck is a good uh kind of um thing to use as well. Nice. Uh okay, now more on fish. Uh talk to me, because okay. So again, you stepped into a little bit of a personal minefield here.
Uh Hilsa slash Illish, right? Yeah. You say it's like the fish. Yes. Right.
It's like it's like uh the fish, right? Yes. Turns out very closely related to shad. American shed. Yeah, yeah.
Yes. I think my dad would know that. You know, my dad used to be obviously obsessed with fish. Well, yeah, you you talk about him fishing several times and you have a picture of him f you know with a giant gourd. Now what does everyone get a f like a place they can grow vegetables in England?
Is this something everybody gets? Do you know? Um my dad had an allotment, which is like, I guess, is it a community garden here? I think maybe. So it's like a shared, you know, kind of garden.
So you've got to apply for it in your kind of borough or neighborhood, and then there's only allocated spaces. So when we moved to our, we didn't have a, you know, um garden growing up. We still live in a flat. And then when we moved to this new space, um there wasn't much of a Bangladesh community then, which is like 20 years ago. And then dad wasn't the first ones, you know, to go then start growing Bangladesh vegetables, and which is a way to kind of recreate those traditional dishes.
And even though you could get those vegetables in the shops, but they weren't fresh, and nothing like, you know, obviously freshly grown vegetables and you know, pesticide free and all the rest of it. And um so he now is like Leslow's Bangladesh people growing I've seen like a huge kind of you know um rise in that. So for the last maybe 10-15 years, so everyone's growing stuff everywhere. And um, but you do you have to apply for a space and when you do get a space you see like endless, you just know it's a Bangladesh plot because you've got like um these kind of um I guess canopies, you know, with gourds. You've got these kind of um I'm so bad at explaining things, but you know, like crisscross kind of thing, um fencing, trellis, that's it, trellis with um monch too, Bangladesh Monsh juice.
Number it's a different variety. We call it shim. I had to look that up. It's like a slightly synth bean kind of yeah, high synth bean is I think the correct thing. Oh, or you can, yeah, and we'll call it Bangladesh Mongch 2, but high synth bean, I think is most accurate.
And so they're like flatter and wider, and then they've got like two varieties, more of a green version, and then there's one purplish version. So the two that my dad used to grow anyway. And those um uh, you know, it's just great to grow this things. And you know the gourd picture you saw, that was probably not even the biggest. He's grown gourd that's taller than I am.
It's a long gourd. Yeah, it's like almost six foot. But what is it with what is it with with the British Isles and people growing long vegetables? People are in England, they are obsessed. My dad's all his allotment friends, everyone was you know having a competition every summer when it's harvest time.
He's growing the biggest pumpkin or you know, gourd. You look up all like the world record for like biggest vegetables, and it's all somebody in the UK somewhere. Exactly. And it's like it's like dogs, the people look like they're vegetables. We love we love showing off our vegetables and everyone's supposing with in the picture.
Look up, look up world's biggest potato, and there's a dude from England, and I I challenge you which one's the potato and which one's the guy. They look the same to me. You know what I mean? Very similar. Uh very similar.
Um, you know, it used to have that community garden. Nastasia had one in New York. Do you still have that? Did you somehow still own that, or did you have to give it up when you uh no? How would I take care of that?
I know, but you could like this is the kind of thing that if anyone on earth could do it, Nastasia, you would you would somehow trade to have someone take care of it while you were gone in exchange for like a place in New York. I know, but like it just seems like the kind of thing that you would continue to finagle. You know what I mean? It just seems like you're it was too much community and not much garden. Oh yeah.
Stasia, this is why I think we actually like work well together, is because we both hate community so much. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yes. All right, but back to Shed.
So uh the hilsa is incredibly bony, but in in uh Bangladesh, you don't take the bones out, you just deal with it, right? But you're eating with your hands, so you don't have to worry about as much, right? And yeah, so you eat with the hands and you kind of you get the knack of it after a while. It was I've eaten since I was very young. And it's one of my favorite fish, and it's the boneless one, which is the the most famous um fish and my favorite anyway.
But you do have larger bones which you take out, but once you start getting used to it and you have to kind of eat with your hand, I think, in order to kind of navigate the bones. Um so if you take the central bone out, then the other ones you can just kind of yeah, chew through them, I guess. And if it depends on how the fish is cooked as well. Sometimes it's kind of fried, um, before kind of cooking in a stew or something, um, or a curry. Um so if it's fried, then I think it you get the crisp bits of fish on the outside as well as the bones.
And the bones are very thin generally. So you can kind of all those those tertiary bones, those weird Y-bones. Yeah, exactly. So you just like you don't really, you know, it it it's a weird way, like to describe it. I I mean I've never touched a word, you know, had uh bone stuck in my hilsa anyway, hilsa bone.
And every time I eat it, my mom's like, Are you sure? Because I don't really like many kind of Bangladesh fish apart from uh Hilsa is one of my favorites, probably like th two or three. Um Shad is like my one of my top, top favorite fish. I love it. And it's the f you know, flavor.
You can't beat it, it's like unrivaled. Yeah, it's great. You know, I've never tried Shad, but I'm gonna try and Shad is great because it's both oily and mild. Yeah. And it's nice.
It's like I don't know, it's and you like it like it withstands cooking. I love it. It's like do you think it's uh they're all related to herring and all this, but like th the when I looked at uh the Bangladeshi one is like and it's the same. It c it it not it looks similar and it swims up river. It lives in the in the salt water and swims up river and gets caught, right?
Uh but here's the interesting thing from my point of view is that there's not a culture in uh in America of uh selling it really. Yeah. Um but if there is in Bangladesh, can I get it frozen in a Bangladesh grocery store? And are they good frozen? Yes, they are actually, because back in the day, um I sound such a grandmana, back in the day, um, but yeah, you wouldn't be able to get as fresh fish.
Now, to be honest, a lot of the times, I mean, when I was um we're doing the food for the book, you know, um the food stylist was saying you just she couldn't just tell the difference when she defrosted it. And they freeze it kind of instant, kind of fresh, like uh a frozen as it's called. Um so it when you defrost it, it's almost like fresh. So a lot of the times, actually all the time, I don't think I've ever had it like you don't obviously wouldn't have it here, so it's it's frozen, always been frozen. But always, even the frozen ones, you've got to try and get like a whole one if you can, rather than the pre-cut one, which the quality is is quite low, not as good.
So get it try and get um like a newly kind of um um arrived fresh whole fish and get the fish manga to kind of slice it for you while it's frozen, um and into kind of a fairly, you know, like uh maybe an inch thick piece. Well yeah, this is another thing that I've never seen before in my life. John, this will interest you, I think. The person I uh so I had to look it up, obviously, so I watched some YouTube videos, and they cut it into steaks whole uncutted. Yeah, and you have the egg as well.
Sometimes the the hillside egg is just so nice, you know. Right. Right, but I was like, I've never seen this before in my life. And then they just push out the parts they don't want from the thing and then leave the egg and leave it, but like, yeah, they stake it without gutting it first. And then you kind of work on the outside, and if you have to kind of de-scale it a little bit.
So yeah, it's kind of like that. Amazing. All right. So listen, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna totally gonna run out of stuff, uh time, I mean, uh tell me about these uh what I would consider like uh kebabs done the opposite way. So you take the the patties, the meat patties, you get this, John, you put them in breadcrumbs, then egg, then fry, not egg, then bread crumb, then fry.
No. Bread crumb, then egg, then fry. So what's the texture on the outside of that look like? It's uh jali kebab. So jali is like lace, it's like a lace effect.
So when you have the bread crumbs to kind of coat it, and then you dip it in the kind of egg and put it into the oil, it creates this kind of like almost like a lace effect, um, so which is why it's called jali kebab. And it's um it's almost like um, you know, like you get the crisp bits from a fried egg on the outside. It's like that. You have all over the kebabs, so it's really nice, you know, texturally. And it's really good with birani.
So if you have it on the side, you can have it on its own, but you know, mashed into your burani. If you make the mutton birani, that's just amazing. Um, and I would say I'm not a fan of, I think some foods, I mean, anyone who knows me knows this. I don't use condiments on everything. A lot of the times you'll have an item and everyone's like, where's the sauce?
Where's the dipping sauce? A lot of the times I think this is one of those dishes where you have to try and have it on its own. And I think a lot of savory dishes or fried things, you can, you know, you don't need a sauce, really. You can't have a dipping sauce, but it just takes away from the flavor sometimes rather than adding because a lot of the um the dishes themselves are quite rich anyway, so you don't need to kind of add the ketchup or mayo or like a chili sauce. Um, but yeah, that's great with just like you know, rice or on its own without any condiments, I would say try it like that way.
All right, here's a random question that's a huge can of worms. Uh again, I'm gonna mispronounce it, uh, pantabat. Pantabat. Okay, so cooked rice, add water, let it quote unquote ferment overnight. So a lot of people are gonna freak out on safety, but of course, there's many fermented rice batteries like idli, things like this.
You know what I mean? The one you have here, my my concern is that my kitchen is not hot enough to adequately ferment it to make it taste fermented. And I'm sure you had to bend in your book to people with food safety stuff, so you have it in the fridge overnight. But it's gotta taste different when you actually ferment it out and have it like, you know, at 30 Celsius or whatever it should be at. So in Bangladesh, obviously Bangladesh is very hot and it used to be a way to kind of prevent spoilage.
Um so people are worried about safety, but it used to be a safe way to preserve the food back in the day when there wasn't a fridge. Um even now people have it, you know, in the villages. Um I would say like warm, I mean, to be on the safe side, I would recommend warm weather, warm temperature rather than hot temperature. So if it's on a really hot day, don't leave it out in case you're worried about food safety. So warm day, you know, and it shouldn't have uh overly fermented, you know, like sometimes you have idli, it's like you can taste the fermentation.
Yeah. So for uh pantabat, it shouldn't taste overly fermented, it just has a slight funkiness, you know, which you shouldn't be able to taste so much, but it's just adds something, you know, to it. But it it's not as strong. So you drain it and you eat it in the morning. Yeah, you can like chili and you drain it, but not completely.
You should you can have a little bit of water left in it, so like um mostly drain it, but it should be kind of um, you know, um what's the word? Watery, I guess. Um and then um you have it um you can have it by itself by itself with um chilies, onions, or you can have it with bortas, which are the mashes and it's a staple of obviously Bangladesh cuisine. I mean, because it's the kind of thing where I looked it up and no one's ever had a safety problem. So obviously, you know, with rice that gets room temperature, we're all worried about bacillus serious, right?
And you know, that's why sushi is like acidified, but then if it's fermented enough, it'll have enough acidity that it's not gonna but I haven't found any cases of it being a little bit. No, I I mean we've eaten it. If like I've eaten it since I was young, so my parents got eaten it. But it's the kind of thing where if you tried to do it at a restaurant here, it would be like I think if you're doing it in a way where you're serving to the public and you're not in your home, you're like, you know, going and checking on your rice and you know, whatever. If it's like um, I don't know, uh if you feel like you may leave it out too long and then then it could be an issue if it save serve it.
But if you have to be quite strict about it, I think you can't leave it like you know, fermenting two days and you know but then again, you know, it's fermented, right? So it wouldn't necessarily like kill you. But um But it's normally what, like a 12 hour problem. Yeah, exactly. So I think 12 hours or so is is a good kind of uh time frame.
Um I'm anxious to try it. Should I try it on eat it? I think you should try it. You should try it, you know, and leave some of the water in there and definitely try it with that uh black and chili, like fried chilies. You like a really, really dark chili.
Do the ones that you use not get bitter? No, you know what? Funnily enough, you've got to have it at a high temperature and um in plain kind of flavourless oil, neutral oil, and um the red chilies, you know, and not the cashmere chilies which are mild. Try and get the kind of bird's eye chilies that are dried and red. They look like already prey.
So you've got to fry it until almost black, not quite black, so just very dark brown, and then let them cool briefly before you crunch them up, because then they kind of like crisp up a lot more. All right, so listen, I gotta rip through some stuff because we're gonna run out of time. Uh so mustard oil, do you use do you I know that you have to say that you can't use it and you say put Coleman's like mustard powder in it? But really, does everyone just use the skincare one to cook? Yeah, like you have to use the mustard oil, quote unquote.
The one that's um if you're gonna be able to do it. Yeah, it's a pure pure uh mustard oil. Because of a music acid for food. Exactly. But you're not gonna do nobody's gonna drink like a bottle of mustard oil, you know, like listen, there are no there is no there are no data showing that humans are damaged by it.
Yeah, exactly. So there's everything. If you look at any kind of food item, it's probably risky if you have it in huge amounts, you know. So I think you just have to use it as you would, you know. I mean, like just like that, you know, you wouldn't drink a gallon of olive oil or any kind of oil, you don't need it.
You know, you never know. All right, so uh the uh you give me some serious FOMO with the uh with the Bangladeshi lemon, the uh gandaraj lebu that's the scent just crazy good. Oh my god, that is amazing. Sometimes, you know, like if you go to a store, like and you just touch the lemon and just like you know, run your thumb over it, it you it just has this amazing aroma. Like it's sweet, citrusy, and that's why it's called the king of flavors or king of scents, you know, that's the name gondaraj, and um, and it's you eat the rind itself, so not so much juice in it, but either the rind.
So you take a bite when you're eating a meal like rice, for instance, or uh uh birani, or it pairs really well with fish and kind of not so rich dishes, fish or dal, um things like that, or with the porta. Alright, and now uh you like well, you like white pepper. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. The standard Bangladeshi cardamom is black though, not the green. Um, yes.
Uh the no the ta no standard one, green one is everyday one, but the black cardamom you use for like Biranis and richer kind of curries and stews. But yeah, the green one is everyday. All right, so since we're not gonna have time to talk about this, there's a fish recipe with uh clementine peel, which I thought is interesting. For those of you that want to not throw away all your clementine peels, maybe you should make the fish recipe with the clementine peel. There's a a skinless, whole skinless chicken braised recipe.
I want to know what you do with the skins, but I don't have that much time to know. What do you do with the skin? I I I don't know. I just got my mum to take it off. Uh you made me really want to have these cheese balls, uh, Shandesh molded uh cheese balls.
Oh, those are so good. Saffron and cardamom, so fresh cheese, she acid, she acid makes acid cheese, but then cooks it with the sugar until it like gets less grainy and then molds them out. Gotta do it. Uh five spice, Bangladeshi five spice. I totally want to use that now.
Yeah, you've got to that just elevates any dish. Simple vegetarian saute, it just and uh and the Radhuni, the wild uh celery seed, how much different is it from regular celery seed or from agile? Raduni is um more earthy, definitely more earthy. I I always use that word a lot, but it's um it's got a distinct flavour, and um it's not defin not similar to regular celery seeds. So it's um I it's hard to get in the UK anyway.
I got it from Bangladesh, so you know I was just reading amongst my friends, and but it's got such a nice flavor, especially in red meat. So if you can get a hold of some, get the raduni. You know, the only time I used it in the UK was in a mixture of five spice or six spice, and I spent an hour trying to get a teaspoon of raduni out extract it from this bag. Alright, so we're gonna have to do the mayonnaise later, John. I apologize.
But one last thing on the way out. So I love uh like uh culinary evolution that like goes the same way in different places. So seal bata grinder reminds me so much of a Mexican matate mono. Are they still used traditionally? Like how big a one do I need to get?
It's like I was like when I saw it, I was like, oh my god, I finally maybe I can get a good matate. Like, do you have one? Do you use one? We have one. Um, and we do use it not very often now, because my mum used to use it quite a lot, but it's you can get them, you know, like an A4 size, you know, is a standard small one with the the you know, could the rolling pin type of thing.
How much better is the bigger one? I saw you can get one that's like 15 inches long. Well, if you can carry it and you need someone to carry it. Those are much better. Medium size one, uh like a good like half of this table.
I mean, like, you know, my cookbook size uh double my cookbook size. Yeah. So that's the stance. I mean, they're not cheap. They're not cheap.
But you know, like you gotta use it and use it and then it smooths out. But how rough should I get it when I make it? How rough? It will you'll take probably several goes to make get it to the the desired kind of consistency. All right, well, I definitely I have I definitely want one of those.
Buy the book. It's beautiful. Dina, thanks so much for coming on. And uh check check her out tomorrow uh at MoFad and come back anytime, please. Cooking issues.
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