Stay Golden
Is your inbox chocablock at the moment? Mine's bursting at the seams.
Not just with the various projects I'm trying to balance, and receipts for toddler clothes and toys (ahh! online shopping! make it stop!), but with the constant barrage of check-ins from mailing lists I don't remember signing up to in the first place. It's relentless!
With that said, you may well be looking at this email and thinking "when did I subscribe to THIS?". Which is fair, since the last time I wrote to you was about this time last year - maybe longer.
Since then, I've opened up the window to write to you again, and then closed it because I had nothing much to say. I've opened up the window and then closed it because I had too much to say, and didn't know where to even start. I've opened up the window and then closed it, because I also had another window open with the manuscript to my new book (!!) and a deadline careening ever closer.
Aaaaaand I've lost 3/4 of my mailing list through a clerical error (fun!).
But here we are again, and I'm back to you, because I'm going to try and close those online shopping windows and write to you more often, because there's always a bunch of content flying about on my various platforms, but my subscribers are the ones who have committed. You want the good shiitake.
SO! What will I give you that you're not getting elsewhere? Insights.
Today I went live with my next (potentially viral) ABC Life recipe, a one-pot pilaf, that's very much a reflection of what I think people are desperate for at the moment: food that's a twist on what they're already making, ingredients they've already got, minimal effort involved in preparation, and kishke-coating in its consumption.
That's why I think the #applecrumblecake really resonated for people - and continues to. Because it's basically the best of our childhood apple crumbles, in a cake tin, with minimal mixing.
But one thing I didn't get to speak to much, is the spicing of the two. The crumble cake's key spice is cinnamon, and a hefty teaspoon full, at that, and the combination of apple and cinnamon is extremely familiar for people. So even when the cake's texture is crumbly and a little wonky, it's the spicing that's so evocative.
The cuisines you’ll find versions of pilaf in are known for their heady aromatics, too - no accident, since it travelled along The Spice Trail. But one they’ll likely have never used is the lurid yellow, swirled-through-egg in the 70s mix we know of as ‘curry powder’.
For anyone with a designated spice shelf, the deepest darkest corner is usually reserved for a bottle, or more likely, tin can, of the stuff – even though the furthest place you should be keeping it from is an actual curry-in-progress!
So what to do with it?
After you’ve given curry powder a whirl in your pilaf, you might like to use up some more in mayonnaise-based salad dressings, creamy vegetable soups (both cauliflower and pumpkin come to mind), and even in dry marinades and spice rubs for meat, fish, poultry, tofu, and fleshier vegetables, like eggplant.
Once you’ve polished off the tin, you might like to try flavouring your pilaf with a heady heaping of Seven Spice, or a textural Panch Phoron, tempered just so with the rice. If you've not got any curry powder, don't buy any! Go straight for these more exciting options!
If you're not going full vego, you might use ghee instead of oil, or the schmaltz (dripping) and pan juices from your last roast chicken. You might even like to pop in some bits of leftover roast veg (or meat!) to flavour your rice - or shuck chorizo out of its casing and crumble it in, as I did for dinner last night, for a pseudo, basmati-based, paella.
You could even try making a dessert-y pilaf, a specialty of Uzbekistan, where the rice is flavoured with dried fruit, sweet spices and honey.
I hope this inspires you to get in the kitchen, where your pan of gold awaits!
And ICYMI, You can watch the ABC News Breakfast segment in its entirety here, or visit my Instastory for last night's chorizo-heavy version, and if you do end up cooking your own pilaf, please do shoot me a pic. I can't tell you how much joy it brings me to see what we've cooked up 'together'.
Until next time!*
Cheerio!
A - Z.
*hopefully you won't have to wait until this time next year for the next one of these... though I'm not making any promises ;)