Q&A: The Silk Road Gourmet

I think it would be somewhat of an understatement to say I have fondness for books about food, travel and culture. So when Laura Kelley asked if I would like to see a copy of her new cookbook The Silk Road Gourmet -  the first of a self-published three volume series exploring the cuisines of thirty countries along the ancient Silk Road - I couldn't hit the reply button fast enough to say yes.

Covering the cuisines of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, this volume so chock-full of fascinating stuff I don't even know where to begin describing it. It definitely belongs on the shelves of anyone interested in the culture or history of food, has a taste for the exotic or loves the challenge of the unfamiliar. Covering both well-known and barely-known cuisines, Laura confidently walks us through a mosaic of countries, demystifying their ingredients and techniques and offering up a sampling of the flavors and traditions unique to each one. She also highlights their parallels, pointing out how the Silk Road acted as a conduit for flavors and preparations from the Black Sea to the Pacific. As for the recipes... let's just say my to-make list has grown exponentially: eggplants stuffed with pomegranate, lamb and rhubarb stew, pork chops with sour cherry sauce, cinnamon potatoes with pine nuts, pastries filled with sweet and spicy squash, chicken with apricots in lemon-pepper sauce, shrimp and pineapple curry, spiced coconut cake... Overall the book is well-written, well-edited and easy to navigate, and though it may lack some of the bells and whistles of glossy mass-market cookbooks, that's just less to distract you as you make a beeline for the kitchen - which is the most important thing, right?

And because I am so awed at the depth and breadth of this project, I asked Laura if she'd mind answering some questions about how the Silk Road Gourmet came to be.

Tell me something about your background and how you came to travel to all these countries.

Well let’s see . . . I grew up in an Italian-American household in the suburbs near NYC.  Every Italian family is a food-family, so, to a large extent I grew up in the kitchen, helping my mom and older sister prepare meals, or just sitting there and talking or studying while my Mom cooked.  

I started cooking by myself as a creative outlet when I was about 13 years old, and dove head first into Indian food.  When I was 16, I was an American Field Service student in Thailand and lived with a Thai family on the southern peninsula on a very rural farm (no running water, no electricity, and few modern conveniences).  During that time I also traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and from stem to stern in Thailand.  Accustomed to spending time in the kitchen at home, I watched a lot about what was happening in the kitchen and tried to get up in the morning to feed the monks who would come begging in the pre-dawn hours.  I took notes about the foods I was eating and tried to figure out a lot of the ingredients myself.  I would ask my “Thai mother” or AFS program staff what was being served and engage them in conversation about it.

There was a long period of staying stateside while I was finishing my degrees.  During that time, I continued to cook South Asian food and started to branch out into cooking Southeast Asian and East Asian foods as well.  Cooking, at this point was still just a hobby and something I did to feed myself.  I also sought out ethnic restaurants to try foods here.  At this time cooking authentic Asian food in the US was difficult even living in and near major cities.  I remember having to scour stores for galangal (a gingery sort of root).  Today these things are a few clicks away on the internet.

After I got married, I worked for years for a large, international public health project funded by USAID called the Child Health Research Project and traveled to the Indian subcontinent many times – also hitting Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.  During this time, I paid a lot of attention to the food and started to write about where I ate and what was served as well as talk to the cooks at the guesthouses about ingredients for recipes etc. I also started to go to open markets and wander around with my driver or minder and ask him questions.  As you can imagine, these notes have been invaluable in reconstructing recipes and menus for the Silk Road Gourmet.

Why and how did you start collecting recipes on your travels?

All the while I was traveling, I was collecting recipes.  Most people were receptive to telling recipes.  The only time I ever had anyone refuse was at a market – I guess they thought I might help a competitor get a leg up on their business.  My travels started in 1980 and by the 1990s or so with all the cooking (and eating) of Asian foods I’ve done, I came to really know the taste of ingredients and would try to “reconstruct” the recipe of a dish as I was eating it – whether it be at a guest house or in a restaurant stateside.  It’s still a parlor trick of mine.  After this, I’d try to reconstruct it in the kitchen – the hardest ones had to be cooked 2 or 3 times until they sang. . .

Do you still travel frequently?

I’ve been on another lull recently, working, raising kids, writing policy papers and books – but am itching to get on the road again.  The farthest I’ve been for the last few years have been big trips to the American West with my hubby and kids on summer vacation.  We are thinking about going to mainland China this summer – but not sure if we can make it.  Turkey or Morocco may have to do.  In 2006 I was in Southern Africa, and loved the “fusion” cuisine I found there (a combo of European, Indian and African flavors and ingredients).

How did the idea to write a series of books take shape?

The idea to write a cookbook started forming a few years ago in 2005 and 2006. Part of the idea for the book was fueled by comparing the recipes I’d collected and reconstructed with those available in lots of Asian cookbooks available here in the West.  I felt there was a gap – Grand Canyon size – between the foods I was eating and cooking with the authentic recipes and lots of the recipes available in existing cookbooks.  By and large flavors were toned way down in cookbooks when compared with their authentic cousins.  I wanted to remedy this with my own book.  Another idea that had been forming in my head for some time, was how similar dishes were between countries that were sometimes geographically separated by thousands of miles or major natural obstacles.  I started to think of these similarities in a historical sense and kept on seeing how the Persian, Arab and Indian empires had influenced the food of the countries they ruled.  During this time, I was also involved in a few projects examining the affects of globalization in the modern world for my day job – and that’s how the Silk Road concept came into view.  The one book concept expanded into a three book concept and the project was born.  I started working earnestly in 2006 on the project in my spare time (not working hours) and find myself here, now.



Tell me about the process of researching, testing and writing these books. How long has the whole process taken?

Volume 1 pretty much took two years from finger to keystroke to get a manuscript to the publisher.  The research – as I’ve indicated in previous questions – has been over years and decades – but the actual writing and cooking and tasting and re-cooking has taken two years in my spare time, not as a day job.  It all started at home – my husband is the Queen’s taster.  I would cook dishes (sometimes 3 or 4 in smaller portions) for dinner and we would taste and talk.  After I was happy with the recipes, I sent them out to family and friends who all cooked the recipes as well.  I would often make revisions to the recipes if something wasn’t clear to a test-cook friend to improve it for The Silk Road Gourmet.

Did you have to make any concessions in the recipes for the U.S. market?

Certainly, no concessions were made for American or Western tastes.  I went for the full flavor and by and large, the professional chefs and serious home cooks who have used the book have been happy with that.  I’ve received a few incredulous comments from folks used to eating and cooking bland Europeanized versions of Asian food, but, hey – you can’t please everyone.  Since one of the reasons I wrote the book was to get more authentic versions of the recipes out, I expected that some people would be displeased or challenged by the amount of flavor and the flavor combinations in the book.  

As to availability of ingredients, if I couldn’t get the ingredients or find a reasonably easy to find substitute, its not in the book.  Sometimes, for instance, bottled sour cherries were used instead of fresh ones – which are hard to find – bit I could usually find everything either in a local store or online.  I am a digital gal and do a lot of shopping over the internet.  My site also has its own Amazon.com store that features lots of the spices and ingredients so people can use the portal right on my webpage to find things.

One thing I did do, was make concessions for was the use of modern kitchen equipment, or methods of preparation.  For example, instead of pounding ingredients for a sambal for 20 minutes, I used a food processor to get the grind going and then transferred to a mortar if larger pieces of ingredients needed to be included.  Also forming ground meat kebabs on skewers is very difficult to do unless you have very hot skewers, cool to cold meat and a fair amount of experience.  I gave cooks an alternative to prepare them as loaves or meatballs – which is culturally acceptable as well.  We also don’t generally have have the type of ovens needed to cook samsas and bread – so I had to find alternatives to slapping the bread onto the inside of an incredibly hot oven.

Can you give me a little sneak preview of the next two volumes?

Happy to!  Volume 2 which I hope will be out in mid 2010 covers the “fusion” cuisines of Central Asia, The Himalayas and the Indo Pacific.  These are all cuisines that have unique fusions of western Asian and Eastern Asian food traditions and food cultures.  I’m particularly excited about the Central Asia chapters – these were hard to research but now have some delicious, authentic food in them.

Volume 3 covers Eastern Asia from Mongolia to the Philippines and I hope will be available in mid 2011.  I’ve tried to fill it with recipes a bit off the beaten path from most eastern Asian books – like a delicious recipe for black (silkie) chicken from Northern China and a fish-flavored eggplant in clay pots from southern China.

In both books, I’ve selected recipes that will follow through with some of the patterns and trends noted in the first volume.  So there are recipes for kebabs, and stuffed peppers from Eastern Asia as well as dishes that show the Persian love of layering a far away as Kirghizstan or how the Kazakhs interpret an Indian Korma.

And finally... if forced to pick a favorite from this book, which cuisine would you choose and why?

That’s a really hard question to answer. . . In Volume 1, I’m thinking that Afghan food is probably my favorite (but sometimes I say Armenia or Azerbaijan).  The reason for this is you can “taste the history” in Afghan food more than many other Asian cuisines.  For centuries the Afghans have been “almost ruled” by a wide variety of peoples, from Persians, Alexander, Greeks, Buddhists, Arabs, Uzbeks, British, Russians, Afghans, (US) etc. and all of these influences can be felt in their culture and in their food.  What you get on the Afghan table is a unique merger of Western Asian (still heavily influenced by European cuisine), the cuisines of the Levant states and the cuisines of the Southern Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.  So, from the West we see familiar ingredients like fennel, bay leaf, mint and saffron.  But these are often used in conjunction with ingredients from Southern and Eastern Asian like cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon rather than by themselves.  I also love quinces and the Afghans use lots of them. . .

Thanks for the fascinating interview, Laura! For heaps more interesting information on Laura, the book and the Silk Road cuisines, be sure to check out her website at www.silkroadgourmet.com.

Armenian Meatballs in Lemon Sauce

As soon as I received my copy of Laura's book, I invited my in-laws over for a dinner featuring several of its recipes. Everything was wonderful, but these subtly-spiced meatballs in a tangy lemon sauce were the hands-down winner. I shouldn't have been surprised; in the book's introduction Laura herself identifies them as a personal favorite.
Serves: 4
Source: adapted slightly from The Silk Road Gourmet by Laura Kelley

for meatballs:
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
zest from 2 medium lemons
2 dried hot red chilies
1 egg
2 tablespoons tomato sauce/puree
1 small bunch fresh cilantro (15-20 sprigs)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 lb. (450g) ground lamb or beef (I used beef)

for sauce:
1 1/2 cups (325ml) vegetable broth (I used chicken broth)
1 cup (250ml) water
2 tablespoons (30g) unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice

In a food processor, combine all the meatball ingredients except the meat and process until well blended. Add meat and blend again until well mixed. Refrigerate one hour. Shape into 2-inch (5cm) meatballs. Refrigerate another hour before cooking.

In a large sauté pan bring the broth and water to a boil over medium-high heat. Melt butter in the broth. Add the meatballs and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, covered, until the meatballs are tender, about 30 minutes. Spoon broth over meatballs several times during cooking and turn meatballs over after about 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to low if necessary to keep them cooking only gently.

In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks. Stir in the lemon juice. Add 1/2 cup hot broth and mix well. When the meatballs are done, remove from the broth. Reduce the broth if necessary (and strain if you wish - I had a lot of particles in mine).Add the egg-lemon mixture, stirring or whisking steadily as you dribble the mixture in. Heat until it starts to thicken and add meatballs back into the sauce. Let them reheat for a few more minutes and serve with plenty of basmati rice. (If, however, at the eleventh hour you find yourself inexplicably out, couscous works in a pinch.)

Friends, Beets, Enemies

Roasted Beet Salad with Feta and Walnuts

I've never understood beet-haters. I can fully sympathize with brussels-sprout-haters, for instance, since I even used to be one myself before realizing that a splash of olive oil and a turn in a hot oven make all the difference in the world. Also things like kale (so vegetal! so chewy!) and eggplant (slimy and bitter in the wrong hands) occasionally turn even my stomach, so I can fully comprehend why some people swear them off completely.

But beets? To me they're nothing but perfect, one of those few miraculous vegetables that manages to cloak a powerhouse of nutrition in a delicious package. So how come millions of reasonable, vegetable-loving folks hate them? Honestly, I can't even count the number of people I've met who are otherwise passionate, equal-opportunity eaters, but don't even bat an eyelash when proclaiming beets to be the one food they refuse to touch.

So I ask you beet-haters, what is it you detest? Is it the flavor? I know they're kind of earthy, but so are carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes, and no one seems to have any issues with them. Is it the color? Granted, it's intense, and it does admittedly, ahem, haunt you for a couple of days afterward (but that's all I'm going to say on that topic), and it is a pain to remove beet stains from clothing, dishtowels and countertops, and people who've been handling cut beets look like they've just finished shooting a scene for a horror movie. Still, several kinds of ripe, red berries do all those things too (well, maybe not the haunting part...) and nobody hates them for it.

I think what's most likely is that people who think they hate beets just haven't tried them in the right form. Heck, if I'd only tried them out of a can or jar, I might just hate them too. For one thing, they're usually too sweet this way, since most manufacturers insist on augmenting their natural sugars to cloying levels. And texturally they're not the most appealing either, water-logged and flabby, looking like freakish purple potato chips with all those crinkle-cut ridges. What can I say? Beet-haters, if this is the only way you've ever experienced them, you most certainly have my sympathies.

But you don't have my permission to continue hating them. At least, not until you've tried my favorite beet recipe. It's a riff on a French cooked salad, where first the beets are roasted to caramelly softness, then sliced into garnet rounds and tossed with a mustardy, garlicky vinaigrette while still warm. At some point while they're sitting there those sweet, sour and pungent flavors all sidle up to one another and get comfy, like good friends reunited after a long time apart, but just when you're starting to fear that all this harmony might get boring, along comes a nugget of salty feta or the crunch of a toasted nut to liven things up. It's addictive, I tell you; the first time I made this for Manuel, he went from saying, "you made beets... for dinner???" to helping himself to the last few slices when I wasn't looking. Not bad for a self-described "beet-ambivalent".

Now, I know beet-ambivalence a far cry from the full-fledged beet hatred many of you subscribe to, but please consider giving them another chance. You may be hesitant to take this advice from me, an avowed beet lover, but think of it this way: maybe, just maybe, there's a good reason I am. And maybe, just maybe, this recipe marks the start of your life as a beet-lover too.

Roasted Beet Salad with Feta and Walnuts

A word of advice: wear something dark-colored while making this salad (and maybe while eating it too). As careful as you might be, some scarlet-red beet juice will end up on you somewhere. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with different laws of attraction between beets and white fabric, but if you have another theory, by all means share it.
Serves: 6 as a side dish (or fewer, if beet lovers are involved)

about 2 lbs. (ca. 1kg) raw beets

For vinaigrette:
1/4 cup (60ml) tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup (60ml) red wine vinegar, or to taste
1 heaping tablespoon dijon mustard
1 fat clove garlic, minced
3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
freshly-ground black pepper to taste

For garnish:
3 oz (85g) sheep's milk feta, crumbled
1/2 cup (50g) toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped (toasted almonds or hazelnuts are also great)
leaves from a couple sprigs fresh thyme

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C. Wash the beets, then wrap them in a double layer of aluminum foil. Place on a baking sheet and roast until a knife easily slides through the center of your largest beet, anywhere from about 45-75 minutes, depending on the size of your beets. Unwrap and allow to cool until you can comfortably handle them (they should still be warm, though).

In a small bowl whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients until emulsified.

When the beets are cool enough to handle, slip the skins off using either your fingers or a knife, and cut each beet into 1/4-inch (1/2-cm) slices. In a large bowl combine the warm beet slices and the vinaigrette, using your hands to gently massage everything together (it's messy, but using a spoon usually results in too many broken beets). Let stand at least 30 minutes for the flavors to mingle - preferably more like an hour or two.

Just before serving, taste the beets for seasoning - they might need another splash of vinegar and/or pinch of salt (though don't overdo the salt since the feta is quite salty). Arrange the slices attractively on an platter, topped with the feta cheese, walnuts and thyme. Enjoy at room temperature.
 

Home is Where the Cake is

Buttery Apple Cake-Tart

It's funny, the things moving teaches you about yourself. Particularly big, trans-global moves - like the two we've done in the last year - are as much about the journey of self-discovery as they are about the journey of things. I now know, for example, exactly which of my material possessions are important to me, since paying by the cubic millimeter to retain possession of them - twice - forces you to figure that out fast. I also have a heightened appreciation of the shades of gray between what I can and cannot live without. Like, I now know that I can live without a microwave but I cannot live without a set of handheld beaters, and that I prefer not to live without a salad spinner but that's considerably more preferable to life without a dishwasher. And as for those little dwarf-sized fridges that I happily waved goodbye to when we left Europe, it seems I'll force my husband to drive two hours to pick up a fridge I bought on ebay rather than live with one of those again, even if it was provided free with our apartment. But that's not being unreasonable, is it?

What took me most by surprise, though, was what I found myself doing once installed in each new locale, even before the boxes were unpacked and the new furniture arranged. In both cases I turned on the oven and started baking - which, it would seem, is the only way I can even begin to call a new place home.

To be fair, I often go through baking phases, but a) they rarely happen in summer, since who wants to heat up the whole house when it's already hot? and b) a baking phase for me is two or three new things, spread out over a month or so. But when I think back to last year and the first few weeks in our cottage, my memory of what it felt like to actually settle in to life in the U.S. is completely obscured by memories of cookies, muffins, and the first scones I'd baked in, like, a decade. At the time it didn't seem that strange - I probably told myself I was just getting to know our new oven, or trying to win over our new landlords with edible gifts, or even reconnecting with my western homesteading roots, but in retrospect I'm pretty sure there was something else going on - something psychological. The reason I've come to that conclusion is because that's exactly what I've been doing here in Germany.

There is definitely something about baking that evokes the feelings of security and comfort we associate with home. I've heard stories of real estate agents who pop a tray of cookies in the oven before showing a house - and even, believe it or not, of companies marketing cookie-aroma-in-a-can for time-pressed agents to simply spray around the kitchen. People, apparently, go nuts for it - somehow smelling these things in the air brings up such strong associations for people that they perceive a space not as an unfamiliar assembly of walls and floors and furniture, but as someplace they might actually want to live. It's as if the aromas of butter and vanilla and yeast tell that part of the brain that for the sake of our own survival keeps us on alert in unfamiliar surroundings, it's okay, you can relax now - you're home.

In my case it certainly seems to work, as I'm feeling much more at home here than I was six weeks, five cakes and two tarts ago. Actually it might be four cakes and three tarts - I'm not quite sure. The thing is that one of the best things to come out of my oven is a funny sort of hybrid - it's made like a cake, looks like a tart, and tastes like a cross between both with a little bit of a clafoutis thrown in for good measure. The original recipe comes from the late Richard Sax's wonderful book Classic Home Desserts - which, I've just decided, shall henceforth be known as my 'moving bible' - in which it's presented as a wonderfully easy, unleavened apple cake you bake in a pie pan. He says "stick a bookmark here, since that's how much you'll make this", and I have to agree. It's deceptively simple; apart from browning the butter everything can be done in one bowl, which, when bowls are in short supply because all your belongings are stuck in customs indefinitely thanks to the fact that the agent handling your shipment unexpectedly went on vacation, is pretty nifty. But the main reason to love it is because it's good, really good: crusty, buttery, tangy and sweet.

And of course, a fringe benefit is that it'll make your house smell wonderful, which in turn will make you feel happy and cozy and safe. Of course, you could just buy some apple cake spray, but I assure you, the real thing is so much better.

Buttery Apple Cake-Tart

This recipe started life as Ligita's Quick Apple Cake, which is a classic recipe in itself. As things tend to do in my kitchen, however, this evolved, and now it's a close relative of Ligita's cake, but definitely its own dessert. For one, I bake it in a shallow tart pan, which allows for maximum crustiness and a somewhat lighter texture. I've also taken out the cinnamon, which I felt was masking the delicate flavor of the browned butter, and replaced it with a vanilla bean, since vanilla bean sauteed in brown butter is one of the best things ever, trust me. The result is something really unique, like I said, a cross between a cake and a tart, crisp and soft, buttery, fragrant and fruity. And trust me again, you will want some whipped cream or ice cream alongside.
Source: adapted from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax
Yield: one thin, 11-inch cake; serves 8

3 large tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup (150g) plus 3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks/180g) unsalted butter
1/2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise (i.e. cut a bean in half crosswise, then split the half lengthwise)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt
Vanilla-flavored whipped cream or ice cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Generously butter an 11-inch (28cm) nonreactive tart pan or other similarly-sized glass or ceramic baking dish. Toss the apples in a bowl with the lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Spread the apples evenly in the prepared pan.

Combine the butter and vanilla bean in a small saucepan (not nonstick - you need to be able to see the butter change color). Cook the butter over medium until the milk solids are light brown and the whole thing smells deeply nutty, about 7-10 minutes. Watch carefully to avoid burning.

Allow to cool for a few minutes, then remove the vanilla bean (add it to your extract!) and pour the browned butter into a medium-sized bowl, scraping the black vanilla seeds and browned butter solids in too. Stir the 3/4 cup (150g) sugar into the butter. Gently stir in the eggs; stir in the flour and salt just until blended. Spoon the batter evenly over the apples and spread into an even layer. Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake until lightly golden and crusty, 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into wedges and serve from the pan warm, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.