ceding the seeds

When I was a lad living my Huck Finn existence in the mountains of southern Oregon, I had some rather odd notions about mustard seeds.

From the gospels, I knew mustard seeds starred in two parables;* they were small and could grow into the equivalent of a tree.

For some reason, I thought the dill plants in my grandmother's garden were mustard. Such are the fancies (and misconceptions) of youth. It would be thirty years later before I realized my folly, and both parables took on more meaning.

In the 1980s, I took a series of Indian cooking classes from Virginia Plainfield in Portland. She taught me about a cornucopia of spice seeds I never knew existed and which formed the backbone of all Indian cuisine.  If you recall how lovingly Hassan cared for his spices in The Hundred-Foot Journey, you will have some idea of the importance Virginia placed on high-quality spices in Indian cooking.

I knew some of them in their ground form, but the concept of cooking with whole seeds was new to me. And one of those seeds was the infinitesimally-tiny black mustard seed.

Some people think black mustard seeds are bitter. To me, they are acidic, almost peppery. But, like all spices, they do not taste like anything else. They taste as they taste. Omnis analogia claudet -- as much as writers would wish that was not true.

Virginia taught me that Indian cooking is all about layering. If folded in haphazardly, spices will simply end up serving no other purpose than salt in a can of Dinty Moore beef stew. Interestingly, that was the same lesson I learned cooking stir fry with The Dragon Lady (stirring the pot). That one lesson has made a world of difference in my cooking.

For some reason, I had put my Indian seed cooking to rest. I suspect I simply moved on to some other national cuisine. My search for The Next Good Thing has had a long history.

My seed deprivation ended this month through one of those coincidences that writers are accused of inventing because the event seems contrived.

Giovanni of Bare Essentials messaged me to ask if I was interested in buying a half kilo of black mustard seed. I had not even considered buying mustard seeds for three decades. Now, a commercial load was in my grasp.

Because it was an opportunity to experiment as part of my A New Dish Every Day diet, I did not hesitate in saying yes. And I now have two bags in hand.

Or, I had two full bags in hand. A large portion of one bag has passed across my tongue in three new (for me) dishes. My rather eccentric version of pork saag and a totally unorthodox Sindhi sai bhaji.

Omar was not impressed with either dish. Neither was I. Experimentation often produces dogs. That is how we learn.

But both of us found the third dish to be a goooooooooooooooooal! It started out as a simple Mexican chicken soup. But I wanted to add some depth right from the start. A lot of Indian dishes start with grilling seeds in a pan. I had experimented with a combination of various seeds in the prior two dishes.

And I stumbled on a great combination. The acidity of black mustard seeds. The citric nutty flavor of cilantro (or coriander) seeds. And the mellow licorice of fennel seeds. For a Chinese layer, I sautéed them in sesame seed oil for about five minutes.

If I use vegetables in a soup (and this soup was going to use a lot of them), I  sauté them until just slightly tender. Carrots. Onion. Garlic. Chayote. Calabacitas. Cebolletas with their green stems. Celery. Tomatoes. Red, yellow, and orange bell peppers. Three serrano chilies. And an habanero.

There may have been others, but I was not trying to remember. After all, I no longer make the same dish a second time.

All of that went into the chicken broth with some Greek oregano and a healthy dash of cayenne pepper. As soon as the pot came to a simmer, I added a full bunch of chopped cilantro.

But I did not allow it to simmer long. After all, I was after layers, not stew. And it worked like a charm.

I had run across several recipes that would have allowed me to use the Instant Pot. But, I am still a bit reluctant to use it for foods where I do not want the various tastes to blend.

My seed experiments have me wondering if I can rekindle an interest in Mexican food through seed cookery. There is a fellow in town who, along with his wife, offers Mexican cooking classes. Most of the advertised classes center around Jalisco recipes where the foods are wrapped in tortillas. Been there. Done that.

But I will bet there are plenty of concepts based on grilling seeds on a dried grill. And coriander seeds seem to be a good suspect. I need to look into that.

And I then need to find a reliable source for whole spices: cumin, cloves, cardamom (green and white), cinnamon bark. I will bet the crafty Giovanni has some ideas.

It is good to once again have the culinary faith of a black mustard seed.     


* -- Matthew 13:31; Luke 17:6