experiencelifemag.com Print › | Back › An Adventure in Spices Caught in a bland culinary rut? Chef and author Floyd Cardoz’s spicy perspectives promise to spur some serious creativity in your kitchen. By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl December 2007 Roast Chicken With Fenugreek I didn’t even know what sort of a cooking rut I was in until I got a copy of Floyd Cardoz’s fusion-Indian cookbook, One Spice, Two Spice: American Food, Indian Flavors, coauthored with Jane Daniels Lear (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2006). As I leafed through the book, I realized how many things I never do: For instance, I never layer fresh ginger with dried ground ginger; I never use fenugreek (mildly bitter seeds and leaves from a Eurasian plant that taste a little like maple syrup when toasted); and, frankly, not only do I not use the spice anardana, I’ve never even heard of it. (It’s a seasoning made by drying pomegranate seeds and grinding them to a fine powder; it’s available in ethnic markets and online.) Sometimes you really do need an outside perspective to see yourself, or your cooking, at all. Cardoz knows something about the value of that outsider’s perspective. Raised in India, he went to cooking school in Switzerland and then came to prominence in the New York City French-tinted kitchen of the great Swiss-born, Singapore-influenced chef Gray Kunz. He was able to seize the best elements of each of those global cuisines for his own cooking, so when he opened his restaurant, Tabla, it was a revelation. I make a point of visiting Tabla, or its more casual, less expensive sister restaurant, the Bread Bar, every time I’m in New York, because the food is like none other on Earth. The flavors are vibrant, the textures are light, and I always walk out feeling healthy and happy — not weighted down and bloated. That’s another reason why this cookbook was such a revelation: I could see for myself why his foods taste so good — it’s spice, not fat! I talked recently with Chef Cardoz about the new perspectives his book, and his food, had offered me. “What happens in most traditional cooking,” he told me, “is that you get your flavor from fats — from cream, butter, and so forth, which we naturally respond to because they taste good. However, if you’re not getting your flavor from those, you have to get your flavor somewhere, and spices are simply a much healthier alternative.” The healthiness of spices is something modern American science is just beginning to quantify. For instance, in 2002, the journal Cancer published a paper showing that curcumin, the yellow pigment in the Indian spice turmeric, stopped many cancer cells cold. Cinnamon has been shown to help the body regulate insulin and, thus, control diabetes. Garlic is a well-known antibacterial agent. But modern science is really just catching on to something that Indian cooks have sensed for generations. “In India we use a lot of ghee [a.k.a. clarified butter] in our cooking,” Cardoz explained. “And yet there’s less heart disease and obesity in India than in America. Spices help the body react to and process the foods we eat — using spices just kind of helps the body process and utilize the foods we eat in the best possible way.” Lots of Americans hear “spice” and think “hot like fire,” Cardoz said. Yet hot is just one small part of the spice palette. “A lot of people think that Indian food is spicy and that it’s that way because we use spice to help preserve the food,” he said. “But, in fact, spices were developed to support the body with what people call the ‘Ayurvedic’ principles. For example, in southern India, we use more chilies because the fire of chilies makes you sweat and brings the body temperature down. So that’s considered a cooling spice. However, in the cooler north, they rely on warming spices — cardamom, cinnamon, mace and, to a certain extent, cloves. These warming spices warm the body from the inside out. These principles of spicing have come down through the ages: Fenugreek is a digestive, fennel seeds cure an upset stomach, and so on.” Cardoz said he frequently hears from guests in his dining room at Tabla who assumed that because they were eating such a wide variety of unfamiliar spices that they’d wind up with a stomachache, but they don’t because of these ancient traditions of spicing. If all this talk of unfamiliar spicing has you hankering to try something new, the Roast Chicken With Fenugreek recipe reprinted here from Cardoz’s book is a great place to start. It starts someplace familiar, with a simple oven-roast bird, and veers off into, at least for me, completely new waters. It’s funny: We often say that to really understand someone, we should walk a mile in her shoes. What if we could cook for a week with someone else’s spices? We might come away with an entirely new perspective. Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a Minneapolis-based food and wine critic. Nominated seven times for James Beard Awards — the Oscars of the food world — she received four awards for her restaurant and wine column in the Village Voice Media–owned newspaper City Pages. Since 2001, her work has been regularly featured in the Best Food Writing anthologies. Roast Chicken With Fenugreek (Back to Top) Serves six 1 tsp. fenugreek seeds 1 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns 2 tbs. anardana (dried pomegranate seeds) 2 tbs. dried fenugreek leaves 2 tbs. thinly sliced, peeled fresh ginger 2 tbs. chopped garlic 1 mild to moderately hot fresh green chili 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 3 tbs. olive or canola oil, plus oil for rubbing chickens Kosher salt Two 3-pound chickens, rinsed, drained and patted dry Toast the fenugreek seeds in a dry, small, heavy skillet over moderately low heat, shaking the skillet, until fragrant and a couple of shades darker — about three minutes. Transfer the seeds to a tray or small plate to cool. Toast the peppercorns the same way and add them to the fenugreek seeds. Finely grind the toasted spices, dried pomegranate seeds and fenugreek leaves together in an electric coffee or spice grinder. Purée the ginger, garlic, chili, lime juice and 3 tablespoons of oil in a mini food processor or blender until smooth. Add the ground spices and salt to taste, and purée again briefly to blend. Work your fingers underneath the skin of the chickens and loosen the skin from the meat on both the body and the legs. (Be gentle; you don’t want to tear the skin.) Generously smear half of the spice paste between the skin and meat of each bird. If you have any spice paste left over, smear it inside the cavities of the birds. Truss the chickens with kitchen string. (That way, if the skin breaks, the spice will stay on the birds.) Marinate the chickens, covered, in the refrigerator for at least one hour and up to 12 hours. Let them sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes before roasting. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Rub the chickens with a little canola oil and put them on a rack inside a roasting pan. Roast the chickens in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees F and roast for one hour longer, or until the juices run clear when the birds are pierced with a fork. Let the chickens stand for 10 minutes before cutting into serving pieces. Recipe excerpted from One Spice, Two Spice: American Food, Indian Flavors by Floyd Cardoz with Jane Daniels Lear (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2006).

An Adventure in Spices

Caught in a bland culinary rut? Chef and author Floyd Cardoz’s spicy perspectives promise to spur some serious creativity in your kitchen.

Roast Chicken With Fenugreek

I didn’t even know what sort of a cooking rut I was in until I got a copy of Floyd Cardoz’s fusion-Indian cookbook, One Spice, Two Spice: American Food, Indian Flavors, coauthored with Jane Daniels Lear (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2006). As I leafed through the book, I realized how many things I never do: For instance, I never layer fresh ginger with dried ground ginger; I never use fenugreek (mildly bitter seeds and leaves from a Eurasian plant that taste a little like maple syrup when toasted); and, frankly, not only do I not use the spice anardana, I’ve never even heard of it. (It’s a seasoning made by drying pomegranate seeds and grinding them to a fine powder; it’s available in ethnic markets and online.) Sometimes you really do need an outside perspective to see yourself, or your cooking, at all.

Cardoz knows something about the value of that outsider’s perspective. Raised in India, he went to cooking school in Switzerland and then came to prominence in the New York City French-tinted kitchen of the great Swiss-born, Singapore-influenced chef Gray Kunz. He was able to seize the best elements of each of those global cuisines for his own cooking, so when he opened his restaurant, Tabla, it was a revelation.

I make a point of visiting Tabla, or its more casual, less expensive sister restaurant, the Bread Bar, every time I’m in New York, because the food is like none other on Earth. The flavors are vibrant, the textures are light, and I always walk out feeling healthy and happy — not weighted down and bloated. That’s another reason why this cookbook was such a revelation: I could see for myself why his foods taste so good — it’s spice, not fat!

I talked recently with Chef Cardoz about the new perspectives his book, and his food, had offered me. “What happens in most traditional cooking,” he told me, “is that you get your flavor from fats — from cream, butter, and so forth, which we naturally respond to because they taste good. However, if you’re not getting your flavor from those, you have to get your flavor somewhere, and spices are simply a much healthier alternative.”

The healthiness of spices is something modern American science is just beginning to quantify. For instance, in 2002, the journal Cancer published a paper showing that curcumin, the yellow pigment in the Indian spice turmeric, stopped many cancer cells cold. Cinnamon has been shown to help the body regulate insulin and, thus, control diabetes. Garlic is a well-known antibacterial agent. But modern science is really just catching on to something that Indian cooks have sensed for generations.

“In India we use a lot of ghee [a.k.a. clarified butter] in our cooking,” Cardoz explained. “And yet there’s less heart disease and obesity in India than in America. Spices help the body react to and process the foods we eat — using spices just kind of helps the body process and utilize the foods we eat in the best possible way.”

Lots of Americans hear “spice” and think “hot like fire,” Cardoz said. Yet hot is just one small part of the spice palette. “A lot of people think that Indian food is spicy and that it’s that way because we use spice to help preserve the food,” he said. “But, in fact, spices were developed to support the body with what people call the ‘Ayurvedic’ principles. For example, in southern India, we use more chilies because the fire of chilies makes you sweat and brings the body temperature down. So that’s considered a cooling spice. However, in the cooler north, they rely on warming spices — cardamom, cinnamon, mace and, to a certain extent, cloves. These warming spices warm the body from the inside out. These principles of spicing have come down through the ages: Fenugreek is a digestive, fennel seeds cure an upset stomach, and so on.”

Cardoz said he frequently hears from guests in his dining room at Tabla who assumed that because they were eating such a wide variety of unfamiliar spices that they’d wind up with a stomachache, but they don’t because of these ancient traditions of spicing.

If all this talk of unfamiliar spicing has you hankering to try something new, the Roast Chicken With Fenugreek recipe reprinted here from Cardoz’s book is a great place to start. It starts someplace familiar, with a simple oven-roast bird, and veers off into, at least for me, completely new waters. It’s funny: We often say that to really understand someone, we should walk a mile in her shoes. What if we could cook for a week with someone else’s spices? We might come away with an entirely new perspective.

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a Minneapolis-based food and wine critic. Nominated seven times for James Beard Awards — the Oscars of the food world — she received four awards for her restaurant and wine column in the Village Voice Media–owned newspaper City Pages. Since 2001, her work has been regularly featured in the Best Food Writing anthologies.


Roast Chicken With Fenugreek (Back to Top)
Serves six

1 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
2 tbs. anardana (dried pomegranate seeds)
2 tbs. dried fenugreek leaves
2 tbs. thinly sliced, peeled fresh ginger
2 tbs. chopped garlic
1 mild to moderately hot fresh green chili
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
3 tbs. olive or canola oil, plus oil for rubbing chickens
Kosher salt
Two 3-pound chickens, rinsed, drained and patted dry

Toast the fenugreek seeds in a dry, small, heavy skillet over moderately low heat, shaking the skillet, until fragrant and a couple of shades darker — about three minutes. Transfer the seeds to a tray or small plate to cool. Toast the peppercorns the same way and add them to the fenugreek seeds. Finely grind the toasted spices, dried pomegranate seeds and fenugreek leaves together in an electric coffee or spice grinder.

Purée the ginger, garlic, chili, lime juice and 3 tablespoons of oil in a mini food processor or blender until smooth. Add the ground spices and salt to taste, and purée again briefly to blend.

Work your fingers underneath the skin of the chickens and loosen the skin from the meat on both the body and the legs. (Be gentle; you don’t want to tear the skin.) Generously smear half of the spice paste between the skin and meat of each bird. If you have any spice paste left over, smear it inside the cavities of the birds. Truss the chickens with kitchen string. (That way, if the skin breaks, the spice will stay on the birds.) Marinate the chickens, covered, in the refrigerator for at least one hour and up to 12 hours. Let them sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes before roasting.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Rub the chickens with a little canola oil and put them on a rack inside a roasting pan.

Roast the chickens in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees F and roast for one hour longer, or until the juices run clear when the birds are pierced with a fork. Let the chickens stand for 10 minutes before cutting into serving pieces.

Recipe excerpted from One Spice, Two Spice: American Food, Indian Flavors by Floyd Cardoz with Jane Daniels Lear (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2006).

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January 20, 2008

Alan M. says:

I was so excited to try this recipe and raced right out to buy what I needed only to be left disappointed. The only spice I could find was fenugreek seeds; the fenugreek leaves and the anardana were impossible to locate here in Ohio. I have found them online, so I will have to wait to make the chicken. Other than that, great article! I have been looking for some good recipes to include a wider selection of spices in my diet. Maybe next time, include some links or sources for ingredients that may be hard to find.

January 12, 2008

Leesa says:

Why don't you include nutritional information with your recipes? It would be useful to see serving size, calories, fat, carbs, etc.