Coriander, I Hardly Know Thee

That's my big take-away from my Week of Living Coriander-ly - I hardly know it. I feel like, with the other spices I've done, I've accomplished my mission - I've gotten a handle on how to use them, and when faced with them in the future, I'll know what they're doing. Actually, that's not the important part. I mean, it's useful to know what cumin is doing in a particular dish, no doubt. But the reason I started this is because it's much, much harder to know when cumin should be in a dish, but isn't. And that's the place that I feel like I'm at, now.


With coriander, not so much. I mean, I like coriander - it's a good spice. The coriander mushrooms were honestly my favorite thus far; the coriander really brings out the natural flavors of the spinach and mushrooms, making them taste more mushroom-y and spinach-y than usual. And the other things I've cooked with it were the same way - the coriander did a good job of enhancing the existing flavors, but I wasn't really sure what the coriander itself was doing.


So I spent part of the day brainstorming - I'm supposed to write about coriander, but I don't have anything to say - not even a lame music metaphor. Then I came up with the brilliant idea that I could talk about grinding spices. I've got coriander seeds, and I've got ground coriander that I made myself, and I've got ground coriander that I bought. The stuff I ground myself is a much coarser grind than the stuff I purchased, and I know that you can get grinders that have coarse or fine grinds, or are variable. It seemed a simple matter to figure out the circumstances in which you would you want a coarse grind, and those where you would use a fine grind.


And you know what? I came up just as blank there as I did with coriander as a whole. Which, to be perfectly frank, pisses me off. I consider myself a fairly apt researcher, and to not be able to find anything - ANYTHING! - about the topic means either the question is so obvious that nobody on the Internet has even bothered to ask it before, or that I am being a total moron and am using the wrong search terms.

Seriously - right now I am so irritated that the is my writing process. Write a sentence, go and try another search. Write a sentence. Try another search.

But... nothing. So, I'm going to speculate for a few seconds, then call it a night.

My best guess is that your approach to spices should be similar to your approach to salt. You use finer salts for situations where you really want it to dissolve easily, where you want a more intense salt flavor, or where you want small bits of salt to stick in nooks and crannies of a dry food. (Such as popcorn.) A seed has a lot of empty space in it; the more finely you grind it, the less air and more spice your final product will have. A tablespoon of coriander seeds will turn into far less once you pull it out of a spice grinder.

Were I grinding coriander for something like chili, I wouldn't mind the rough grind that I used in the soup the other day - the rough grind that had people picking the hulls out of their teeth. However, for that soup, as I said at the time, a finer grind would have done better.

All the same, I feel like there's got to be more to it than that. I'll keep looking, ask about it the next time I'm at the spice store, and keep you posted. Until then, I'm going to get on to fennel; it promises to be a bit more exciting.

In Which Martha Stewart is Ripped Off

In Which Martha Stewart is Ripped Off

I have to admit, I have always had a thing for Martha Stewart. (All right, not always. You got me, Clever Dan. But I have for a while now.) What’s not to adore? She’s a former model, an ex-stockbroker, a writer… oh, and she rules the media empire she built with an iron fist. Covered, of course, in a tastefully-embroidered velvet glove that she made herself, all for under ten dollars!

Actually - and I can’t believe I’ve never looked at it this way before – it’s also got to be what she does for a living. She’s a smart, powerful, sexy woman who chooses to spend her days making a perfect home. It’s her choice! What a fantasy! What else could a guy want, other than a woman with all those qualities waiting patiently for him at home, ready to welcome him with scintillating conversation and a perfectly-made crown roast?

(Also, in my experience, women who feel the need to be in that much control of everything around them inevitably need one place in their life where they can lose it. And that once place is inevitably the bedroom.

Which kinda goes along with the whole male fantasy thing, I guess.)


As I said last time, I had settled on salmon as our main dish. This project has definitely made my life easier in at least one way – Googling (for example) “salmon recipes” turns up about twenty times as many hits as “coriander salmon recipes”. I’m not saying “Sure, I read all 300K hits for coriander salmon, but I’d need to be an idiot to look at all 6.5 million for salmon alone.”

Most of the time I spend a lot of time looking - but sometimes, I find a recipe that really just calls out for me to try.

A lot like Martha, herself.

Salmon with honey-coriander glaze

1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
1/4 cup honey
5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
4 salmon fillets (5 ounces each), skinned
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Toast the coriander seeds in a dry, large nonstick skillet over medium- high heat, stirring constantly, until golden, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat; let cool. Grind seeds in a spice grinder or crush with a mortar and pestle until coarsely ground; reserve skillet.

2. Make glaze: Stir together crushed coriander seeds, honey, soy sauce, and lemon juice in a small bowl until combined.

3. Lightly brush the top of each salmon fillet with glaze; reserve remainder. Heat oil in the nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Cook salmon fillets, glazed sides down, 1 minute; reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 2 minutes more. Turn fillets over, and cook 3 minutes for medium-rare (salmon will be slightly pink in the middle), or longer if desired. Transfer to a plate; loosely cover with foil to keep warm.

4. Pour remaining glaze into skillet; bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook until glaze has thickened to the consistency of syrup, about 1 minute. Serve salmon with glaze on the side.


It's not the kind of thing I usually cook - I'm not really much of one to make recipes that use words like "glaze". But I really like the simplicity of this recipe.

A few points, and then I'm off for the night -

1. Step one isn't really part of the recipe - it's just how you turn coriander seeds into ground coriander. From what I've been learning, it's also how you turn just about any seeds into ground X. Huh, I should probably dedicate a post to the art of grinding spices.

2. Five tablespoons of soy sauce?!? Five tablespoons! That's more soy sauce than honey. This wasn't a glaze, this was a friggin' SAUCE. I mean, COME ON. If I were cooking this again, I'd drop it down to two - half as much soy as honey - and then add from there if I didn't think the consistency was quite there.


Aside from that, like I said - a really nice, really quick recipe, and the kind of recipe that's impressive without being hard. (If I were inviting a young lady over to my apartment for dinner, I feel that saying that I had made salmon with a honey-coriander glaze would substantially increase my chances for post-dinner appreciation of my cooking skills. Unfortunately, the ten-month old even more substantially reduces those chances. Luckily, my wife is always appreciative... and is not turned off by the fact that I have a kid.)

Time to catch some sleep. Martha, I dream of you.

Tomorrow: I tell an embarrassing but funny story about me that my mom told me this weekend.