The Online Idea of Seasoning and Recent experiments and sucesses exploring South Asian and African Cooking
I want to preface this by saying I am writing this blog mere minutes after finishing dinner. It was so unbelievably delicious that I wanted to keep some sort of record of it. As a person who is very critical of their cooking and always thinks they could have done better, this dinner wasn’t one of those times. There is nothing I look back on and think I could have done better. Writing this also provides an opportunity to share recent cooking thoughts I’ve had and things I believe in.
The online idea of seasoning
I spend a lot of time watching cooking videos on YouTube. I believe it is the best way to learn how to cook. Watching different techniques across different cuisines almost subconsciously teaches you how to cook. Initially, you may be watching a video to follow a particular recipe from a particular cuisine, but without knowing it you are learning so many techniques like deglazing, searing, and braising. Over time, you become confident enough in their uses that you can apply them across different cuisines and dishes. (I think this last paragraph effectively sums up what I was trying to say in my WIP chilli blog—it will be released soon.)
However, I always find myself in the comments of these videos seeing people saying things like “Chicken’s underseasoned,” “No seasoning,” and I truthfully believe they just don’t know what they’re talking about. I want this to lead into a very pretentious point about what I believe seasoning is.
I think a lot of people seem to believe the whole idea of seasoning is to use jarred powders and chuck them into a dish. This is bad, but I think it’s worse that this seems to be the generally accepted idea of “seasoning.” I’m going to try and explain this idea I have in my head of the spice bell curve.
This analogy came to me from an experience. When I was living with other people, one of my flatmates put beef into a pan and ate it with microwaved rice. When my other flatmates were making fun of him for eating this, they were saying, “He didn’t even season it,” “There’s no seasoning.” In their heads, the idea of seasoning would be to put paprika, mixed herbs, and oregano on the beef, and therefore it’s seasoned. I don’t believe this to be the case. If you were to put paprika, mixed herbs, and oregano on this beef, it would then taste like beef with paprika, mixed herbs, and oregano on it. To me, this analogy makes sense.
Picture a bell curve in your head. We are going to imagine an arrow along the x-axis that points to the right. This arrow is labelled “Learning to cook.” On the left (the beginner side), you have people who don’t season at all. In the middle, you have the average home cook, where you are seasoning with spices—exactly like my flatmates who chuck jarred powders into a dish. Now, who am I to say this is the average way of thinking, but based on the amount of comments I see, as I mentioned previously, I’m going to say it is. On the other side (the more experienced cook), you have a better idea of how to season dishes. I guess what I’m trying to say with this analogy is that there’s a middle ground where people think, “Yes, I am making a delicious dish with all these spices and seasonings,” when in reality, you probably are not.
So what is the difference between the experienced cook and the average cook when it comes to seasoning? I believe it’s this idea of complementary seasoning. For example, putting paprika into some beef isn’t going to make it taste “good.” However, putting paprika into a charred tomato and pepper shakshuka will enhance the smokiness created from the charred tomatoes, complement the sweetness of the tomato, and therefore add more overall depth.
Now let’s say you never added paprika to this shakshuka. It would still taste delicious. This is because there is so much flavour brought in by the tomatoes and peppers; the paprika is only there to add depth, NOT TO FLAVOUR. This is my main point when addressing my thoughts on seasoning. You can’t put spices into a dish and expect it to make it taste good. They should take a much more background position in a dish and be present to complement and enhance the flavours at the front.
There is so much flavour potential in vegetables, it’s almost a shame to cover them in dry spices. A classic example is in a bolognese. When you are cooking down the soffritto (carrots, onion, and celery), after about 20 minutes give the pot a smell. It will smell INCREDIBLE. There’s no seasoning in there, no jarred spices, it’s just fresh vegetables. These are what should always be used to create a dish.
Apologies if this seems like an almost irrelevant and overly long rant about a silly topic; however, I thought it was an important thing to address, as it was on my mind while exploring South Asian and African cuisines.
The importance of aromatics
So how do we address this seasoning issue in order to create better dishes? It all comes down to this idea of aromatics in cooking. If you don’t know what they are, here is the Google definition of aromatics:
In cooking, aromatics are fragrant vegetables, herbs, and spices (like onions, garlic, carrots, celery, ginger, bay leaves, thyme) that form a flavor base for dishes, releasing deep aromas and tastes when heated in fat (oil/butter) at the start of cooking to build a rich foundation for soups, sauces, stews, and curries, creating depth and complexity.
This definition is exactly what I was getting at with my points about seasoning. It’s almost as if there’s an accepted idea that jarred seasoning will “form a flavour base for the dish,” but it won’t. That is the job of the aromatics.
Sri Lanka
To try and get this point across, I’ll give an example. I recently made a Sri Lankan chicken curry from scratch. It wasn’t my first time making a curry from scratch; however, it was the most recent, so I’ll talk about it. I had an idea in my head of how to approach the dish. Like all my curries, it would be built off “seasoned aromatics.”
I made up a Sri Lankan–inspired spice blend using both fresh and dried spices, and then beat up my aromatics in a pestle and mortar. This was simply fresh chilli, ginger, and garlic. I also had some onions on a low heat, slowly caramelising. Therefore, our aromatics were chilli, ginger, garlic, and onion. These add so much flavour and backbone to the dish, and when combined with the Sri Lankan spice blend, everything works together. The sweetness of the onions complements the spice of the chilli and cuts through the bitterness of the black peppercorns. The ground cinnamon balances with the sharpness of the ginger. What I’m trying to say is that every spice in the blend and every aromatic had almost an equal pair that complemented it, and thus “justified” its addition to the dish.
Here is another example,
Morocco
This aromatic base for curries can absolutely be applied to different dishes and different cuisines. For example, tonight I took inspiration from Africa, and specifically Morocco. I’ve delved into Moroccan-style cooking in the past, but nothing compared to tonight’s dinner with this new philosophy of aromatics applied to it.
I started by making up a Moroccan-inspired spice blend—my own take on ras el hanout, a blend prominent in the dishes of North Africa. I used:
Aromatics: Fresh chillies, ginger, garlic
Spices: 7 cardamom pods, ½ tsp mustard seeds, ½ tsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp cumin, a pinch of paprika, cinnamon, ½ grated nutmeg, and a pinch of turmeric
I put chicken drumsticks into a bowl with oil, then covered them in the spices and aromatics. This was left to marinate for 10 minutes while I prepped other things.
I knew I was going to make some form of chicken and rice, but this can be prepared in so many different ways. As this was centred around Morocco, I decided to lean towards a tagine-style approach, where you add the meat and vegetables to create a flavourful broth and make a sort of stew.
I heated some oil in a frying pan and added all the chicken and flavoured aromatics. I let this sear and develop fragrance for about 10 minutes. I then added onions, carrots, broccoli, and courgette, followed by enough liquid to almost submerge everything. I covered it with a foil lid, reduced the heat, and let it simmer.
In the meantime, I put on some rice. I knew I didn’t want plain rice with this, as I couldn’t justify it. In my head, if I have plain rice, I must be having some very flavourful sauce with it, for example a curry. However, in this case, the rice was its own part of the dish, so it had to be delicious in its own right. I heated some oil in a pan, added the remaining ras el hanout, and let it “burn.” Burning is a technique originally from Jamaican cooking and refers to heating spices in oil at a high temperature to allow them to release their fragrance. I then added ginger and garlic, followed by the rice. I covered it with water, brought it to a boil, and then let it simmer.
Once the rice was on, I checked back on my “tagine” and saw that it was already done. The vegetables were just cooked through and the chicken was cooked, but there was far too much liquid left in the pan. My mind went to some sort of curry, maybe I could turn this into a sauce if I reduced it enough? However, I wasn’t sure if a water-based sauce would lack flavour. Knowing that the rice was nowhere near done, I decided to remove all the contents of the tagine into a separate bowl and leave just the liquid to reduce. I turned the heat up and brought it to an aggressive boil to reduce it as quickly as possible.
After 15 minutes, I realised there was still far too much liquid to turn it into a decent pan sauce, but there was also too much flavour from the chicken, vegetables, and aromatics to waste it. I figured it would make a great stock to cook rice in. So, I strained the pot of half-done rice that had been cooking in the spiced ginger and garlic liquid and transferred it into this tagine liquid. After another 15 minutes of careful heat control and allowing a socarrat to form (a technique commonly used in paella to create a crust on the bottom layer of the rice), the rice was ready. I added back all the vegetables, which had partially broken down into the rice, along with the chicken, and plated it all up.
It was unbelievably delicious. I paired it with a cucumber and carrot salad dressed in mango chutney and softened desiccated coconut, which beautifully cut through the spice of the rice. It was a 10/10.
Conclusion
I guess my main point with this post is to highlight the importance of fresh vegetable aromatics in cooking and how they completely change a dish. I think following this as a guiding principle for future recipes should elevate your cooking to another level.