Sing a Song of Spice Mixes

Now that we've been serious for a minute, let's talk about food again!

I know, I know--the in thing these days is to make your own personalized spice and herb blends for cooking, a la Emeril's Essence, but I personally don't have the time to devote to careful mixing and tasting of arcane mixes of leaves and roots, especially when there are so many great already made blends out there. 

Granted, I do want to start making my Beautiful Dhal spice mix in jar form, ready for toasting and grinding, and perhaps even give it out to my friends as gifts so they can make their own Dhal (or use it in any curry recipe), but still there are several pre-blended jars I reach for time and again, ranging from the exotic to the staid.

My longtime favorite has been Fiesta Brand's Extra Fancy Taco Seasoning, a local product from a brand catering to the large Mexican population here in Texas.  In Austin we have no shortage of breakfast tacos and no shortage of taco seasonings.  Growing up my mother used this same blend to make her beef taco dinner, and now I use it on beans, potatoes, and fakey ground "beef" for tacos and chili just as she did. 

Incidentally, those False Alarm and Four Alarm chili kits you see in stores can be easily adapted to a vegan chili--just substitute soy crumbles for the beef and throw in a can or two of pinto beans, then use the rest of the spices according to the package.  Chili can hardly get easier than that.

I know it's not fancy or sophisticated foodie fare, but Mrs. Dash's Original Seasoning Blend is another that I turn to time after time; it perks up sauteed and steamed vegetables, without adding any salt.  To a spice wuss like me, MD gives veggies a tiny bit of bite, and it's particularly tasty on broccoli and cauliflower.

A mix I recently discovered is part of McCormick's new trend-hopping line of spice-and-herb grinders:  the Italian Herb Seasoning Grinder contains whole leaves of rosemary, parley, as well as black and red peppers,dried garlic, onion, tomato, and sea salt. Aside from being lovely in the jar, fresh grinding the harder herbs like rosemary releases their essential oils quickly into quickly-prepared food, whereas the whole leaves are better for long cooking as in soups and stews.  I love to grind mine onto potatoes or zucchini and mushrooms sauteed in a tiny bit of olive oil.  I'm looking forward to trying some of their other grinder blends.

Zamouri Spices is where I bought Cous Cous Spice Mix, a Moroccan spice blend that goes best, as you might buess, in couscous.  Preparing couscous with seven vegetables is considered good luck in Moroccan cuisine, and bringing them all together with this fragrant yet calming blend of spices is easy work:  just add a tablespoon or so to the veggies and then mix everything around.  Zamouri also features several curry mixes, as well as some harder to find blends like Bengali Panch Phoron and Berbere from Ethiopia. Not to mention they sell "beginner's" sets of spices for different cuisines, and their customer service is excellent.

Another online place I go when looking for odd or interesting spices and combinations is The Spice House.  They carry a wide variety of spices, herbs, and blends from all sorts of world cuisine, searchable by name, category, or cuisine.  They even carry real Ceylon cinnamon bark as well as the cassia that we Westerners are used to buying as cinnamon, and pack a lot of useful lore and history of their wares onto the site.  Believe me, the history of the spice trade is fascinating.

Just browsing any of these sites should pique your interest in their wares; coming soon I hope to have a review of a wonderful book I've discovered called The Flavor Bible that proclaims its ability to demystify flavor combinations, something I think a lot of home cooks could benefit from learning.  Americans tend to either way oversalt their food, masking all its subtle flavors, or smother a food in too many conflicting spices and herbs when two or three carefully chosen seasonings would bring out the absolute peak of a dish's flavor.  I'll report back once I've read it.

What spice blend do you reach for time and again in your kitchen?

Comments

[s1ren]

Oooh, Dhal Spice in a jar!

[Jenett]

I adore Penzey's, a Wisconsin based spice company (but they have stores in a number of places including local to me.)

1) It's one of my favorite shopping therapy trips, because it's an incredibly sensual experience. (Walk into store of spice scents. Breathe deeply. Amble around store smelling things in their sample jars to your heart's content.) And then when I buy things, I often walk out with a bag full of 8+ small jars of herbs for under $20.

2) They have really good quality stuff - and usually several varieties. I can get both cassia and real cinnamon, and ground and in bark form. I can get grated nutmeg and whole. I can get whole rosemary, cracked rosemary, and powdered rosemary. I can get california basil and french basil. And so on.

My favorite of their blends, and the one I always keep on hand, is Green Goddess. Green onion, sugar, sweet basil, celery flakes, minced garlic, and dill weed. I usually add a little extra dill weed, and use it as a yogurt based salad dressing or dip all summer. (They've got proportions on the containers: you also add a tiny bit of vinegar or lemon juice.) But it also works great on veggies, or various other foods.

[Michelle]

I'm really interested in your review of The Flavor Bible, that sounds like a highly useful book.

A favorite blend of mine is Herbes de Provence, but it's necessary to get a blend that includes lavender (some don't). It's great in dips, blended into bread dough and added to sauteed mushrooms with garlic, parsley and olive oil to eat on crackers or small slices of baguette.

Jenett--I'm familiar with Penzey's and that Green Goddess blend sounds right up my alley. I'll definitely have to get some of that.