My Gourmet magazine came in the mail yesterday, and may I say, if there is a magazine that deserves to go under in this blighted economy – it’s that one. To read a complete recipe, you have to flip through more pages than a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Then, when you’ve flipped back and forth ten times, you find an ingredient or two (or all) that you have never seen or heard of in your life and that is impossible to get, thus causing you to ditch the entire recipe. Dried rose hips? Really? Annatto seeds? And then they have articles like “if you had $1000 to spend on a meal in your city, where would you splurge $700 on dinner?” Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t bank executives been skewered by the media for less? Is that really appropriate for this economy – or any economy? And every recipe requires every pot and pan in the cupboard, along with one or two specialty items that NO ONE HAS…
Ok, enough of my diatribe against Gourmet. I could go on (I really could), but I’d rather tell you about the one appealing recipe I found before I chucked the rest of that pretentious rot in the bin: Masala Chai. And I still had to tweak the recipe to be more user-friendly, and spicier (they forgot to add the cayenne chili powder, which makes Chai so much better).
Masala Chai for Two
½ tsp ground cardamom (or 5 pods, seeded and ground)
1/4th tsp ground cinnamon
2 white peppercorns
1/8th tsp fennel seeds
1 cups milk
1 tsp dark brown sugar (or to taste)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8th ground red pepper (cayenne)
1 cups water
2 teabags strong black tea
Need a mortar and pestle
Grind together cardamom, cinnamon stick, peppercorns and fennel seeds.
Bring milk to a simmer (careful not to boil over!) in a heavy saucepan. Stir in brown sugar, spice mix, ginger and 1/8th tsp salt. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes.
Brew tea using the 1 cup water and 2 teabags. (really easy to do in a microwave)
Add the tea to the milk mixture and cook over low heat for a minute.
Pour chai through a tea strainer into your cup or teapot.
Ok, enough of my diatribe against Gourmet. I could go on (I really could), but I’d rather tell you about the one appealing recipe I found before I chucked the rest of that pretentious rot in the bin: Masala Chai. And I still had to tweak the recipe to be more user-friendly, and spicier (they forgot to add the cayenne chili powder, which makes Chai so much better).
Masala Chai for Two
½ tsp ground cardamom (or 5 pods, seeded and ground)
1/4th tsp ground cinnamon
2 white peppercorns
1/8th tsp fennel seeds
1 cups milk
1 tsp dark brown sugar (or to taste)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8th ground red pepper (cayenne)
1 cups water
2 teabags strong black tea
Need a mortar and pestle
Grind together cardamom, cinnamon stick, peppercorns and fennel seeds.
Bring milk to a simmer (careful not to boil over!) in a heavy saucepan. Stir in brown sugar, spice mix, ginger and 1/8th tsp salt. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes.
Brew tea using the 1 cup water and 2 teabags. (really easy to do in a microwave)
Add the tea to the milk mixture and cook over low heat for a minute.
Pour chai through a tea strainer into your cup or teapot.
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