I got the idea after reading Milk Street Magazine’s recipe for masala fries……To do BBQ roasted potatoes because I want slightly healthier slightly lighter roasted potatoes instead of frying them……LATER I used this FORKING AMAZING spice blend on chicken and it was far more delicious there……. I came up with a spectacular spice blend. This recipe makes far more than you will use in a short time so you make want to half the recipe. It’s also (by accident) such a great flavorful recipe that you should use it very sparingly. As is I used about one tablespoon on a few pound tray of supermarket chicken thighs and another Tablespoon to flavor all the vegetables and beans I braised the chicken thighs in. For braising I also used a heaping tablespoon of “Better than Bouillon” brand soup base.

Ingredients for lots of servings

1 Tablespoon granulated garlic

1 Tablespoon mild Chile powder

1 Tablespoon smoked paprika

1 Tablespoon cumin

1 Tablespoon cayenne powder

1 Tablespoon mustard powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 Tablespoons course sea salt

1 Tablespoon black pepper

Directions just mix the above spices together.

Use on home made potato chips (if you can do spicy…this comes out very spicy on potatoes but perfect on chicken). Use to add to ketchup and make bbq ketchup. Rub on meats and bbq.

I sprayed a pan with non stick spray. Then sprinkled LIGHTLY with spice blend. Next placed cut red potatoes…cut side down. Added sliced onions. Drizzled heavy with oil and sprinkled again with BBQ spice. Covered pan and roast in oven till down…..In my Whirlpool oven on a middle rack this took two hours. Your oven may differ.

Enjoy!!!!

This spice blend is perfect for chicken. I bet it’s great on most meats too!

This is FORKING AMAZING!

Panch Phoron (also spelled a few different ways Phoran) Is a North Eastern India 5 spice blend. Panch Phoran is equal parts of cumin seeds, fennel seeds, black mustard seeds, nigella seeds, and fenugreek seeds. You toast the seeds till fragrant, let them cool, and then grind. After I made this I thought it really needed just one teaspoon of sugar to brighten the flavors. Then it needed one teaspoon of sea salt and one teaspoon of a pepper……..Out of the spices I have (and I have many) I thought Aleppo pepper would be the best tasting. This got mixed with one stick of melted sweet butter and it transformed cauliflower into something amazing. Each cauliflower and serving size out there might be a different size. For me this made 6 dinner side servings.

Ingredients for around 6 side servings

1 cauliflower – break down to florets

optional – 1 onion – cut into slices

optional -3 carrots – cut into slices

optional 8 mini bell peppers – long way – slices

1 stick sweet butter 4 ounces – melted

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1 teaspoon nigella seeds

1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

1 teaspoon course sea salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper

non stick spray

Directions

Set the oven to 450 degrees F.

Sheet pan(s) get sprayed with non stick spray and put to the side.

The cumin, fennel, black mustard, nigella, and fenugreek seeds get toasted till fragrant. You can do this in a pan stove. in a pan (but in a low oven) or in a bowl in your microwave for about 30 seconds. This needs to cool and then you blend the seeds in a spice grinder. This seed mixture gets mixed into the butter along with the sea salt, sugar, and Aleppo pepper.

The cauliflower and optional vegetables go on sheet pans in a single layer and get drizzled with all of the Panch Phoron Butter.

This goes in a preheated 450F oven for at least 30 minutes or until browned and fragrant. At 30 minutes I thought mine wasn’t done yet so I turned the heat up to 475 and left it in just 15 minutes more and I thought perfect.

This made the house smell so FORKING AMAZING!

Even my husband came out and wondered what that amazing smell was.

This is one that almost everyone will enjoy!

I came across a Nigerian Jollof Recipe by Ozoz Sokoh that goes by Kitchen Butterfly. I enjoyed a no added meat version of Jollof Rice that I tasted at a restaurant called West Hut in Phoenix AZ. There are many varieties of jollof rice out there. There are over a dozen different West African countries and they all make Jollof rice different. When I read the Kitchen Butterfly Version I thought it might taste similar to what I tried at West Hut. Then I’m thinking that I don’t need a big pot of rice and really only need to cook vegetables today so I used her spices to come up with what I got here. I made my version FAT FREE and it came out FORKING DELICIOUS!!!! I think everyone out there would like this! Serving size may differ because I don’t know if you want a small side serving or a large bowl full.

Ingredients for around 8 servings

2 lbs carrots -peel if not organic, cut in chunks

1/4 cabbage – rough cut

1 onion – slices and cut the slices in half

4 oz celery – chop

hot pepper to taste – I use one hot hatch chile – fine dice

2 teaspoons Caribbean Curry Powder (I used Kitchen Butterfly’s recipe and 1/2ed her recipe and I still have quite a bit extra here’s 1/2 her recipe 1 1/2 Tablespoons turmeric, 1 1/2 Tablespoons ground coriander, 1 Tablespoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek, 1/2 teaspoon powdered mustard, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, 1/2 teaspoon fennel)

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 bay leaves

24 oz. tomato puree (preferably from Italy so it’s sweet)

1/4 cup water to get all the tomato puree out

12 oz peas (I used a bag of frozen that I thawed)

optional – sea salt – to taste

optional – ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Set oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl add the carrots, cabbage, onion, hot pepper, Caribbean curry powder, thyme, bay leaves, tomato puree. (water to the can or bottle) and that liquid gets added, Mix well.

This goes in a large covered pan (or two pans) on the middle rack till the vegetables are fork tender. Ovens do differ and so do the vegetables so it will take 90-120 minutes.

Your thawed peas should get heated up slightly. (microwave, oven or pan) and stir them in before serving.

WOW! This came out so FORKING DELICIOUS!

A Special THANKS!!!!!! to Kitchen Butterfly (Ozoz Sokoh) and Food52 for your recipes so I could do what I got here.

My 2020 recipe for pastrami was the best ever. I wanted to delete my earlier pastrami recipes but as luck would have it I always got a complaint from someone that I deleted a recipe while they were working on it. I wasn’t planing on changing my 2020 recipe but I accidentally grabbed granulated onion so I’m giving it a try with the addition of granulated onion. Making pastrami is easy but is also very risky. Even if you are a professional sometimes the meat won’t cure and preserve everywhere because of the natural fat in it and it can spoil even if you did everything correctly. That is the reason most delicatessens who use a lot of pastrami pay companies to do the brining for them.

To start with you need a whole brisket…..The pounds of it can differ. (I think it’s a waste to do all this work for only a half brisket. After-all you can freeze the leftovers.

The hardest part is trimming the pastrami. You have to trim off all the really hard fat.

I might have trimed off more fat than you would? I also separated the point from the flat. After the trimming you need to puncture the brisket all over on both sides so it gets brined correctly.

Ingredients for the pastrami brine. (You might want to prepare the brine the day before because it takes a very long time to cool down. IT’S ESSENTIAL FOR THE BRINE TO BE COOL.

2 Tablespoons Prague powder (buy online…This makes the pastrami pink, helps to preserve it and you get that certain flavor that you can’t get without)

8 oz Crystal Brand Kosher salt (Mortons salt crystals are a different shape and don’t penetrate the meat as well)

2 cups dark brown sugar

1 cup honey

4 teaspoons juniper berries

6 Tablespoons coriander seeds

4 teaspoons allspice berries

6 bay leaves

2 cinnamon sticks

2 teaspoons whole cloves

4 teaspoons mustard seeds

4 Tablespoons Tellicherry black peppercorns (not the same flavor from other black peppercorns)

4 teaspoons white peppercorns

2 teaspoons ground ginger

6 oz garlic (around 40 cloves) rough chop or slice

2 Tablespoons granulated garlic

2 Tablespoons granulated onion

4 hot dried chilies – crushed

4 teaspoons smoked paprika

16 cups water

Directions – bring to boil and boil for about ten minutes. Let cool. Brisket can’t be added to a hot or warm brine.(I divide the brine into three bowls and make an ice bath to cool them down)

If you separate the brisket (or cut in half…but you will have a big line of fat in the middle with meat that needs to be cut in different directions….) You can use turkey cooking bags to hold 1/2 of each of the pastrami. You also try to squeeze as much of the air out as you can. Today I used canned sodas to help keep the brine all around the brining briskets.

The pastrami should be turned over every day.

I brine mine for 6 days. (the longer you brine the chances of spoilage are higher)

After 6 days you remove the briskets from the brine and blot them off.

Then you have to add the rub using a spice blender.

8 Tablespoons coriander seeds

2 Tablespoons Tellicherry black peppercorns

2 Tablespoons smoked paprika

This gets blended up and you rub it all over the brisket.

Smoke with pecan wood at least 5 hours but 7 hours is better changing the wood as needed.

This gets finished over night in a low 185- 200 degree F oven. (last time I did last time at 185.. did 200 this time because my oven doesn’t do 185.

If you make pastrami then you might want to make rye bread or rye rolls. (My recipes are in search)

Made Rye Rolls today!

Same recipe as before but in the Whirlpool Oven They needed 25 minutes at 425 degrees F.

Here is 1/2 of the pastrami cold. (it’s better to slice uo the pastrami cold)

I don’t mean to brag but The FORKING Truth is that the pastrami and rye rolls are far better than from most restaurants!

I also have recipes for home made mustards.

ENJOY!!!!

I really have no FORKING idea on what to name this dish. This dish was inspired and adapted by Milk Street Magazine from chef Zuber Momin for Masala fries. I did a spin on the Milk Street version with a couple changes and I used these flavors on spaghetti squash. The original recipe was made with Kashmiri pepper. I didn’t have any so I made mine with what I thought would be the closest substitute gochugaru pepper. One of the other changes I made to the recipe was to add butter. This came out FORKING AMAZING! Maybe the easiest recipe I ever did and maybe the most delicious spaghetti squash recipe ever.

Ingredients for around 6 side servings

1 good sized spaghetti squash (I think mine was slightly over 2 pounds)

1 Tablespoon cumin

1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 1/4 teaspoon gochugaru pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons course sea salt

3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

5 Tablespoons butter – room temperature (doesn’t matter if salted or sweet….I normally don’t use salted but had salted butter I had to use and I thought the taste was perfect. You can use sweet butter and add salt if you think it needs it)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put squash on pan. Cover squash with foil. This goes on middle rack till squash gets cooked. Ovens and all squash do differ so each one out there might take a different amount of time. Mine I thought would take an hour so I left mine in for an hour and it was hard. So I turned it over and checked it after a half hour and mine was still hard so mine needed about 1/2 hour for a total of two hours. I doubt yours will take that long but it might?

While the squash is cooking mix up the spice-butter. In a small mixing bowl combine the cumin, ginger, gochugaru, salt, black pepper, and butter. Put to the side.

I used to say cook till fork tender but really it’s better if you can make a dent with your finger.

This squash came out really perfect.

When the squash is cool enough to handle…You cut it in half and pull out the guts (membrane) and seeds. It should be just like this and look like spaghetti. Mix in the spiced butter and enjoy!!!!! This came out so FORKING Tasty that I had to hold back on adding more. It’s just perfect. I think most people…Even people that don’t like Indian or Korean food will still like this.

A Special THANKS!!!!!! To chef Zuber Momin and Milk Street Magazine so I could get what I got here!