How do I spice?

December 8, 2023 11:31 AM

How can I learn to use spices / spice blends more improvisationally - other than finding a recipe that literally calls for, e.g., za'atar?

I am an OK cook but not very instinctive about it. And yet, because I am a sucker for packaging, I have managed to accumulate a bunch of interesting little spice-blend jars and things, and I do not actually know how to use them outside of a recipe that calls for them by name. (And of course the little spice blends I pick up at the spice shop are obviously never going to be called for by name, so there they sit in my pantry.)

I guess I'm looking for advice like "here are the kinds of recipes that can easily be sent in a Middle Eastern or Cajun direction, as you like" as a kind of baby step toward learning about how to THINK about cooking with a little more sophistication.

Minor complicating factor: we do not cook meat at home (I eat meat, my spouse will do fish but not meat), but if a suggestion like "marinate your meat in whatever spices" applies to tofu or fish or whatever, too (does it? I dunno!), I'd love to hear it. No answer too patronizing. Thanks!

posted by catesbie to Food & Drink (19 answers total)

I don't have specific cooking tips for you, but with spices I tend to think of them as colors for the flavor palatte of a dish, and that my main spicing goal is to add flavors that work together in a dish without making it so spiced as to be muddled. So if a dish is already very flavorful I am more hesitent to add spices than I would to a dish that is hearty but a little bland, and I am always wary of adding multiple spices that are very strong or which I don't know combine well.

So, for instance, if you are cooking a dish with onions, potatoes, veg, and protein, that would be a candidate ripe for adding some random spices. Really potentially any, I always experiment with spices I'm interested in. Maybe it'll be great, maybe you'll learn that a spice doesn't work with a certain ingredient for you, the main thing is to try one new thing at a time. That way you learn one lesson at a time and don't get confused about which of the three things you tried was the issue.

I also really recommend the book Thinking Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio. It's a book about how to think about cooking more than a cookbook of recipes, and I found its lessons really helpful when I was trying to learn how to be a cook that made choices, not just one who followed recipes.

Good luck, I find the journey of learning about ingredients and combinations to be one of the most enjoyable parts of cooking, and, as Julia Child said, the nice thing about cooking is you can eat your mistakes, so it can only go so wrong!
posted by lhputtgrass at 11:44 AM on December 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

You might like this little thingy.
posted by phunniemee at 11:45 AM on December 8, 2023 [13 favorites]

I tend to learn what works through trial and error...I approach cooking like a jazz musician does sheet music.

However, I think that it's perfectly reasonable to google a recipe that uses a specific spice blend and then change proteins or other ingredients as fit your needs. If it doesn't work for you, then you know for the next time you use that spice blend.
posted by schyler523 at 11:45 AM on December 8, 2023

I look at the ingredients of the spice blends and try to figure out which profile they're hitting.
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:47 AM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think you might want the Vegetarian Flavor Bible by Karen Page. Its a guide to what tastes good with what, with ingredients listed alphabetically and details of the spices/flavours that go well with those foods. There's other information too; it really helps you riff on components and dishes without a recipe.
posted by dazedandconfused at 11:57 AM on December 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

The main way people learn this is experience with the cuisine. Ie, starting with traditional Middle Eastern recipes using za'atar and learning what makes them good. After enough time with that you can try doing something new.

For a shortcut, there's a genre of cookbook that is all about starting from first principles rather than traditions. I think The Flavor Matrix is in this genre, as is The Flavor Bible. I've been hearing good things about the new cookbook Start Here but I think that focusses more on cooking techniques than spices.

Most of those spice-blend jars in your kitchen probably aren't worth the bother, particularly if they've been hanging around awhile.
posted by Nelson at 12:15 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would also include Flavour Thesaurus along with the aforementioned Flavor Bible and Flavor Matrix. But I'd nthing MonkeyToes suggestion - figure out what the flavour profile the recipe is going for and you can bend within that (here's more along those lines).
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:26 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Do you eat many beans? My family is semi-vegetarian and we eat a lot of beans. They are cool bc they are healthy and inexpensive, and so many world cultures have a delicious bean dish that you can find lots of recipes for.

More extemporaneously, given a bean choice you can add a veg or two and a spice mix and make a decently passable version of many different bean dishes.

Things like hoppin John, ful medames, boracha beans, bean salads, bean burritos, chilis, bean soups, dal, chana masala, hummus, etc.

All these can be good ways to use a spice blend that seems to fit the general geography or tradition, but you can also get away with things like using chickpeas in a Mexican flavor way, or make your black beans in a more Indian way than a more typical Mexican way.

TLDR, eat more world bean dishes and experiment with them!
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:30 PM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Another vote for The Flavor Thesaurus, especially the second tome that focuses on plants.
posted by third word on a random page at 12:36 PM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Those books are definitely a way to work through them systemically. Neutral foods like potatoes are friendly to almost any spice, herb or blend. If you like said spice or herb you will probably like them on potatoes. Vinaigrettes and Mayo and Aioli and the like are easy ways to incorporate herbs and spices to be used with other dishes. Green beans tossed in a flavored vinaigrette would almost uniformly work.
posted by mmascolino at 12:47 PM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am a trial and error cook as well, and I generally make my own spice blends. I learned long ago to smell and taste as I went along. Try adding some of your various spices to something fairly easy and receptive to really understand what they bring to a dish: beans are a good suggestion, as are eggs, if you eat them. Make a fairly plain batch of scrambled eggs and add a tiny pinch of whatever spice blend at the table, then maybe a squeeze of citrus, or dash of condiment, whatever. Yogurt and pita, toast with butter, &c are good vehicles for trying out flavors. Learning that way stands a better chance of not accidentally ruining a whole dish you've spent a long time on.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:50 PM on December 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

My two methods for getting better at this are googling combinations to see if other people have used them, and smelling the spice with what I'm wanting in mind. If I smell something and it's "wrong" for what I want the meal to smell like, it's a good bet I won't like how it tastes.
posted by brilliantine at 1:20 PM on December 8, 2023

I suggest starting with something neutral that can be spiced in different ways, like a plain hummus. Spread it thinly on a plate and sprinkle a little spice in a small amount and taste. Have a garlicky bite, a sumac-y bite, a bite with cayenne, one with (extra) cumin, paprika, fennel, anise, etc. Determine what each spice lends to the flavor (earthy, herbaceous) and feel (spicy, numbing, tangy). You can do the same with sauces and a neutral vehicle like rice: discover chili oil, hoisin, different types of vinegars, Worcestershire, pepper sauces, etc.
posted by mezzanayne at 1:39 PM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I like to call this Taco Truck Methodology. If you walk up to a taco truck, they probably actually only make half a dozen or so items: carnitas (pork), carne asada (beef), some kind of chicken, maybe a fish, maybe another beef part. You can get those items put on bread, small tortillas, large tortillas, tostadas, tortilla chips, over salad, or just with beans and rice on the side, turning those 6 things into a menu of at least 42 options.

You probably cook 6ish meal bases: pasta meal, soup, big salad, rice-based, protein-and-sides, pizza-sandwich-burrito-taco. For inspiration or reassurance, you can flat out just google combos: "cajun pasta meal", "zaatar tofu", "lemon pepper soup vegetarian", "Mediterranean casserole vegetarian". Just do a survey and see what comes up.

And from there, you can take some baby steps in swapping in exactly what you've got for the general meal you want to make. Example, from the final search above: Mediterranean Vegetable Casserole with Chickpeas. Wait, that recipe calls only for oregano and pepper, but all you've got is Cavendish Greek Seasoning. Fine, swap it in - note that the regular formula has salt in it so maybe don't add any extra until you've tasted the dish. Oh no, no chickpeas - but you've got white beans, okay perfect. That recipe wants actual mozzarella, which you don't have, and you also don't really want a ton of cheese, so skip it or throw some cheddar in there. You are cooking extemporaneously, congratulations!

And look, it does not matter if not everything you make is going to get the New York Times knocking at your door. 99% of what you produce will be edible, and 99% of that will be at the very least "okay". Humans have been making food out of roughly the same 40 components for thousands of years, with the only real variations coming from what's available locally and what kind of cooking methods are feasible under local conditions. I'm certainly not going to open a food truck featuring my family-favorite "frozen Italian-style meatballs and cauliflower in Japanese OR Thai green OR Makhani curry with low-carb tortillas", but I'm not joking that it's a family favorite. You are absolutely free, in the privacy of your own kitchen, to combine flavors and components YOU like.

And even your mistakes, which again will mostly be edible, will be educational. A lot of seasonings (anything but salt really) will only tolerate so much direct heat before they burn. A little burned isn't too bad, but there is a point they turn bitter, and you may learn what that looks/smells like by experience.

The worst mistakes you will make, mostly, is bland food. Sometimes you make something texturally...glumpy...when you are experimenting. When that happens, we just eat it on toast, with chips, put in the oven and broiled with cheese on top, or finally give in and throw it out.

Always keep an emergency frozen pizza on hand.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:43 PM on December 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Also, those cute jars of herbs and spices are expensive. And they loose flavor after 6 months anyway... When I'm near an Indian grocery, or Latino Bodega, I check out their little cellophane packs of various spices. Much cheaper.
posted by Czjewel at 2:06 PM on December 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Chèvre or feta are good substrates that you can decorate with a spice blend for a visually pleasing snack (and method for tasting the blends). Eg, cubed feta tossed with za’atar is nice alone or with bread/crackers/fruit.
posted by janell at 3:11 PM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

catesbie, can you share some examples of the spice blends? There is good general advice here, but we might be able to be more specific if we know what you are working with.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:13 PM on December 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

One simple cooking improv thing I do is pita bread with various toppings - might be za’atar, or some other spice blend mixed with olive oil or sprinkled over hummus, some fresh or pickled veggies, etc.
I have a thread on Twitter of my pitas (unfortunately not so easy to see a thread without logging in anymore.)
posted by larrybob at 3:16 PM on December 8, 2023

I made shrimp scampi pasta last night, but had no white wine and no dried parsley. I substituted Shaoxing cooking wine to marinate the shrimp, which I learned from another recipe, and I used my herbes de Provence jar because I love the taste of it anyway and generally I just needed a grassy and aromatic herb to use.

In general, using spices and herbs is the one thing I don't worry too much about because I shift them into flavor categories based on certain qualities (spicy, sweet, pung, and then use those flavor categories to substitute roughly what I need. (There is this Lifehacker article where I read about this years ago, will come back if I can find it)
posted by yueliang at 11:48 AM on December 9, 2023