Episode 249: Stuffed Eggplant, Poached Eggs, and Test Kitchen Inventory

Eggs, ready for poaching

In food news this week, the BBC covers the a recent controversy over Jamie Oliver’s recipe over “Jerk Rice”

What’s for dinner? Joy is revisiting The Indian Family Kitchen, a cookbook we first discussed in episode 135.

In How’d You Make That, we return to the topic of poached eggs. (We wanted to share that poached egg video with you, but we couldn’t find it. Here are other videos in that series.)

We talk about our process for managing test kitchen inventory, especially the many, many jars that result from Marisa’s “Food in Jars” kitchen.

In What We’re Loving this week, we sing the praises of the humble but wonderful BLT.

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4 thoughts on “Episode 249: Stuffed Eggplant, Poached Eggs, and Test Kitchen Inventory”

  1. Joy – I’ve purchased fresh curry leaf in the Mom’s market near me outside DC. Maybe your Mom’s has them too? In a little zip bag in the produce near the mushrooms. The bags have a good amount, though and I usually freeze the rest. Think I’ve also purchased them at H Mart and/or Lotte which tend to have more than just Asian groceries near me. There’s a recipe I’ve made (can’t remember whose) with potatoes in which they are deliciously fragrant and not just for show! Now that I’m thinking about it, I want some!

    I appreciate you both discussing Jamie Oliver and “jerk rice.” I agree with Marisa that here are good ways and bad ways to do this, but I fear as Joy does, that we are being pushed to a place where there is no longer a good way. Specifically, with his rice, had he used the spices and not referenced jerk, he might also have been called out for not identifying the inspiration. Hopefully, things will level out to a point where if used respectfully, and with some proper attribution and love, that we can use foodways outside our own backgrounds, at least as far as most people are concerned.

    Thanks for another great show!

    1. Wendy, good tip about Mom’s. I’ve actually never checked, assuming they wouldn’t be there. I appreciate your thoughtful comment. I hadn’t thought of what the response would have been if he’d have called for jerk-style spices without referencing the traditional recipe at all. That probably wouldn’t have been good either.

  2. Hi ladies! I’ve seen fresh curry leaves at Iovine’s actually. They are in the little section by checkout with black styrofoam trays full of herbs or hot peppers.

  3. I’ll add my voice to the curry leaf search and say keep looking! They are so yummy and interesting and worth finding fresh. I have never frozen mine but found they generally kept for a few weeks in the fridge. A couple years ago my husband bought me a curry tree plant (off Amazon!) for Christmas and it’s been thriving in a pot indoors/outdoors depending on the season ever since. We also had the owner of a local South Indian restaurant offer to give us a cutting of his curry tree to plant. They are such a fun thing to cook with and there’s really no similar flavor profile in Western kitchens.

    Also – I’m with Joy in the Jamie Oliver stuff. I think we’re getting a little over sensitive to the place of paralysis rather than respect. If Jame had published some sort of “Jamie’s Guide to the Caribean” cookbook showing his family on beach resorts and in the marketplace….that would be not awesome! But a Jerk Rice recipe seems really far from that sort of appropriation.

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