PB&J, from Karachi

One great thing about going college in a big city is that students descend upon Chicago from everywhere - from Iowa to India and everywhere in between. One of my newest acquaintances is from Karachi, Pakistan. I've never had Pakistani food before, though she tells me it's similar to typical (American-style) Indian food. I think that I'll have to try authentic Pakistani food sometime in the future, after I've significantly improved my spicy-food pain threshold.

A typical Pakistani flatbread, however, is acceptable to all palates, especially those who prefer blander flavors. Like the Indian bread naan, Pakistani chapati bread is the perfect accompaniment to curried dishes and stews, because it can soak up delicious sauces without the addition of competing flavors. Plus, it's very satisfactory to make this bread because it fluffs up in the hot skillet, as impressive to non-bakers as a souffle coming out of the oven.

Unfortunately, the night I set out to make chapati bread I did not have any saucy delicious-ness with which to pair the bread. Luckily, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are internationally delicious! Make up a few pieces of chapati bread (they're best right off the skillet) and mix and match your own (un)orthodox pairings!

Chapati Bread

-3 C chapati flour (or all-purpose flour), plus additional flour for rolling chapati
-1 1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 tablespoon oil or ghee
-1 1/4 C lukewarm water

1. Mix flour and salt in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, then add oil or ghee.
2. Add water all at once and stir together; the dough should form a firm, though not stiff, dough. If there is too much flour, add a little water. If there is too much water, add a little flour until you reach a happy medium.
3. Turn out dough onto a clean, floured workspace. Knead for about ten minutes: the longer you knead, the lighter the bread will be.
4. Form dough into a ball and wrap in cling film. Let stand for at least one hour at room temperature.
5. After it has rested, divide the dough into roughly equal, walnut-sized balls.
6. Heat a large skillet over high heat. While the skillet is warming, roll each ball of dough on a floured surface until it's about the thickness of a crepe, or about the diameter of the skillet.
7. When the skillet is very hot, place one rolled-out chapati on the griddle and let cook about one minute.
8. Using a spatula, flip the chapati on the other side to cook. With a clean kitch towel, gentle press down all around the circumference of the chapati so the middle fluffs up like a balloon.
9. When the other side is golden brown, remove from skillet and place in a plate covered with another clean kitchen towel to keep it warm.

These chapati are delicious, often eaten with ghee (clarified butter), and are best when warm.

Tbilisi-bound

One advantage of living in Chicago is the proximity to Devon Avenue, north of downtown. Devon is a neighborhood crammed with ethnic groceries, restaurants, butcheries, bakeries, clothing stores, etc etc. Even though I've been living in Chicago for nearly three years, I made my first trip to Devon Avenue on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon.

This particular trip was inspired by the need for halal meat for a dinner party at a Georgian friend's apartment. In addition to several halal butcheries, Devon has a wonderful Georgian/Russian bakery, where we bought hinkali. Hinkali are delicious Georgian dumplings with meats, herbs, and a little soup in them - meant to be eaten with freshly cracked black pepper and lots of slurping.

In addition to hinkali, my Georgian friend made a lamb stew and a fried eggplant salad, which turned out to be the most delicious dish of the night. This salad was composed of fried strips of eggplant, pomegranate seeds, and a thick paste of ground walnuts, parsley, onions, and raw garlic. A Pakistani friend who joined us for dinner laughed at me when I said that the raw garlic gave the salad heat - apparently I wouldn't be able to handle the heat of Pakistani food. I'll take her word for it.

My addition to dinner was freshly baked khachapuri, a decadent cheesy, buttery bread which turns up everywhere in Georgia. Though it wasn't as good as I remember having it in a Georgian restaurant, it was still a welcome addition to our meal.

In sum, this taste of Georgian food has me wanting to make Tbilisi my new home, at least for as long as it takes to learn to make a proper khachapuri.

What kind of taster are you?

My five-year-old kid: Why does this oatmeal taste different?

Me: What does it taste like? It tastes normal to me.

Kid: It tastes different. This oatmeal tastes like tacos.

I have no explanation for this. Except maybe that during shopping the oatmeal, walnuts, or raisins, which we buy in bulk at the natural-foods co-op, sat together, however briefly, with a baggie of cumin, or maybe coriander, also bought in bulk.

On her radio show, The Splendid Table, Lynne Rosetto Kasper has talked about people's differing levels of taste -- as in tastebuds. It has to do with the number of tastebuds you have on your tongue, according to Dr. Linda Bartoshuk, whom Kasper interviewed on the show. Foodies are generally "middle tasters." The rest of folks, nontasters and supertasters, are not as interested in food because they either don't taste enough flavor compounds to be excited or they taste so many it becomes overpowering.

To find out what kind of taster you are, Bartoshuk says you can try this simple test: Choose a color of food coloring that will contrast with your tongue, such as blue. Dip a Q-tip in the food coloring and wipe your tongue with it. Now for some counting. Here are the instructions as outlined in The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: "Take a loose-leaf reinforcement (the hole is 6 millimeters across) and place the edge of the hole on the midline of your tongue. Count the number of pink circles you see inside the hole (you may need a magnifying glass). Thirty or more indicate that you are a supertaster; five and below means you are a nontaster. Mediums are in between."

I think back to kiddo's babyhood, when, by choice, he ate mostly applesauce and rice cereal. As he grew, new foods were suspect, often limited to his outside interests. For instance, he loves fishing, so if you tell him part of his meal used to know how to swim? He will eat it. This is why our little table companion refuses chocolate milk but will eat anchovies and sardines straight from the tin.

I doubt I'm going to be allowed inside my boy's mouth with blue food coloring to do this experiment. But something tells me we have a supertaster on our hands.

No judgments here.

I am not a box-mix person. Now, I am not casting aspersions on those who have cake mixes, powdered dressings, and tubs of frosting lining their shelves. May their courses run smooth. No judgments here. There isn't one pat and simple reason; the box just doesn't do it for me.

This is all to explain why one afternoon last week found me stirring a delicious chocolate concoction in a pot on the stove: chocolate pudding. Yes, pudding from scratch.




I am happy to report that the recipe I used produced a resounding success. More on that later. But. Was it better than the box? And. Wouldn't a box have been easier?

The last question first. A box of instant would have been easier. I was introduced to instant pudding in seventh-grade speech class when a girl named Jaime gave a how-to speech on making pudding. She poured instant pudding powder and milk into an airtight Rubbermaid container and shook vigorously for the remainder of her three-minute speech, which I found fascinating. That is quick pudding. But rather strenuous, one must admit. Still and all, faster and simpler than homemade.

Was homemade better than the box? Well, I think we all know the answer to that silly question. That's like asking which was better, the book or the movie? If you have a little more time, and we are talking 20 minutes, start to finish, homemade pudding -- when made with a reliable recipe, it must be said -- gives the box a run for its money. Its flavor is better. It is fresher tasting. The texture is slightly different, somehow more . . . homey. And to have a bowl of this stuff sitting in your fridge? Worth every stir.

So. No judgments here if the above has simply whetted your appetite for some shaken milk-and-powder. But if you have twenty minutes you wouldn't mind spending doing some mindless (or mindful, if that is your bent) stirring, read on.


Double Chocolate Pudding
Adapted slightly from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. I never buy half-and-half because I almost always have both milk and cream in the fridge, and right there are the fixin's for half-and-half; the recipe proportions are in the name. (Talk about a from-scratch fanatic!)

The strainer-over-the-bowl arrangement is crucial, unless you are an extremely seasoned pudding and custard maker. The eggs go from creamy to curdled almost without notice, and those little curds, whether they appear in every bite or just once in awhile, will not win fans of stovetop pudding. Simply passing the pudding through a sieve on its way to the bowl will solve this problem.

6 oz. bittersweet and/or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped or in chip form
3/4 c. sugar
4 t. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt
2 T. cocoa powder
3-1/2 c. half-and-half, or a mixture of milk and heavy cream
3 egg yolks
1 T. unsalted butter
2 t. vanilla

Melt the chocolate and set aside. Place a mesh strainer over a medium glass or metal mixing bowl and set within reach of the stove.

Combine sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt in a medium saucepan. Slowly whisk in the half-and-half (or milk-and-cream mixture) and then the yolks.

Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, whisking gently but constantly and scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. (A heat-proof spatula is a good alternative to a whisk, if you prefer.) This will take about 10 minutes, give or take. The pudding will start out soupy and gradually you will notice it is the consistency of thick cream, but you will think it is your imagination because your eyes are going buggy from stirring for 7 minutes straight. Keep stirring. In a minute or two, it will be unmistakably thicker, and you might notice a bubble (if you dare stop stirring). At this point, reduce heat to medium and continue to stir constantly until the pudding is thick and coats the back of a spoon, 1 to 2 minutes.

Pour the pudding through the strainer into the bowl. Stir the butter and vanilla into the pudding until the butter is melted. Press plastic wrap or parchment paper directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and refrigerate until set, about 3 hours.

Makes 4 cups, enough for 4 to 6 people. Keeps in the refrigerator for 2 days.