Spice blends

When I'm feeling like a purist, I don't like the idea of using packaged mixes of spices in my cooking. In reality, however, I use them, and I think most of us do.

It's better to use the individual spices and herbs you like, so that you can control the amounts. That's a good rule, but it is more honored in the breach than the observance, as they say.

The famous Emeril of New Orleans and TV Food Network fame uses his own spice blend in a lot of his recipes. I once heard Julia Child say that Emeril was a good cook, but that he needed to let go of the spice blend and do real cooking.

Tony Bourdain is outrageously disdainful, as usual, of Emeril's spice mix: "...for the record, his spice blend, 'Essence of Emeril' is labeled with total accuracy," Bourdain says. "I can rub it onto any meat, and the result tastes just like Emeril has sweated all over it. Horrific."

Moving on... What is "poultry seasoning" anyway? I'm sure most of us don't know. Do you ever use it? And what is in Old Bay seasoning? Let's not forget chili powder. The container of Schilling/McCormack chili powder I have contains standard ingredients including chili peppers, cumin, oregano, salt, and garlic, and then for that certain je ne sais quoi a dose of silicon dioxide ("added to make free flowing," it says). Yum.

And then there are the liquid blends: Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauces including my favorite Wilber's sauce from North Carolina. So many of those contain too much sugar or corn syrup for my taste.

A favorite North African spice blend is called harissa. It's a spicy-hot vegetable paste made with:

• beets
• carrots
• chili peppers
• water
• vegetable oil
• salt
• modifed sweetcorn starch
• coriander
• caraway
• citric acid
• garlic

Harissa is an indispensable ingredient and table condiment for North African couscous and many other dishes. The harissa I have is in a tube like toothpaste, looks like tomato paste when you squeeze it out, and is a product of France. Couscous, by the way, has now replaced steak-frites — steak with French fries — as France's favorite dish, just as salsa has replaced ketchup as American's favorite condiment.

Like anything else, pre-mixed spices aren't all bad. The one I used to flavor the chicken breast pictured on my previous post is called Muzzy's Magic Texas Heat Seasoning. (Actually, the names of some of the blends might be one reason why I feel so funny about using them! Muzzy? Magic? Texas? Heat? Oh well.)

Muzzy's "Texas" mix (here's the web site) contains:

• salt
• black pepper
• cayenne peppers
• garlic
• thyme
• basil
• celery
• bay leaves
  

The labels specifies: Contains No Preservatives. I guess that's good, except that salt is one of the most ancient preservatives we use! All the ingredients, in fact, are ones that I put in food, indivudually, all the time.

Wilber's eastern N.C. barbecue sauce lists these ingredients:

• vinegar
• water
• black pepper
• red pepper
• salt
• spices

They don't say what spices (trade secret?) but the label proclaims: Cholesterol Free. My jars are ones I bought a few years ago. Walt said the new Wilber's label probably says: Low Carb. There is also no sugar or ketchup in Wilber's sauce. That's what I like about it.

American cooks aren't the only ones who use pre-mixed spices. In France, the best known such mix is probably something called Quatre Épices — Four Spices — which according to at least one web site usually contains five:

• pepper
• nutmeg
• cloves
• cinnamon
• ginger

Instead of Quatre Épices, I'd rather use (and often do use) what is called here Piment de la Jamaïque — Jamaican Pepper — which in English is called allspice. It's not a blend but rather the berries of a plant that you can use like black pepper, either whole as peppercorns or ground into a powder. I like the flavor of allspice and usually use a mixture of allspice berries and black peppercorns whenever a recipe calls for black peppercorns and cloves (as so many French stews, soups, broths, and sauces do).

Other widely used spice mixtures are curry powder, which I guess is a British attempt to reproduce the spicing used in Indian cooking, and the blend called ras-el-hanout (rah-zel-ah-NOOT) used in Moroccan cooking.

The first package of ras-el-hanout that I bought in Paris contained just six spices:

• cumin (cumin oriental is specified)
• turmeric (curcuma in French)
• ginger
• nutmeg
• coriander
• cardamom

I did some reading on the web and in books and found out that some ras-el-hanout mixtures include as many as 27 spices! I haven't found one that complex. Another package that I bought spells the name with a Z (raz-el-hanout) and contains:

• coriander
• turmeric
• cumin
• pepper
• caraway (carvi in French)
• sweet peppers (piment doux)
• fennel
• fenugreek

So it's pretty different. I guess using those lists you can make up your own ras-el-hanout powder if you want to. It's a good seasoning for Moroccan dishes like couscous and tagines.

I have a couple of cans of curry powder that Walt brought back from London when he went there in 2005 on his way to New York. I know that different curry powder blends vary a lot. Here's what's in a can of Bolst's Hot Curry Powder (product of India, it says):

• coriander
• turmeric
• chillies
• mustard
• ginger
• cumin seeds
• fenugreek

I think one of the big differences between curry powder and ras-el-hanout is the presence of mustard in the curry powder.

Another curry powder I have, Cap Burung Nuri Parrot Brand Meat Curry Powder has many of the same ingredients, but a pretty different list overall:

• chili
• coriander
• cumin
• fennel
• black pepper
• cinnamon stick
• turmeric
• cloves
• cardamom
• fenugreek seed
• star anise
• curry leaves
• bay leaves

Just to contradict what I said earlier, it contains no mustard. But then it is a product of Malaysia, not India or the U.K. The label also specifies: 100% Natural Spices, No Preservatives, No Colouring, No MSG.

The only thing to do with these spice blends is to read the ingredients to see if they sound appetizing (and natural) and then try them to see what the flavor actually is. They are hard to avoid, especially for "exotic" dishes that you don't cook every day.

I would never use a spice blend in a classic French dish like Bœuf Bourguignon, Blanquette de Veau, or Coq au Vin, of course. But for a roasted chicken breast, sprinkling on a good spice mixture can produce delicious results.

By the way, I have been known to add a squirt of ketchup to a Bœuf Bourguignon or Coq au Vin when I don't have any tomato paste handy. The ketchup mainly adds color to the sauce and you don't put in enough so that the taste is noticeable. I saw Jacques Pépin do it on TV!