495: Cool New Baking Cookbooks with Nicola Lamb & Hetal Vasavada

33:31And so the fact that she was able to write, she would have to work so hard to go and find the peach that she was writing about or the aubergine or the eggplant that she's writing about. And so I love her recipes because you know that she wasn't messing around like she was getting a peach. She might get six peaches and that might be the only ones that she could get for months and months and months. So I really love looking back at some of those like core techniques and seeing the way that they were making the most out of what at the time was probably quite like a scarce supply. fruit and veg so I do like to look kind of backwards at that and then of course just every time I go to a new city I think London and we've got so many great bakeries so I obviously like to walk around my own neighborhood and check those out but every time I go to a new city I'm always impressed and at seeing you know what people are making in that place like here in Minneapolis I was just walking around and I was able to kind of see stuff like crumb cakes and coffee cake which might seem so standard to you.

34:30But for me, I'm like, huh, London does not have crumb cakes or coffee cakes and things like that. So it's always fun to sort of check out what's happening there. And what might seem so normal to you, it's so rare and exotic to me. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I also think of you as a baker that's kind of connected to other people in that space online, like certainly through your newsletter, you have guest columnists that are contributing as well. What makes you want to be doing that with your newsletter and bringing in other people? And how do you kind of decide what recipes or holes you're looking to fill?

35:07So I'm the first person to say that I do not know everything. And I'm, thank goodness, because that would be so boring if I was just thought I was a real know all about baking. I love that there are people who are really deep into their own specific topics. One of my columnists is the brilliant Camilla Wynn. She is a preserving master, like legit. Like I think that's her title. She is a preserving master. It is her title from like the Canadian government. So cool. And that's so brilliant. And so I think, why would I be writing about marmalade and jam when I could commission work from Camilla? And what's great is that I really know her flavor profile now.

35:47She's really into, she actually quite likes like Victorian type flavors. like she loves like fruitcake and kind of boozy desserts and that's not something that I particularly excel in so it's so great to kind of um kind of back and forth kind of ideas and being like hey Camilla you like rum bar bar right she's like yes I'm like great because I think you'll do a better job than me so I'm always um looking for voices and for people who really know their subject well um I think that's just it's just going to be coming from such a more authentic place than me muddling through a description of how to steam a Christmas pudding, for example.

36:24Yeah. And Camilla's series is so fun. She's been doing, I think she's calling it poisonous pastries with you, right? Yeah. It's a victim. So we were like, should it be called dangerous goods or poisonous pastries? I was like, well, you call it poisonous pastries, but we don't want to get in trouble because we don't want people to, you know, some people take things quite literally. And I did not want someone to think that we were actually publishing um rest i don't want to get investigated um right publishing recipes that are going to be injurious to eat so they're not like actually deadly no exactly and i think what she says in the newsletters always is her line is that it's the dose that makes the poison so for these things like licorice and for noia which is the kind of fruit pits and i think we've got tonka been coming up and we've got like a bunch in the bag um so yeah that's been really fun with her and it kind of also just really suits her like quite mischievous voice which is I always love reading so so yeah I wish I could say that I was more organized with topics um sometimes I just wake up and have an idea for a cake or for a recipe and so sometimes that's how it goes there are you know a list of um recipes that I want to do like with the newsletter um I do try and hit those kind of big target recipes where people, where I'm really testing the ins and outs of a very kind of specific or classic dish.

37:48For example, I have madeleines in my mind as something that I want to, you know, do a big investigation about. So I do have a list of topics in my mind. I really should write them down at some point, but I do kind of have a rotating stock of classics to kind of get to. And then I kind of leave room to experiment around those. Yeah, absolutely. And I think newsletters are interesting because you have access to data in a way that you don't always through other platforms. Like you can see which ones are being clicked on the most or which ones have the most engagement in the comments. And also through Instagram, you get tagged if someone is making something and wants to share that with you.

38:29Have you found that there's like a certain kind of recipe that you know is always going to hit the hardest or be the most interest to your readers? You know what? People really love cookies. That's what I've learned over the many years, many, many years of doing recipes. A cookie recipe is always going to hit. People just love them. And I get it. I love cookies too. So I think chocolate is also often really popular. kind of those comfort bakes, nostalgic bakes. I think people really have a lot of room in their heart for these baked goods that take them back to a time when they were little and either walking past the bakery window and going, I must like go in and get that or, you know, it being your birthday and you getting that chocolate cake that you've been, you know, looking at the bakery for months.

39:21So anything that really hits home on nostalgia, maybe with an updated twist, is often, I think, successful and I think that makes sense because baking is homey like sure you can go to a fancy pastry shop if you can get like a beautiful petit gâteau and it's nothing like those desserts that you were probably loved when you were little but for the most part baking is something we do for other people it's a often an act of love it's an act of self-love it's something that parents do with their kids or maybe people have memories of their grandparents doing it with them I certainly have those memories.

39:54And so any recipe that kind of hits those and like tugs those nostalgic heartstrings, I think is as often a win. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And it's fun to know that everybody ultimately just wants to be a kid again in some kind of way. Big time. I'm curious if there are any tips or techniques in your book that you would recommend to a home baker that might be kind of like much actually more useful or kind of I feel like hacks sometimes have a negative connotation but then once you cook with somebody who is a professional they actually know all kinds of things that are so much easier is there anything that maybe when you learned yourself was kind of a revelation so I guess one of the biggest things is people often say like if they're making like a chocolate ganache whether it's in a frosting or it's to pour over something people are very nervous about splitting and there are all these crazy hacks online the the way to fix a split ganache and often the way to you know fix anything any emulsion that's split is actually just adding a little bit of warm water like a teaspoon at a time like don't add more cream don't add more chocolate like the issue is is then there is not enough space for those fat droplets to get dispersed so you just need to kind of expand your cream a little bit so if you add a little bit of hot water and whisk it it's going to come together so quickly like don't mess around with heating and whisking it just start with a little bit of warm water don't add more fat don't add more cream and often it's gonna just like come together super easily oh i love that you know i've also heard that um making a ganache in a food processor is like the best way to do that it does that anything have to do with like extending are you like physically extending the cream and giving it more space by whipping it around that kind of way so i think food processes are popular because you aren't incorporating a lot of air um when you are emulsifying so i think some people think that if you were to whip your you know to stir your ganache with a whisk you're incorporating a lot of air and that's going to create kind of an un you know a not too smooth ganache i i think that food processes are great and i think immersion blenders you know like hand blenders you're going to get the same effect that same smoothness I will only take my food processor out if I'm I really always have to think what's gonna take longer making this by hand or washing this up because it has to be a real like it has to be a real time saver um for me to get my food processor out but I think that that is probably wise because I'm not incorporating too much air well I feel you on the food processor so thanks for weighing in on that.

42:29And to close today, I want to play a little rapid fire game with you. So I'll give you a question and you can just kind of tell me the first answer that pops into your head. Gotcha. Okay. Your favorite baking book? Right now it's got to be More Than Cake by Natasha Kickwick. It's so great. I'm loving it. Great book. Your favorite season for baking? Autumn or fall? Whenever the apples are. Yeah. Is the best time for baking. The most challenging recipe to perfect in your new book when you're developing? It was definitely croissants. I really wanted people to make croissants at home that resembled ones that they might be able to get at a bakery.

43:11And it takes a long time to come up with a recipe that's kind of felt safe for the home baker. So yeah, I'm really proud of that one too. Well, congrats on that recipe then. Thanks. Your go-to item to order in the pastry case at a bakery? I love anything like creamy and shoe based. So like if I'm in a fancy bakery, I'm going to go like a parry breast. Like that's going to be my favorite. If I'm in kind of like a get down bakery, honestly, giant, giant chocolate chip cookie. Your favorite ice cream flavor? Mint chug chip, for sure. Something that you will never make from scratch. Is there anything that you would never make from scratch?

43:51The one thing that people often ask me to make and do a recipe for is baguettes. And I just, I will not do it. Making a great baguette in a home oven is so difficult. And I love nothing more than that crispy, crackly, like baguettes bring me so much joy that I don't know if I'd be able to handle like all the sadness that the bad baguettes that I would make would bring. So baguettes is like really like far down on my list. Well, I love that you're drawing the line somewhere. I think that's very healthy. your favorite bakery in london um it's called e5 bakehouse have you ever been no i haven't i was just in london and i went to jolene and had some really great pastries there and also forno i really liked and bake street oh you know i still haven't made it to forno i love bake street chloe um is the pastry chef there she's brilliant love her love her stuff yeah that's that's a good that's a good tip but you're saying e5 is that what it's called e5 so it's just on london fields and i think they really kind of led the way with um grain milling they do they do this bread called the stock home bread which is kind of a free form really darkly baked kind of rye and but it's like very light so it's like very like strong white flour and rye and it's so delicious and they used amazing whole grains in all of their um cookies all of their stuff and all of the pain choclars and it's just it's just really tasty like I love what they're doing okay I'll have to check it out on my next visit okay a bakery outside of London that's one of your favorites have you heard about Lannan Bakery in Edinburgh I think I have but give us the the little shtick what's the rundown okay Lannan is I can't believe it's only been open for a year because it feels like it's already just like done so much and it's already created waves of inspiration um it's run by this brilliant um woman called Darcy and it's in Edinburgh in a really cute part of Edinburgh called Stockbridge and they specialize in viennoiserie and not just like any kind of like any of standard they do your standard croissant and your standard pain de chocolate but they also do like the most beautiful danishes when I was there they were making this asparagus danish and they were you know how you go to a fancy restaurant and your asparagus asparagus comes out and it's been turned and it's like been beautifully prepared and it's got a notch on the end like they do that to their asparagus that they're putting on a danish like everything is so meticulous and but it's also not it's but it's not pretentious like it feels very homey when you're in there but so much effort and love is going into every single pastry and i really think they're like setting a bit of a gold standard um for bakeries so yeah definitely learning.

46:39I'll be there every day. A glowing review. I love that. Okay. My final question is a fictional food scene, like from a book or a movie that you wish you could eat in real life. Ooh, I have, can I have two candidates? Yeah. Kind of different. Yeah. Okay. Number one, I always think of, um, the prison cooking scene in Goodfellas, you know, have you seen it when he's like slicing the garlic really thin and the voiceover is like ah and yeah and then he melts the the thinly sliced garlic into the butter sauce I'm like oh I want that so bad and then it's like the meats that they're making a ragu with three different types of meat I'm like okay I would I need that and then my second candidate is definitely just like anything from Ratatouille I know Ratatouille and Goodfellas like very different movies different vibes but yeah any of the food from ratatouille.

47:32I just think I watched that movie and I'm like, man, I really want to try this rat's cuisine. I just think like, come on, let's have the dining experience. Yeah. And what a dinner party that could be if you could combine both of those movies and get everyone together. For sure. That would be great. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It was so fun to speak with you and congrats on your book. Thank you. It was so great to talk to you and let me know when you're next in London and we'll go and eat all the pastries. Delicious pastries, yeah.

48:10Hetal Vassavada, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about Desi Bakes, 85 Recipes Bringing the Best of Indian Flavors to Western-style desserts. Your book is great. Congratulations. Thank you so much. This was a labor of love. I mean, I see it everywhere in the book and I got to give it a nice read yesterday on PDF. I haven't actually held it yet and I will soon. And yes, you are, you absolutely, it's comprehensive doing 85 baking recipes. What was it like thinking about your second book and getting these 85 recipes down?

48:51What's the general thesis of the book? I would say the general thesis of the book is definitely highlighting Indian art, textiles, and handicrafts in the best way possible, which is in dessert form, in my opinion. and just showcasing how much, at least aesthetically, Indian culture and the things around me have inspired me. And for desserts, I feel like it's one of those things where you kind of eat with your eyes first. I mean, with any food, but especially desserts, like you can be so artful with it. And this is my way of kind of combining the art that I grew up with and seeing all around me with my passion for baking.

49:38I read in the acknowledgments early on, you gave a lot of credit to textile designers. And now it makes sense. You're really inspired by textiles. And I think that's such a unique way to think about dessert because handicraft and craftsmanship is all what pastry is all about. Yeah, it's all made with your hands. It's the fiddly work that goes into making things from scratch. and there's so much that's in common between, you know, baking and crafting, in my opinion, that it really kind of, they both lend themselves to each other. Well, before we get more into the book, and I have some specific questions about many of the cool recipes, let's zoom out a bit.

50:22I want to hear about San Francisco and some of the restaurants and bakeries that you love going to in your hometown. Oh, OK. I am like one of those people that will go back to the same spot over and over again if I feel like real deep comfort in it. And Bayshram has become one of my comfort spots. It's a Gujarati Indian restaurant in the dog patch that I was just there last night. obsessed with. Chef Hina is like the auntie that everyone wants. And the food is just so comforting because she does highlight Gujarati cuisine, which is the state I'm from. If I'm ever feeling homesick, that's where I'll go.

51:06And it's just, she really just cooks her love into her food. great recommendation i have some questions about gujarati cuisine and it's really cool that you recommend a gujarati restaurant because now i'm kind of obsessed and i want to go to all of them around the country because i i love gujarati cuisine what was food like growing up in jersey oh okay so one jersey has a very high population of gujarati people it's probably one of the most like i think it's the most gujaratis outside of india and one location is like in in new Jersey. Um, and growing up, we had what we call the Gujarati like plate, which is dal, which is lentil soup, bath, rice, shak, which is any, you know, I guess for lack of better terms, curry, but it's usually a vegetable fake vegetable based dish.

52:05Um, and there's, you know, curries that are dry. There are shakks that have a little bit more like liquid to it or that are more soupy, I guess, or stewy. But shak is one of them. And then you have rotli, which is the flatbread that we eat. And we would have that fresh every single day. And it's not easy to make. It's definitely very labor intensive. But yeah, we grew up eating Gujarati food every single day. I would bring it to school. If we went and traveled, we're very well known for traveling with like pepla, which is a spicy flatbread everywhere we go, which is extremely true within my family at least.

52:53but it was a very it's much lighter than the food that most people typically associate with Indian food which is you know the butter chickens and the creamy curries and whatnot that was I don't think we ever put cream in anything that we ate other than the desserts and Gujarati cuisine is is vegetarian mostly I'd say yeah I mean it depends on where well, one, the religion, right? So there's Gujarati Muslims and the Farsis and you have the Hindus and their cuisines are different, but for the most base, and then you have Jains too. So depending, I think, well, not I think I know, depending on the religion and the area you're from within Gujarat, most people are vegetarian.

53:47I think Gujarati is the highest percentage of vegetarian. in that state. Yeah. And thanks for clarifying because I was pretty ignorant on how the state, I know Parsi, of course, is not vegetarian. I was in Mumbai recently and I got to go to Shri Thakkar Manjnali, which was, to be honest, Hetel was one of the best meals of my life. And I've talked about on the show, I thought that it opened up my eyes for what Gujarati cuisine can be. And it was like 40 or 50 courses and incredible. And I'm just like absolutely blown away by Gujarati cuisine. So thank you for sharing. Yeah. Yeah. I would say like even within Gujarat, the funny thing is it's very much kind of like, you know, anywhere you look in Europe, like Italy, you have your northern Italian cuisine, southern Italian cuisine.

54:42Same thing goes with India. But even within the state of Gujarat. Yes, you have differences between the religions when it comes to obviously diets and dietary restrictions, but also the dishes. But because of the location where Gujarat is, which is right on the border of Pakistan, but also right in the pit of the bay. So there was a lot of movement and immigration and, uh, you know, history to that area. So a lot of dishes have a lot of global, um, origins and Gujarati food has also been taken to so many places. If you look at like Ethiopia, uh, a lot of their lentil dishes are very similar to Gujarati dishes.

55:32Um, even because there was trade between Surat, which is one of the main port cities in India and Ethiopia, they would bring tobacco from India to Ethiopia. They even called tobacco in Ethiopia Surat because of it. There's also, you know, the Persian movement that came in, the Greeks that came over with Alexander the Great so many years ago. There's surprisingly a lot of similarities between Italian, Greek, Ethiopian, and obviously African, because a lot of Gujaratis were brought there by the British to build railroads and be indentured servants. Between Gujarati cuisine and I would say a lot of the globe, there's a lot of similarities.

56:20And I don't think many people realize that. No, absolutely not. And you see in New Jersey and in San Francisco, you see Gujarati cuisine, you see it in Long Island. And really, I'm wondering, looking at your expertise in the pastry realm and baking, how does Gujarati baking play out? Is there like a core group of recipes that you'd say are part of the sweet side of Gujarati cuisine? Within the Parsi community, there are baked goods. within my community that I grew up in, there was no baking. Most homes don't even have ovens. If anything, you're either roasting something on the stove or you're steaming it.

57:04And even then, cakes are not a thing. Sweet cakes, not a thing. So a lot of the desserts are deep fried. Yeah. Or it's roasted. So roasting chickpea flour with ghee and then roasting that and then adding that to a really viscous, simple syrup to help it set or, you know, roasting nut powders and adding that to a simple syrup to let it set. It's a lot more stove based versus oven based. And I don't know if it's really considered baking if it's not oven based. I guess that's like more of a technical question. Yeah. Yeah. I'm using a very general term, but you've really outlined the way that the sweeter side kind of develops in Gujarat.

57:54And it's interesting. You started your career not in food, but you have a master's degree in biological sciences. And you ended up moving out to San Francisco. Tell me a little bit about that background and what moved you west? So, you know, being Indian, my parents kind of were like, you're going to be either a doctor, engineer, or business person. I get it. They want financial stability for me, something they didn't have growing up. And I understood. And I was like, I guess I'll go in healthcare. And I followed that path, did my undergrad in biochem, did my master's. I worked at Columbia University Medical Center for some time.

58:38And then I got a job offer at a consulting firm out here in San Francisco. And I quickly realized that the corporate world was not meant for me. I would get in trouble at work for like looking up at blogs, trying to figure out what I was going to make for dinner or what cake I was going to bake if our team met our goals. It was just not the world for me. It was not creative enough. Well, obviously, you made the wise decision to leave the consulting world and leave your science degree behind. though of course science is is is what baking is all about and i'm sure there's some overlaps but let's talk a little bit about these early days and how you started you know baking at home as a as a novice as a you know as like a a a fan of baking um and then you launched milk and cardamom your website and your social media account talk about how you kind of went pro i mean not kind of you went pro and you appeared on television and you really have a beautiful work on your website.

59:48You have so many recipes. I'm a huge fan of yours. So talk about that. Yeah. So I, one, obviously have an untraditional background for someone in the food industry. But when I was in college, my organic chemistry professor had told me if you could bake, you would pass lab. And that's great. I was like, bet I'm in. Let me learn how to bake. And again, growing up, I did not bake. This was not something that I learned. There was no like great grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe, nothing. So for me, this is like a whole new world. And like every other person out there, I started with box cake mix.

1:00:29And slowly, as I understood the chemistry of it and understanding like the method and the technicality of baking, I would start challenging myself to make things from scratch and I would literally feed my entire dorm room. Um, and as I would start baking to learn how to pass Orgo lab, I started falling in love with the, I guess the A-type part of me really enjoyed the accuracy and precision in baking and the fact that I can also eat it and share it with my friends. And it brought me a zen. I have like undiagnosed ADHD at that point and a lot of anxiety and baking just really did a lot for my mental health and sanity.

1:01:20And I never thought it was something I could pursue. But what I did do is I started a blog. It was called Pretty Polymath, which is so old. It was on Tumblr. Dope. I love that. So good. And it was literally just me writing recipes that I was coming up with to have somewhere to save it. But also during college is when I was actually able to also try new cuisines outside of Indian food. Growing up, we didn't really go out to eat that much or ever. But in college, me and my friends would pool our money together and go split a meal somewhere nice and fancy. And I got to try Ethiopian food and Malaysian food and just so many cuisines that it just opened up my world.

1:02:07So I would use that blog to also track everything that I was eating and like my reviews and thoughts and what I thought about the food. And then over time, I kept that up until the corporate job here in San Francisco. I started seeing bloggers actually turning it into a full-time career. My first experience was seeing Pioneer Woman. Yeah. Right. I mean, I remember - One of the originals. Yeah, absolutely. She's an OG. I remember like going to her blog because she's one of the first people to actually put step-by-step photos in her blog, which is what blew her up. And then seeing her go full-time, I was like, oh, wow, this might be something that I can do.

1:02:50But I still felt kind of an imposter because again, I didn't go to culinary school. Everything that I ever saw on TV about the culinary world, they're like, oh yeah, I went to CIA or I went to Cordon Bleu or whatever it may be. and I was nowhere near that caliber. I worked at the back of a pizzeria, you know, for many years, but I didn't know if that really counted for anything. I mean, it certainly did. I mean, working at a pizzeria will teach you, I would say probably most of the skills you need to be a professional food person. Oh, I couldn't. I'm sure you were doing lots back there. Yeah, I couldn't even agree more.

1:03:32Like I was working 6 p.m. to like 2 a.m. shifts at that place like four or five times a week. My parents had lost their jobs when I was in college, a freshman college. I'm the first person in my family to ever go beyond high school. My dad has a third grade education. My mom has a 10th grade education. So to pay for school, I worked at this pizzeria late at night. And that was like my only monetizable skill I had was to cook. um but once i got into the world hated it saw people actually making it big as bloggers uh people like pioneer women and um i remember a pinch of yum putting out they used to do like a financial report and would post how they were making money and i remember seeing it and i'm could do that but I didn't have like the full confidence yet so for some reason my husband thought it would be a good idea for me to go on reality tv um and I ended up on masterchef and that and you kind of like you kind of ruled masterchef I mean you kind of like own masterchef you didn't win but you got pretty close and for somebody who wasn't a quote-unquote professional It was, it's pretty, it's very impressive that you, you went that far.

1:04:51Thank you. Yeah. I honestly, especially being vegetarian and never have cooked meat in my life like that. I did not think that I was going to make it as far as I did. But it was definitely an experience that gave me a lot of confidence, a little trauma, but a good amount of confidence. Right. And when I came off, I decided to pursue recipe development. Um, I had learned that there's just so many careers outside of chef in the food world. And I realized like recipe development was kind of the direction I wanted to go. It felt like being back in the lab. It felt like, um, I enjoyed the testing and the failing and the figuring out what went wrong and fixing it aspect of recipe development.

1:05:38And that's when the blog started is right. When I came off master chef, I was like, I'm gonna post my recipe. recipes on here. I'm going to share them. Fun fact about MasterChef, they own all the recipes that you make on the show. And after each episode, they make you write down the recipe for whatever you made so that they can have it and own it. But second fun fact, you can't copyright a recipe. Indeed. We talk about it a bit on the show. Yeah. So I would just, you know, add a little extra salt or an extra spice and would share a recipe on my blog of like the cinnamon rolls I made during one of the challenges or, um, like anything that was that week's dish, I would share my recipe for it.

1:06:27Um, and there was not much they could do about it. So I love the, that's very savvy of you. And, and I, I think you've, you've taken this, this career very seriously, almost like a scientific way and researching the monetization of the website and the blog. And then, of course, being savvy with the way you were leveraging each recipe each week. And I love to hear that. And I love that you called out that site that offered transparency for the economics. I mean, that's really cool. And that's really, I feel more folks should do that and share how you actually make money doing this. Oh, 100%. The other thing about, I would say the blogging slash even the cookbook writing world is there's not a lot of transparency behind how much people make.

1:07:15People don't share how much they made or what does, even for like social media content creation, like what a brand deal should look like. what's negotiable? How much should a brand, you know, be offering you? How do you price yourself? There's very little discussion that occurs. And a lot of people are just on their own. And this is where a lot of the pay disparities also occur. Like I found out one brand was paying my white counterparts almost, like, I think it was$4 ,000 for the same job that I was doing and I was getting paid$400. Yeah. Like, those are the - You fixed that quickly, I'm sure.

1:08:04Yes, very much so. But, like, talking about it really helps. Like, understanding, like, I really liked going to Pinch of Yams and seeing what's working for them, what's not working for them. How are they monetizing? Because, you know, this is the real world. We do need to make an income to survive and pay for everything. And I very much appreciate it and took a lot of advice and, you know, dissected what they did so that I could try and replicate it in my world. so zooming out a bit i have to say you have such a skill with bringing south asian flavors and spices and techniques into a world that is i would say is firmly planted in american pastry brownies cakes rice krispy treats uh muddy buddies which we'll get into shouts to that and let me ask you this this is not easy and and reading your book desi bakes it's it's clear that you have extreme talent in kind of translating flavors that feel extremely at home for you, but in the format of the American pastry world, how difficult is this work?

1:09:19I think the most difficult part is trying to not combine the flavors, but combine the pastry techniques. Like I said earlier, the, you know, so many of the Indian dessert techniques are roasting things in fat or, um, you know, combining it with, uh, simple syrups and things like that. And I, I try to even combine pastry techniques. Like I have a base and burphy rice crispy treat recipe in the book, um, where base and burphy is basically chickpea flour toasted in ghee until it's super nutty. It's almost reminiscent of like peanut butter. Um, and then I add that into a rice crispy mix but you know trying to understand okay how am i going to do this i know this temperature of the ghee is going to be really hot i don't want to overheat the marshmallows because if you overheat marshmallows you get really hard you know inedible rice crispy treats uh so trying to we've all been there yes it's the worst feeling um so trying to understand how i'm going to mash these two together?

1:10:22Do I need to wait? Will this work? Do I need to change the temperature of things, et cetera? And that is probably the hardest part is how do I marry the two techniques or really make sure that the flavors pop out. But I grew up on like sneaking American desserts, save up all my money, go to the Italian bakery, go to the corner deli and, you know, eat whatever I could that my mom wouldn't let me or make for me. And the same, the way I, the inspiration for a lot of that is kind of similar to Christina Tosi. Like she makes a lot of desserts from her childhood and wants to bring out the nostalgia from her childhood in many of the sweets, like the birthday cake, right?

1:11:18And that funfetti flavor. For me, I was trying to take out flavors from my childhood, which were a lot of Indian desserts, and mash that into the American flavors that I also grew up with, and try to figure out a way that I could kind of combine them both in a way that reminded me of my particular experiences. And what I learned after my first book came out is there is a whole generation of first generation, um, Indian Americans who also grew up at Patel brothers eating goofy, but also, you know, we're eating Ben and Jerry's, uh, you know, cookie dough ice cream and learning how to mash the two together it's just like is literally me in a dessert and it's a lot what I think a lot of people feel well I think one of the desserts that really you know embodies this ethic is one that really speaks to me as a midwesterner it's a pistachio and cardamom muddy buddy or puppy chow where you live and I love it so much and I'm going to make it this fall.

1:12:34Tell me what inspired this and walk us through that recipe a bit. I love Muddy Buddies. Makes two of us. Oh, my God. The texture. The texture just does it for me. I like the cool powdered sugar the moment it hits your tongue and dissolves away. And then, like, the crispiness of, like, when you bite into the Muddy Buddy and then you get that creaminess of the chocolate. And just there's, like, this whole textural symphony that occurs. um and i love it and something about indian snacks is there's a lot of texture if you ever pick up like the hot mix as they'll typically call it it's a lot of texture and you grab a fistful and shove in your mouth you got peanuts and you got flat corn flakes and you have maybe crispy save which is like little deep fried chickpea batter um and maybe you have raisins in there too and like it's always a textual symphony i love it uh and muddy buddies really reminded me of that and i wanted to add in um a little bit of indian flavor with using uh pistachios they have a deep enough flavor that it can match with chocolate and you know what now looking at it and seeing like the viral have you seen the viral dubai chocolate bars um yes i have okay those are really yes yeah similar vibe right you have the crispy plus the chocolate plus the pistachio and i add a little cardamom to it ofs because that's like my favorite yeah but well so it's so it's so definitive for south asia you know cardamom is it's our vanilla is yeah that's good i never thought of that way it's really smart yeah yeah it is your vanilla absolutely um and it just makes it so good.

1:14:23I wanted something snacky that I could serve at a party, like a Diwali party or a Huli or Raksha Bandhan, which is actually today, which is a holiday celebrating, you know, relationships between brothers and sisters. But I wanted something that like I could serve at a party that, you know, the kids are going to love and the adults are going to love. and that's where the Muddy Buddies kind of came from. So jamun seems like a really, really cool ingredient for baking and it's new to me. I read about it and you do it in a berry bar and your cookbook is filled with recipes that use products that you can get frozen or freshen sometimes but the brightness, the acidity balance for some of these products.

1:15:16um i'm really really excited to try uh these products so describe what's going on in this berry bar so this is a kind of like a shortbread berry bar so you have a shortbread crust and then a bunch of berries that you put on top that you kind of cook down and i use jamun in it so jamun is a um fruit that's in india tip and it's known for its tartness uh they'll have it in india in like shakes or they'll even do jamun shots, which is just jamun juice that you like shoot. Cause it's, um, I got a really nice tart flavor. It kind of reminds me of like the purpose that rhubarb typically has in a lot of desserts, uh, bringing in kind of a berry slash sourness to help level out a dessert.

1:16:14And that's how I played with it in this dessert bar. So instead of using traditional rhubarb and like strawberry, I decided to mix the berries with the jamun so that it balances out sweetness and sourness for really with a buttery, buttery cookie base. And it's a great way to one, use a fruit that people, at least like Indians are obsessed with. Yes, people, we love mangoes, but I would say jamun is like a next, like second favorite fruit that we have. And it's, it is difficult to find it fresher in the U.S. unless you live in like Florida or somewhere more tropical, but my mom would get it frozen and And she would make shakes and all sorts of drinks with it.

1:17:00And I loved the flavor growing up. You know, even still to this day, I still have not had a fresh jamun. One day. Yeah, one day. One day, that will be the moment. But of course, with many of these products, you can go to Patel Brothers, your local South Asian grocery store, even H Mart and find many of these products in the freezer, right? Yeah. And they're there and they're great. And that's part of baking with this in mind. Yeah. I would say like, but I am all for using frozen berries and fruits in desserts because they're packed at like their peak ripeness and usually peak season. So they're extra delicious in my opinion.

1:17:41Yeah, of course. And like you're going to be baking anyway so that you don't need to have the whole fruit there in its full fresh form. So Faluda and I was in India and I got to try some and you make a really strong statement, which I agree with. Why is Faluda the queen of fancy dessert drinks? I mean, one, if you've seen a Faluda, like it's got so many components to it and it's just so pretty. Like you look at it and you sit there looking at it like, oh, what is everything? You have vermicelli, you have ice cream, you have milk, you have, you know, pink hues of rose going through it. And then you have like, you know, sometimes you have strawberries in it.

1:18:23I've seen them with strawberries. mine has strawberries but there's just a visual feast um there's so many kind of like hello hello or any one of the kind of cold asian desserts it's all about layers of texture and it's so pretty in pink it's such a gorgeous color like it just makes you happy people get excited when people see faluda they're like oh yes i need to have it it is gorgeous dessert and And I got to go to a place called the Parsi Dairy Bar in Mumbai. And I had faluda and I had alasi with buffalo milk. Oh, my God. It really opened up this realm of Indian desserts to me. And I have to just plug that place.

1:19:10It's amazing. Oh, my God. Yeah, buffalo milk makes everything better. It's so naturally sweet. It's such a good call. Yes. Like when we were in India, my mom would constantly ask for like, oh, make sure you don't put sugar in your chai. Because when you go to people's houses, they make chai for you. And each time my mom's like, oh, you know, did you put sugar in this? And they're like, no, this is just how sweet buffalo milk is. So let's talk about chai a bit, because I think it's definitely an entry point for many of our listeners. And really, I'd love to get your take. You know, there's many different types of chai, chai masala, there's Irani style chai.

1:19:49And really, do you have a favorite chai or a way that you make chai? Yes. I learned from my maternal grandmother how to make chai. And it's a very specific way of making it. I have the recipe in my first cookbook. And then I shared a chai masala recipe in this cookbook. But one of the main keys for us is less water, more milk. Yep. Depending on like where in India you're from, a lot of people either do equal parts water and milk or it's just a splash of milk um but for us it was always way more milk it's like 75 to 80 percent milk and the rest is water you just have enough water to cover the tea and you're using ctct so of course you're not trying to explain what that is yeah it's called ctc is crushed hair curl.

1:20:46It's a byproduct of, um, it it's a process that's done with basically the crappy parts of black tea. Um, it was something that the British created so that they could sell the little twigs and bits leftover after processing the leaves back to the Indian populace because it was just a new market for them. Um, it has, it's a bit more tannic than the leaves. Uh, and it can be a, depending on where you get it from, it can also be a little bit more bitter, but you need to have that tannic kind of drying effect. Um, it just, that's what makes jai jai in my opinion. And you don't want to use the good expensive stuff.

1:21:34This is where you get the cheap, you know, Vag Bakri or Lip Tin. Or you can get a nice blend from One Stripe Chai or Kula Goodies or the Chai Box, which are amazing small chai makers across the U.S. And you boil it in just enough water to cover the tea. You add your chai masala to it. and then once it starts simmering really hard, you add your milk and you let that simmer up the sides three times. Why three? Because that's what my grandma did. Everyone does it differently and it just makes it like a little bit more foamy and rich and then you strain that into your cup and then my grandma would pour a little extra milk on top to one, cool it down, but also add more milk to it and dilute the caffeine in it for me as a kid.

1:22:32Yeah, yeah. Little ones maybe don't need all that caffeine. And a couple follow-up questions. So when you talk about the three rises, are you basically just like doing a hard boil and then you're dropping heat and you're doing it three times? Yep, we would let it, yeah, hard boil until it comes up the sides. And either we drop heat or take the pan right off the stove until it simmers down and then put it back on. And God forbid you let it simmer over the pot. But I mean, my mom was like ready, at the ready. Yeah, you got to be mindful. And then the other question is when you're talking about the milk, which 70 % of chai, 75%.

1:23:09Now, are we talking about full like whole milk? Are we talking about like how do you think about the milk you choose for your chai? I like using whole milk because I want that kind of like viscosity, that thickness to it. um also you have more fat in it and fat carries flavor and spices have both water soluble and fat soluble compounds that make the jai taste so much better um which is why you add the spices to the water um first so the water soluble you know compounds flavor compounds dilute out or not dilute out but disperse and then when you add the milk you have the fat that also carries a lot of it.

1:23:54So Hethel, like, I got to ask you, you've got two cookbooks, you've got a great online community, you're doing content all the time. Is there a future in doing a brick and mortar and actually selling some of your baking to the population? Or am I just like talking crazy? I would love to, honestly. Rit is too high here. Yeah. I looked at places and they're like, oh, yeah it's eleven thousand dollars a month twenty five thousand dollars a month twenty two thousand dollars a month and i'm like that's a lot of giant cake um i always wanted to open up like a chai cafe with my baked goods and then also sell gujarati snacks um yeah but i don't know if it's in the cards here in the bay it is just too expensive and i really don't want an investor because I've seen how bad it can be when you have investors and things go Ari and like just awful.

1:24:55Um, and people get burned pretty bad. So I'm just, I'd love to be able to bootstrap it, but I don't know if it'll happen in the Bay. Yeah. Maybe it's a different city. Maybe, maybe, but yeah, I, I hear you. It's the highest rents in the country that you're dealing with. But so what's, what's the next year like for you once the book's out? Do you have plans for more television? What's going on? Book tour. So I'll be on tour all throughout basically October till March. So if you want to come say hi, I would love to see you. And then I am working on book three. Amazing. So I'm working on a proposal right now.

1:25:37Hopefully I get it shopped and, you know, a publisher by the end of the year. And this time I want to enter, excuse me, I want to enter a savory world and showcase

1:25:55the kind of dishes I grew up with that I had on a regular basis with my parents. I mean, Hethal, like a Gujarati book from you, like that goes to the savory side. I welcome that. I think that that would be so cool to see. Yeah, I really want to highlight the produce, especially now in this globalized world. When I was growing up, finding Gujarati produce, things like bottle gourd or okra or Chinese long beans

1:26:32or bitter melon, it was not easy. We'd have to drive an hour to Jackson Heights or an hour to Edison to get it at the Indian store. And nowadays you start seeing these type of produce. I mean, I went to Safeway recently and they had bottle gourd. And I was like, what? Or even having access to the peppers. Now that there's a little bit more access to the produce that I grew up with, I think it's like the perfect time to drop a super duper Gujarati cookbook. so cool I can't wait to have you back to talk about that it'll be exciting on this is Taste We Asked About The Discerning Taste so to close this interview here's a little rapid fire fast and furious taste check are you ready?

1:27:16yeah let's do it the best fruit? mangoes okay so follow up question how do you shop for a mango? well one is I like give them a little squeeze kind of like you do with an avocado and then smell. If they don't smell, if I can't smell the mango at all, it's not going to be good. The worst vegetable. Oh, bitter gourd. So you mentioned it as like something you want to seek out, but you're calling it the worst. I love this. This is one of those things where I will continue eating it in the hopes that one day I might be like, yeah, that's not bad.

1:27:59Yeah. Yeah, describe the flavor profile for those who haven't had it. I've had it. I guess a mixed review for me. It's extremely bitter. They are like the way my mom cooks it. She cooks very healthy, so she'll like steam it and then like, you know, cook it up with some spices or stuff it with a bunch of spices. But the bitterness, I just can't do it. I can't do it. It's not for me. but I have you know friends that just it's like a deep earthy bitterness that like sticks to your taste buds it's not just a moment of bitterness it's like a it stays with you it tastes it's like asfetida a little bit like hanging asfetida in that realm yeah it just stays with you and then like there's nothing you can do about it once it's there yeah loaded question here the best dessert oh oh golfy i love a good golfy explain that one so golfy it's not i guess it's not really technically i would say an ice cream but golfy when it's traditionally made is you take whole fat milk and and sorry, full fat milk or whole milk, and you cook it down until most of the water has evaporated off and it's mostly fatty.

1:29:29Then you add sugar to it and you're flavoring compounds. Like some people add pistachio or saffron or cardamom. And then you freeze it. And it's got this like, it's harder than an ice cream and harder than a semi-Frodo. But it's got this like melty, rich, creamy texture to it because the water's evaporated off and it's mostly just fat and sugar. It's just extra delicious. Do you spin it at all? Is there any motion or you just like freeze it in a bowl? Yeah, you freeze it like in either a mold, like popsicle molds. Typically, they're like long metal popsicle molds with like a stick in it. But yeah, you just freeze it in a popsicle mold.

1:30:25And that's that. Sounds amazing. And you have a recipe in your new book? I have a couple of recipes, but they're more traditional style ice cream. In my first cookbook, I have a very traditional gulfi recipe. It's a Mexican hot chocolate gulfi. And it has that long process of cooking the milk down until it's at the right place. Your favorite American fast food chain? Oh, Taco Bell. Oh, stop. Let's go. What's your order? Such a good call. It's mine too. Mexican pizza with sub the beef with beans. And then the other is I love doing a crunch wrap and then I'll add the red sauce that's in a Mexican pizza in there.

1:31:12It's just so good. I think one, because you could literally turn anything into a vegetarian dish because you just sub the meat with beans. And I don't know which Indian person figured it out and like spread the word. but that is the most vegetarian friendly fast food chain there is. And it's got a cult following. Like we would go to, you know, Diwali celebration then, you know, post parties at the Taco Bell parking lot. I love that memory. That's so great. And I know Kush Bouchard was on the show and also expressed a deep love of Taco Bell. Yes. So good. your favorite cookbook of all time okay um it depends on the seasons currently i've been well okay i have my one steadfast and this may seem weird but it's called a settlement cookbook um it is a very old cookbook and it has very old recipes in it but they work it's consistent um the cookbook i think was first written i want to say the 1800s the late 1800s yeah um and the recipes are not too particularly like defined like it'd be like oh bake it in a moderate oven yeah it gives you a little bit of a puzzle yeah but the recipes and the ratios um from that cookbook they just work every single time and they're just so good I love that you mentioned it.

1:32:51We wrote a feature on the settlement cookbook. I'm going to say 2018. And I'll link to it in the show notes. It is absolutely a classic American cookbook. And I'm so happy that you have actually cooked from it and have this story. It's really cool. And it has such traditional, especially a lot of German and Dutch recipes. And I think it's really interesting to see, oh, that's how it's traditionally made. And then seeing what it's become now, like the kuchen and strudel and stuff. It's just interesting to see. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food? Toronto. Do tell. Oh, it's a great city.

1:33:35Every place I went to eat in Toronto was phenomenal. High end, hole in the walls, just amazing. I had, you know, Trinidadian doubles, absolutely amazing. Indian food there, amazing. Vegetarian and vegan restaurants, Planta Queen, so good. Thai food at Pai, insane. Like everything I ate there was phenomenally delicious. You heard that book that Air Canada flight, Get to Toronto. Mm-hmm. It's one of, I feel like, underrated cities. Oh, 100%. A lot of Americans don't go. Yeah. Yeah. I would go back just for the food, like, multiple times. A couple more. A cuisine you would like to learn more about?

1:34:18Ooh. I would say, like, Nigerian cuisine. And I guess overall, even just African cuisine. I know there's been a lot of movement between, you know, India and Africa and a lot of trade and a lot of... immigration and things like that. But there aren't that many, other than Ethiopian food, I don't know that much about other African cuisines. And I'd love to be, you know, I'm so curious. I want to know what the texture of fufu is. I want to try Nuguse. I want to know Ugali is. And like, I'm intrigued because I've never had it. And I want to just learn more about it. Last one, your favorite sandwich.

1:35:02Okay. In Philly, there is a deli. It was right next to the pizza place I worked at called Koch's Deli. And they have a sandwich called the cheese sandwich. Because again, being vegetarian, typically it's the only option is the cheese sandwich. But this cheese sandwich has a good two inches of cheese in it. Like it's like basically they replace the cold cuts with cheese. And it's just insanely good. I mean, the East Coast knows how to go hard with the cheese. I love like a two inch cheese sandwich. I think by the inch, the more inches, the better. I love that. That's all. It's so good. And then they have like, you know, you got to get oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano with the shredded lettuce.

1:35:44And then there's it's got to be a sesame seeded hoagie roll. Oh, yeah. Completely agree. Condiments. Yeah. Mayo. And really, that's it. I don't do mustard. It's got to just be mayo. And I just want to taste the cheese. We are on the same wavelength for sandwiches. I love mayo only, maybe a little salt and pepper. Into that. Hetel Vasavada, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you so much for having me.

1:36:19This Is Taste is hosted by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things happening.