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Flora and Spice

@flora.and.spice

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Intimate dinners where food tells stories of travel and migration. Representing family traditions in evolution.
Everyone is welcome <3

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Night before the next supper club. Nothing better than to enjoy a homemade “Flora Fizz” after a full day of prep. I’ve got a good feeling about this one 😊

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Flowers and Pines

This weekend I had a chance to take some wonderful folks foraging in prospect park and man were there flowers to collect! I picked so many flowers - magnolias, violets, garlic mustard, redbuds and even some spruce tips! I knew I had to make something with it.

I had found some pine cone vinegar weeks ago at Turkiyem Market but never knew what to use it for and this was the chance, as the pine trees are pushing new buds out it felt like the season for them. I also picked up some pine nuts and pine honey as well and used that for a dressing all made of pine! It’s citrusy and sweet.

The Turkish market also had lahmacun or lahma bi ajan, so since I was inspired by a Turkish ingredient what better use than to use flowers instead of the typical salad served with it.

Eat more flowers!!! 💐

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Machhi Bhat

Fish and rice that I grew up with, but reimagined as a crudo. Lemme know if you’ve had the Sindhi or even the Iranian versions.

Can I still call this machhi bhat? 🙃

Cover photo: @theartistformerlyknownashaseeb

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Lasan ka Laddu

If I had a restaurant this is what I’d serve as one of the appetizers - Lasan ka Laddu but reimagined as onigiri.

If you’re Khoja, Memon, Gujarati, Kutchhi, Sindhi you probably know this dish. It’s a rare example of a savory Laddu and it comes around this time of the year when green garlic pops up out of the ground.

My mom grows her own and makes it every year for me with the garlic fried in butter with black pepper and then we eat it with yoghurt.

I’ve done my own spin on this with rice and filling it with lebneh. Over the years I’ve made this with wild garlic and ramps I’ve foraged and in this iteration I’ve got both green garlic and dried ramps and black garlic, for a trifecta of winter and spring garlic flavor.

This is probably a dish that hasn’t changed much since Europeans brought chilies to Asia, as before we used black pepper, ginger, cinnamon and sansho for the heat in dishes. This is why I also added my own wild foraged prickly ash to this dish.

Curious? Have you tried this before? Wanna try it? Come to the next supper club.

Cover photo 📸: @theartistformerlyknownashaseeb

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If I had a restaurant, this is what I’d serve as the salad course - a dhokla panzanella! It’s inspired by how I love to bake leftover dhokla in the oven to get nice and crispy on the outside. Since it is still cold, I’m combining elements from a typical Italian winter salad - fennel, citrus, bitter greens with dhokla and a tarka infused pomegranate and soy vinaigrette to add some heat and umami. Last thing in the mix are mulberries fried in butter, which btw was the first foraging video I ever made. If you want to try this, come to the next supper club!

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If I had a fine dining restaurant, this is what I’d serve as a dessert. A kheer, cooked like a risotto with natural sweetness from mochi rice. It’s only subtly sweet, with saffron (which comes from a flower), cardamom and fennel.

I topped this one with a cherry sauce made with cherries from my neighbor’s tree in Astoria, beach plums from LIC and elderberries from Greenpoint.

Lastly, with the spring coming I also topped it with pickled cherry blossoms from Japan. They’re heavily salted so I soak them in a sugar syrup so that they’re sweet and salty.

These create a combination whereby no two bites are the same throughout the dessert.

If you wanna try it, come to the next supper club! Cover Photo: @theartistformerlyknownashaseeb

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If I had a restaurant, this is what I’d serve as the first course. Zohraat Tea and Jetlag Chevra in my @diasporaco cookie tin. The tea has all kinds of edible flowers and the chevra is a reinterpretation of something my mom makes at home all of the time, that I reach for whenever I have jet lag from my trips. It’s got puffed rice, Korean pine nut and Parmesan crackers, kaki no tane, curry leaves, rosemary and even a garam masala shichimi. This is not fusion, just a record of my travels. Served with a pomegranate and soy dressing, come try it at the next supper club. Link in bio. Cover Photo: @theartistformerlyknownashaseeb

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What’s up you guys! I found some really interesting ingredients while shopping for our @flora.and.spice supper club and wanted to share them with y’all. Why do you guys think these exist and have you tried them? Come join us on the 29th for the next supper club. Link in bio!

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