my three condiments

Okay, I am not talking about those 10 open jars of mustard or bottles of hot sauce  lurking on various shelves.  I am talking about the magical bowls of goodness that, with a little marinating time, become this special something, sparking up the drim and drabness of even the freshest, well-tuned larder.  Not to say that I have a fresh and well-tuned larder, but I always smile when I see just one of these smiling back at me from the fridge.  Each one hits a slightly different spectrum of the palate.

Preserved Lemons: Salty Lemony Tang: it is not that I used to disdain these, but I had never made them myself.  Now I love meyer lemons even more than in my marmalade phase (hey, in a pinch that jar of marmalade sure can help out a chili or sauce too).  Use Paula Wolfert's recipe,and use meyer lemons. I prep the lemons by scrubbing them first and then pouring boiling water over them before delving into her recipe. Definitely a satisfying use for lemons with little effort. Takes about a week to perfection.

Do these things taste better because you have been drooling over them waiting for them to be ready?  Perhaps but hey, what is wrong with that???

Ancho Pickle: Warm, Deep, Tart Chili:   We have nicknamed this one "unctious." It is. You want to just eat the chilis whole once it is ready.  Picture those jalapeno pickles you often see at the taqueria salsa bar? But take that liquid, add lots of onion, garlic, oregano and press cleaned & toasted dried ancho chilis into it for a week.  The chilis thicken up and develop a fantastic flavor.  Excellent remedy for the bland pot of beans. A little heat, but not too spicy.  The recipe we used is from Diana Kennedy's new book, The Art Of Mexican Cooking.  Buy it for this recipe alone.

 They taste the best after 10 days but it is hard to wait that long.  We started ours out in a round souffle dish, keeping the chilis pressed down with a smaller, heavy plate.  Then, as the unctious got used up, we transferred it into our lil' dark green oval casserole for space saving reasons.

You would drool too.

Hijiki in Terayaki: Sweet & Salty Darkness: You know that black twiggy seaweed they often garnish Japanese dishes with?  Seaweed often seems expensive but it is lightweight, so a little can go a long way.  You can reconstitute it by soaking it in water, but we like to make our own simple terayaki sauce, toss the hijiki in for a week and voila...yum.  Good on top of anything asian for a sweet soy low note that has its own richness to it.  This is from my own recipe, I hope to post soon. I want to test a substitution thought that would make it less expensive.

As you can tell, these jars are getting a little low, time to drool, I mean, make more!