South Indian White Bean Coconut Milk and Yogurt Soup

Learning to Celebrate Small Victories, Reverse Tadkas, and Andalusian-Style Chickpea and Spinach Stew

Welcome to The Flavor Files, where I share my love for cooking and food science. All my recipes can be found at Nik Sharma Cooks.

My latest cookbook, Veg-Table, is available here.

You may find affiliate links sprinkled throughout this newsletter.

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RESOURCES AND LINKS TO SUPPORT ANGELENOS and LA COUNTY

Mutual Aid LA, Baby2Baby, Core, Pasadena Humane Society, World Central Kitchen

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Hi Friends,

It’s a week of small victories! I’ve finished photographing and styling a whole chapter of my new cookbook. I have three more chapters to make my way through, but I’m taking this moment to celebrate by taking a breather. As I get older, I’ve realized I’ve been so focused on not jinxing things that I’ve never celebrated any good moments. I was always too anxious to celebrate my nominations for any James Beard or other awards (because I was worried it would come across as arrogant). My books never won, and, in the end, I missed the opportunity to have a small moment of joy. I was too scared to be happy. A large part of my thinking comes from how I was raised: never celebrate until you can. Coming from a country with fewer opportunities, you grow up focusing more on the wrong things because you never know whether you can get to the end. Anything other than achieving the end goal meant you were a failure. And the worst part, people would tell you so. But as I’ve become older, I’ve realized that life is short and unpredictable. You can and should celebrate those memorable moments because, as time moves forward, your memories are your greatest treasures. So, this week, I celebrated my win with a bowl of strawberry ice cream.

Speaking of a few more reasons to celebrate! My 5-year-old curry leaf plant is now feet, and I’ve grown my first Buddha’s Hand citron.

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What to Cook in February

Because I’m busy cooking, styling, and photographing my way through the new cookbook, I usually don’t depend on the dinner recipes; instead, I lean towards making a big pot of stew or soup. If you’re wondering why I don’t eat the cookbook recipes on the day off, I sometimes do and sometimes don’t. I’ve often cooked and tested these recipes and need a break from them. So, the food goes out to my friends, or I freeze what can be frozen for a day when I don’t feel like cooking.

For the free members of my newsletter, make this simple Andalusian-Style Chickpea and Spinach Stew. Get a nice chunk of sourdough to sop up the liquid and wipe the bowl down.

For my paid subscribers, I’ve created a South Indian-style White Bean Soup with a smooth, silky base made with coconut milk and yogurt.

There is Tadka, and then there’s Reverse Tadka.

One of the most dramatic and potent flavor-boosting techniques used in Indian cooking is the tadka method - spices and herbs are fried in hot oil for a few seconds to help draw out their essential oils and heighten the aromatic experience. Often, a tadka is done at the end of a recipe as a finishing touch, but sometimes, it’s beneficial to do it at the start to help the flavors permeate uniformly through a dish. This week’s special recipe demonstrates just that. I hope you enjoy the recipe, and if you do, let me know how it turns out by leaving a comment below. Thank you.

Read my essay on Tadkas at Serious Eats to learn more about this method.