Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark. And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce, we have written 37 cookbooks, including the latest cold scanning that'll come up maybe once in this episode. This is our podcast. I can bring it up more. Oh, sure. This is our podcast about food and cooking, the passions in our life, the things that drive us to do what we do. As always, you've got a one minute. Cooking tip, we're gonna talk about one ingredient that can take a dish up over the top. So what could you add one ingredient to things where you might not expect to add it, and it will push that dish way over the top and we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip. Be wary of farm stands and farmer's markets that have a big, beautiful display. Mm-hmm. Of melons and peaches and plums. Because if it's not in season where you are, then those produce items are not local.

That's right. We have a, uh, listen, we are big advocates for farm stands and farmer's Markets wrote a huge article for eating well back in the day on the top 10 farmer's markets in the country. I mean, we are big advocates for this kind of thing, and we do have a farm stand near us. That is a really nice farm stand. However, you do have to watch what they have because when they have their raspberries in and when they have their apples in and when they have their chestnuts in, those are in fact from that farm. Mm-hmm. We know the trees, we know where they come from. When they have certain other things in like apricots in April, that's impossible.

And bananas, which don't grow here anytime of year,

right? So they have gone elsewhere to a produce supply company and they have bought these things and they've put them out in nice wicker baskets or nice, you know, um, uh, wooden baskets. And it all looks great for apricots. But if you think about it, you can think, wait a minute, it's New England and April. There are no apricots. Apricots don't come in here till July. So

also. Add that I have never been to a farm stand in New England. That doesn't say either these are our own homegrown or gives you the name of the local farm. Oh yeah, true. So if they're not, then chances are they just got it at a produce warehouse.

Yeah. But what kills me about New England, and maybe this is going on too long, what kills me about New England is no matter where you drive in New England, you can go to pharmacy and you'll find a display for quote unquote fresh maple syrup. And it doesn't matter. When you look at it. So I'm like, uh, you did not make fresh maple syrup in July. I know you did not.

Mm. People don't realize that it's made in February and March. Right.

And even January in lower New England at this point with climate change. So I mean, it it, it's always a funny thing that they're always haw there, maple syrup and it's like, hmm, okay. It's probably not exactly of the moment. Alright, before we get to our one ingredient question about how to take a dish over the top or you say. We would love for you to subscribe to this podcast and if you can rate it, that would be great, or write a review. That would be the best of all because as I always say, we are not otherwise supported, so this is the way that in fact, you can support us. Alright, up next, what is one ingredient you can add to a common dish or cooking to take it completely? Over the top.

So we have a list of ingredients that we like to add one of these to whatever it is we're cooking. And it really just makes a huge difference. So we're gonna tell you what they are, and then we wanna know what your ingredients are. And I wanna start with Worcestershire sauce. Mm-hmm. Or Chesters Shire sauce. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's not just for your bloody Mary's. You can use it as get this a steak marinade you. I love to take hanger steaks and put some Worcester shear and Okay, if you can get it, a little smoked olive oil. Oh wow. And that is like the most amazing marinade on any steak. But I like it on a hanger steak. Now here's the real trick. Make your own Worcester shear and it gets even better. That's the bit cold my husband makes me. Worcester shear sauce.

I do. And the recipe in cold counting is my recipe for Worcester shear sauce. If you wanna see us actually make that, or excuse me, make it, there's a YouTube video on our YouTube channel cooking producing mark of me making that Worcester shear sauce. Oh, it's so good. I make a vat of it in cold canning. It makes a small batch, but usually I make a whole vat of what's the key

to wor shoe sauce? What do you think is like the anchovies. Anchovies are, yeah. They're really important to it. And I think the other thing that would surprise people is that you burn sugar, you caramelize sugar. You don't just add sugar as what you, no. You actually burn it and caramelize it. So it adds a complex, you know, when you flavor

turn sugar into liquid and let it get dark brown, and then you pour it and it roils up like crazy. Mm-hmm. That's added to the pot for that deep caramel flavor. It's. Going against anchovies and only about 5 billion spices. Mm-hmm. Oh

and tamarind paste and tamarind, which gives you sourness. It is such a great condiment. It is so good for taking your steaks up over the top. And if you want to put any of that wass your on your steak. After you've cooked it, don't use the same wishes you're left in the bowl. That was for the marinade. 'cause that has touched your raw meat. Yeah. Okay. So use

fresh. Great. I'm moving on, I'm pushing on enough with that. Um, so, uh, I think one of the things that, I'm a big pie baker and I think one of the things that you may not know is if you have an apple, a pear. A blueberry, a blackberry, a raspberry pie, berry pies, as well as apples and pears. If you add just a little grated orange zest to the filling, you will take that pie up over the top. Trust me, blueberry pies with a little orange zest in them. That is a revelation. Mm-hmm. It changes the whole dynamic of the pie. It's so

delicious and you can look. Back through lots and lots of cookbooks and a lot of people call for lemon and they say, well, the lemon brightens the flavor and lemon is expected. But Mark was always putting a little orange in it. I did. In fact, we put the orange zest in our blueberry pie recipe in a book we wrote called The Ultimate Cookbook, and that's 20 years ago. That's how long you've been doing this for us. Oh, I've been doing it forever and it's amazing. And people eat these pies and they're like. There's something in here that's so special and you can't put much. No. Let me just say you can overdo it. Right. So,

you know, I, I take it an orange and I run it a few times over a box grater to get just the zest on. Mm-hmm. And then I mint up that zest so I don't put it in whole strips in there. I mince it up. Mm-hmm. And not much. We're talking like a quarter teaspoon, maybe a little more than that. If you wanna go crazy and if you have

a microplane, you can use a microplane. Just a couple of, just a couple of runs on it. And no, it really is a. Fabulous edition. Now we're talking about fabulous editions. I grew up in, you know, Jewish House where. Pot roast, which in a lot of families, a lot of American households meant chuck in our house that meant brisket. Most people just say, let's have brisket. But my grandmother only called it pot roast and she put lots of carrots and lots of onions and paprika and salt and pepper. Now you're out of all the spices 'cause that's what she knew. She knew salt, she knew pepper, and she knew paprika. So I introduced her to something called allspice. And if you don't know allspice, you know it's one of those wintry spices that often goes with cinnamon and nutmeg into sweet potato pies and pumpkin stuff. But I happen to love. Allspice in beef stews and in beef dishes. It's used commonly that way in Southeast Asia, by the way, and I introduced her to Allspice and she, this old Jewish woman from Thele fell in love with it, and so she started putting allspice in everything. So a little bit of allspice in your next pot roast, your next beef stew, your next brisket. It'll really make it better.

Along the same lines, I would say that for me, cardamom. Is the secret spice to everything. I put cardamom in any baking recipe that calls for cinnamon or nutmeg. I always add a little cardamom to it. Cardamom has a slightly musky but sweet flavor to it. It's very aromatic. A little bit goes a long, it does long way. You can find, as they call them, dec corticated, cardamom seeds. Those are the little black seeds out of the pod. Mm-hmm. And you can also find ground. Yep. Cardimum out there and a little just a, I mean, and we're talking here sweet baked goods. Yeah. Although cardamom is pretty fine in a beef stew too.

It is. It's interesting 'cause you have used both the decor dicated seeds and the ground in cookies and they give you a completely different experience. 'cause if you put some ground cardamom in a chocolate chip cookie, every bite of that cookie is gonna have this mild essence of cardamom. But if you put the seeds, you're not putting many. So you might get. A cookie that has two seeds in it. And so one bite is a normal cookie and one bite. You get this just explosion of cardamon. It's true. Which is really kind of

nice. So I'm gonna, I, I know I did cardamon, but I'm going to the next one 'cause it's mine. Um, because it's from my, uh, my upbringing, it's my thing. So if you have creamy soups, let's say you have a creamy tomato soup, or you have a creamy chicken soup, and you know, this is not gonna be a typical root vegetable stew. This is, you want a more. Creamy finish to it. Yeah. Right. And you wanna thicken it at the end. If you wanna thicken it and skip the cream, you can put a little bit of Yes. Instant mashed potatoes. Brilliant into the pot. You stir them in. It will thicken the stew and also turn it nice and creamy colored, and even in its texture, we're not talking a lot. You know, you might have to experiment a little bit with this, but just a little bit of instant mashed potatoes, a quarter cup,

maybe half a cup, and a a father stew. But you might find you need to up the salt. There's even though that myth that if something's too salty, you put a potato in it. That's a myth, right? Potatoes don't absorb the salt out. No, it's not right. But potatoes do. Eat salt in a way that you're sh It's shocking that potato dishes require mal more salt than others. So if you're thickening a creamy soup with instant mashed potatoes, you want to add a little more salt. And if you don't want to have potatoes, you can also thicken soups with masina. Well, okay, so instead of explain what Masa Arena is. So masina is basically corn flour, ground slated corn. It's the kind of corn flour used to make tamales. It is not corn meal. No, it is a corn. Flour that you would use for tamales, that you would use for tortillas, it will give you a soup, a slight corn flavor, and it will remind you of Mexican food. So best to do it on flavors that work well with Mexican food.

Yeah, I suppose so. And here's another thing that I think most people in the United States don't know about, and that is when you're sauteing vegetables for the bottom of a brown. Stew, so we're talking here. Beef buffalo pork, you know, we're talking brown stews. Well probably with a lot of root vegetables in it, anything like that. Once you add the garlic, if you would just add a half a teaspoon up to a teaspoon of anchovy paste to it, the whole thing will be seen. So. Sophisticated, and you don't have to tell anybody that there's any anchovies in it. Mm-hmm. But anchovy paste makes all those kind of savory soups. Just it's like, it's like adding this umami. It is explosion to the soup. It is.

And you could put a minced up anchovy if you want, but it's so much easier. The paste comes in the tube and it doesn't taste fishy. It doesn't make your stew or your soup taste fishy. No, no, not at all. As Mark says, it just gives it an umami punch that can't be viewed. I put it at the bottom of. Everything I make with tomatoes, and that can be just from a ing, a basic bolognese or a marinara sauce, even paella, anything that's got tomatoes in it, Ingo and anchovy.

Yeah, I, it's, that's an interesting thing, I suppose. And I, I, I, again, people kind of gross out at anchovies. In anchovies. Some people do, but it is this like secret ingredient that you can slip into things. Uh, tomato sauce is kind of brilliant, but slip in and it. Adds all of this savory flavor and it calms down the sweetness. Particularly like if you do, um, as I did a chicken stew with a lot of root vegetables, which are super sweet, you can pull that sweetness down with just a little anchovies. I suppose it would make it fishy if you added the two Oh of ancho. Oh yeah. Well then you're

making anchovy stew you don't wanna do, yeah, that's disgusting. And it's also

super salty you,

I say. Here's another ingredient you might not have thought to use in baking, and that's coffee. If you have a recipe, and I'm even gonna say, I'm going to go crazy and say you're using box cake mix. Yeah, no. This is box cake mix, Andre using using box brownie mixes and they usually call for water

this. And by the way, this what you're about, Bruce, I say works with chocolate, not. Vanilla necessarily? No. And not strawberry cake and No. No, it is not. It's chocolate. So you use

coffee instead of the water as the liquid because why use a liquid water that has no flavor? Use coffee. It's so funny, I was watching TikTok this morning over my coffee and there was somebody. Who opened a box brownie mix, and instead of the water, they put a can of Coke. Oh. And I'm like, well, it's a similar thing, right? Sure. It's a very similar thing. So Coke adds so much sweetness. It adds sweet. The coffee's not gonna add any sweetness. It's just gonna add flavor and a slightly bitter edge, which will balance the sweetness area in the box. So I like your idea of using coffee a lot better than what I saw of using Coke, but don't use a flavorless liquid and

any of those, you know, any of those nut butters. Including peanut butter. Peanuts are in a nut, a legume, but still. Okay, we'll count them with almond butter, pecan butter, peanut butter. All those butters are excellent thickeners in soups and stews. Hmm.

Yeah, you may not think of that, but next time you even make tomato soup, I'm going to put to you that you should add some hot chili pepper to it and thicken it at the end with a heaping. Tablespoon of smooth peanut butter and you'll have that chili Peanut butter and tomato flavor is so incredible. And peanut butter thickens soups. It thickens stews. It's the secret ingredient to add. It does salt and flavor that you will not believe

and protein. And protein two. So there you go. There's our list of single ingredients that can take various dishes up and over the top. We would love to know if you have any tricks of the trade that you use to take a dish up over the top. You can find us on Facebook on cooking with Bruce and Mark and you can drop the comment there and we would be glad to respond and I'm sure other people will be glad to hear your tips and tricks. Okay, let's move on to the traditional last part of this podcast. What's making us happy? And food this week

fall tomatoes that you could pick up at your local farmer's market in giant boxes. They call them seconds and they're cheapest dirt and you can make tomato sauce. And I did that. I was visiting my sister down in southern Connecticut and on my drive home I stopped by a local farm stand and they had 50 pound. Boxes of seconds of their tomatoes for $20 20. So I have two giant stock pots on the stove going as we record this, making my homemade marinara, which will be cold canned in the freezer all winter.

Yeah, that's the best you can keep it in the freezer all winter and pull out a container of marinara and either. Use it on its own or add it to something that you're making. Mm-hmm. Right. What's making you happy? So we were down to New Haven, as Bruce says, and his sisters moved to Southern Connecticut. We were down there, and this is, shout out to a restaurant, a legendary restaurant in New Haven. Uh, I think you say it, new Haven. I've been corrected a million times. Sorry. I say New Haven. And it's New Haven. But anyway. We were in New Haven and went to Claire's Corner Copia. It's right next to the Yale campus. It's a vegetarian, vegan restaurant. And they make vegan. Yes, totally vegan cinnamon rolls. Oh, they're so good. And those vegan cinnamon rolls are worth the trip to New Haven so that you can try them. They are un. Believable. And uh, we bought one and I had half of it and Bruce had half of it and I had half of it with my coffee this morning. Mm-hmm. And they were, yeah, as those cinnamon rolls down there, they're so good. I don't even know how they're vegan because they don't taste no

eggs, no butter, no cream, no milk, but they're

light as air. They're really good wound all around the cinnamon sugar. They're delicious. And he's

had chunks of apple in it too. These are these

apple cinnamon bites. Fabulous. Claire's, they corner Copia in New Haven is the best place to go. Okay, that's the podcast for this week. Thanks for being a part of this journey. We appreciate your spending time with us every week,

and we hope you'll find us as Mark said on Facebook and our group cooking. Bruce and Mark, and look for us on social media, on Instagram and on TikTok. Our feed is. Cooking with Bruce and Mark. They're lots of great videos there, and as you check out TikTok and all the videos that are there, notice how many are not real. They're ai. You will never find AI here on cooking with Bruce and Mark. It's always us. It's always real. We're always cooking here on cooking with Bruce and Mark.