Spice Mixes by Maya Corrigan Potluck Monday

I recently ran across an article about spice mixes by Noah Charney on the Fine Dining Lovers site. The article covered nine spice mixes used in countries across the globe, from China and India, to Saudi Arabia and Eritrea. I was surprised to find among these spice mixes, one that comes from the Mid-Atlantic region, where I live—Baltimore’s Old Bay Seasoning. 

Old Bay is popular in the Chesapeake Bay area as a seasoning on hard-shell crabs, steamed shrimp, chicken, and even fries. What goes into Old Bay Seasoning? It’s a secret recipe. The article on spice mixes lists mustard, celery salt, bay, black pepper, red pepper, clove, mace, allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, paprika and ginger. But as a secret recipe, the quantities of each ingredient are not public. Some restaurants make their own version of what they call Chesapeake Bay seasoning, but IMHO none can compare with original Old Bay. It's now marketed by McCormick, making the mix more available in other parts of the country. I shared a recipe for steamed shrimp using Old Bay.

The article on spices also mentioned the first spice mix I used, Chinese Five Spice Powder, which contains fennel, Sichuan pepper, Chinese cinnamon, clove, and star anise. My brother introduced me to it decades ago, after he took a Chinese cooking class. 

Two more spice mixes from that article that you'll find in recipes on Mystery Lovers' Kitchen are adobo and harissa.

Adobo is a spice mix I’ve just tried in the last year. It’s an all-purpose seasoning that contains garlic, oregano, pepper, and other spices; used in Mexican and other Latin American cuisines. Cleo shared a recipe using adobo for pernil, Slow-Roasted Puerto Rican-Style Pork Shoulder.

Harissa is another increasingly popular spice mix described in the article by Charney. It's popular along Africa's Mediterranean coast and the countries that border the Mediterranean on the east. Made from chili peppers, garlic, coriander, and caraway, harissa can be in dried, powdered or paste form. Leslie Budewitz shared a recipe for harissa grilled chicken.

Do you use any spice mixes? If so, what’s your favorite?

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Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.

Visit my website for easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a free culinary mystery story.

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Cleo Coyle's Pernil: Puerto Rican Style Roasted Pork Shoulder

Cleo Coyle has a partner in 

crime-writing—her husband.

Learn about their books

by clicking here or here.

Cleo Coyle’s Pernil:
Puerto Rican Style
Roasted Pork Shoulder
With the cold nip of fall now in the air, the holidays will soon be upon us; and because it’s wise to test recipes before serving them to guests, this is a great time to introduce you to my husband’s version of a Puerto Rican pernil, a marinated and roasted pork shoulder that's often made in Latin American homes during the holiday season.

Like my fictional character Matteo Allegro, my husband, Marc, is a wonderful cook and he enjoys making this dish throughout the fall and winter because: (a) it’s a mouth-watering delight, (b) it's extremely economical, and (c) it's suprisingly easy to make.

The aromatics of the rub always make me swoon and the finished product looks and tastes amazing. Like a stunning holiday turkey, a roasted pork shoulder will really wow your dinner guests. (They’ll think you worked a lot harder than you did because there’s no basting, just pop it in the oven and turn it a few times.)

Pork shoulder roasted this way is tasty sliced right off the bone. Over the years, we’ve served it with an array of sides: Spanish rice, chili-lime corn, roasted purple Peruvian potatoes, tangy Thai-inspired coleslaw, olive oil-drizzled avocado slices, caramelized organic carrots, and warm, cheesy biscuits. (Watch this Blog for some of these recipes in the near future!) The second day, we like to use our pernil leftovers for soft tacos.

Place the pork slices in a warmed flour or corn tortilla, add fresh salsa (or crisp shredded lettuce), guacamole, a bit of hot sauce, and top it with a dollop of sour cream. Pernil is also used to make Cuban sandwiches—another great serving idea.

And now without further ado (or even adobo!), here is
my husband’s version of the Puerto Rican classic…
just click the link below...

To get my recipe for

Puerto Rican Style

Roasted Pork Shoulder,

click here!

The recipe will appear in PDF format.
You can print it out or save it to your computer.

For more of my recipes or to find out more
about the books in my culinary mystery series,
click this link to my virtual home at:http://www.CoffeehouseMystery.com/

CLEO'S FOODIE
VIDEO CAPTION:

In my ongoing effort to win this year's Oscar, I bring you this week's how-to video clip (below), which shows you what I consider to be the most difficult part of this recipe—wrapping the pork shoulder in plastic. No kidding! If you try to wrap the meat with pre-cut lengths of plastic, you may end up in a cling wrap battle royal. Our trick is (1) put a length of plastic wrap under the meat before you apply the rub; and (2) do not sever the wrap from the roll! When the meat is ready to go, just remove the entire cling wrap roll from its cardboard box and use it to guide the wrap around the meat as many times as you need to. Only after the meat is fully cocooned in plastic should you cut the wrap free of its roll—just use a scissors or clean slash of a sharp knife. (By the way, these handsome hands belong to my husband, Marc!)