A new spice sensation in the Root Simple kitchen

squashseeds

Last night, while looking for something to spice up some roasted pumpkin seeds, I made a happy discovery:

Korean red pepper flakes + ground sumac (plus lots of salt) = delicious!

These two geographically unrelated spices share shelf space in our cupboard, but I’ve never thought about combining them before, perhaps because they come from different food families, so to speak. So many wasted years! Now they’re going on nuts, seeds, popcorn…maybe as a fish crust. Oh, the things we shall do!

Gochugaru, Korean red pepper powder (also referred to as red chile flakes), is a deep red, coarse powder or flake. Its flavor is spicy, smokey and a little bit sweet. It’s easy to fall in love with this stuff all on it’s own. Gochugaru is the primary spice in kimchi and it’s also the primary flavor in our favorite tofu dish.  You can find it in Asian markets which stock Korean items. Look for it to be taking up a good section of an aisle, and being offered in many sizes–all the way up to big, pillowcase bags of the stuff. No other spice gets this much attention! If you can’t find it, just as for kimchi spice.

Sumac is a a tart, lemony spice you can find in Middle Eastern markets, also a deep red color. It’s great on salads (it’s always on fattoush, for instance) and fish, and both tasty and attractive when sprinkled over hummus and other dip-like things. I often use it to add lemon flavor to food when I have no lemons.  And yes, while I don’t know exactly what kind of sumac is harvested for commercial spice production, it is related to our wild sumacs–it’s from the Rhus genus. So if you want to be all Grizzly Adams about your hummus, you  could forage edible sumac berries and grind them to make your own spice– just be very careful with your identifications.

The combination of the two at about a 50/50 blend makes something warmly spicy with a little lemon kick. It’s snacking gold!

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7 Comments

  1. I’ve read about people harvesting the “horns” of Staghorn sumac – supposedly lemon-flavoured, so maybe the same/similar thing to your spice? Not sure the type you have there, but here in the desert of WA it’s common…and gorgeous right now! Blazing red with the beautiful “horns.”

  2. One of my new favorite snacks is garbanzo beans fried/toasted in a bit of olive oil then tossed in a ton of cumin and sumac and just a smidge of salt. Yum!

    • I am trying to find out how to make those dried garbanzo beans that you get in Armenian markets. They eat them with other dried fruit and nuts as a snack food. Is this what you are referring to? Do they need to be cooked first?

    • Maybe. I’ve had them a couple of times in restaurants (they’ve been popping up on the “happy hour” menus), and I copied it at home. I can’t say I’ve seen them at stores, but then I wasn’t looking for them.

  3. I harvested staghorn sumac for the first time this summer here in southern PA. After removing the berries from the stems, my fingers were slightly sticky and tasted intensely sour when I licked them. We also steeped several whole “horns” in a gallon of water to make temperate climate lemonade. I’m going to try making sumac meringue pie. I’m so excited about a locally available source for sour! One of my biggest fears about the poo hitting the fan was a disruption in the lemon supply. 🙂

  4. Never mind the spices. I have tried for years to roast standard pumpkin seeds with their husks on and totally failed. All I get is bits of hot wood. I grow Austrian Oilseed pumpkin to get their hullless green seeds but we have heaps of other pumpkins that also produce seeds that we have not been able to use.

    Others have also tried in our kitchen to no avail. What type of pumpkin seeds are you using, how are you roasting them and how the hell do you get the woody bit off them?

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