I smoked this garlic myself: three hipster foods that live up to the hype.

As I’ve reluctantly embraced my adulthood, I’ve noticed that my tastes, in terms of food, have changed somewhat. I used to be a lover of sweet food, fried food, fatty food, bad-for-me food. Now, I tend towards healthier stuff – but I go for flavour in a big way.
There are a few foods that have made their way into my everyday pantry in the last couple of years, and they’re the kind of foods that my mum squints at when I take them to her place and make salads. She always loves the salads though, because these guys have awesome flavour payoff. I’m going to go ahead and run with this: my favourite ingredients are a wee bit hipster.

 

Hello, lover.

This is smoked paprika. If you’ve not tried smoked paprika yet then I’m going to hazard a guess that you probably don’t live in Auckland. Here, smoked paprika is king (or, perhaps not that dramatic – but it has been referred to as vegetarian bacon, so it’s kind of a big deal).

Smoked paprika adds this tremendous flavour kick to everything it touches. You only need a little to smoke up a soup or a pot of chili or a dip. Anything, really – one of my current favourite meals is fish tacos, where the fish is cooked in a mixture of cajun spice mix and smoked paprika.

It also does wonders when added to condiments and snacks. In Mexico, a popular street food is grilled corn, smothered with mayo, sprinkled with smoked paprika and then loaded up with grated cheese. I replaced the mayo with sour cream and spent a good week eating pretty much nothing but that this summer, so if you ever wondered what teachers do on holiday, this is it.

You can buy smoked paprika from some supermarkets, but beware. If it’s Gregg’s or Masterfoods, it won’t be as flavourful as this killer Mexican stuff (La Chinata, pictured) that some fruit shops and specialty foods stock. If you’re on the Shore, check out Simply Fresh in Northcote for the best range of Mexican foods around.

 

Next on my list: israeli couscous. I just had a google and found out that in Israel this is called Ptitim. If any Israeli people want to help me out with how to pronounce that, I’ll be thrilled.

Anyway – the trick with this is that it’s not actually couscous like you know it. It’s tiny balls of pasta, and therein lies its deliciousness! You fry it in oil before you cook it (which involves boiling, like pasta, and absorption, like couscous) and that’s your opportunity to load it with delicious spices. You can start with cumin, which all israeli couscous needs, and lots of salt and pepper. Beyond that, try whatever you’re into. A savvy tweeter recently gave me the best recipe for sweet israeli couscous. This stuff has infinite possibilities.

I put israeli couscous in all of my salads now. It is mild-mannered and awesome with dressing and veges, and yes it’s a carb, but I try to think of it as a good carb (shhhh). The texture of it is lovely, especially because you can alter it depending on how long you cook it.

You can buy israeli couscous from your supermarket bulk foods section. If you’re lucky, you can also find it in plastic cartons by a brand called La Mamma. That stuff is my favourite kind, especially as you can get it in tri-colour! My local New World used to stock that but stopped, and then my local fruit shop also stopped stocking it, so now I buy the suboptimal couscous from the bulk bins at Pak ‘n Save. Sigh.

 

Finally, I couldn’t write this post without talking about hot smoked salmon. This is one of those funny ones that was kind of popular in days gone by, and it’s slowly coming back into fashion.

I discovered this stuff a few years back and have been loyal to it ever since. If, like me, you like the flavour of cold smoked salmon (the regular shaved stuff you buy) but dislike the texture, this is for you. The texture of hot smoked salmon is essentially like regular cooked fish: flaky and delicious.

I attended a staff breakfast once (some planning meetings are this amazing, others not so much) where we had a big slab of hot smoked salmon and we just … ate it. That was pretty full on and I kind of felt like I had gotten gout in one sitting. Delicious, though.

The ways I tend to use hot smoked salmon are more restrained. I crumble it over my salads to increase protein and flavour (because don’t be fooled! Despite this being a relatively healthy ingredient to keep around, it’s insanely over the top flavourful). I also do an amazing thing where I mash it up with cream cheese and a ton of black pepper, and eat it as a dip (if you’re doing that, go for a ratio of 1 part salmon to 2 parts cream cheese, and maybe add a squeeze of lemon juice too).

You can buy hot smoked salmon from the supermarket – it’s right next to the cold smoked salmon. Don’t stress about the price, because it works out roughly the same per 100g. You can also smoke it yourself (have a google for some instructions), and this is especially easy if you have a Weber or Weber-style barbecue. A great thing about hot smoked salmon – at least the vacuum packed supermarket version – is that it lasts weeks unopened. I often pick up two or three fillets if I find them on a good special.

 

So there we go – my favourite food are kind of hipstery (if I’ve not convinced you, then let it be known that I also make my own bagels and cream cheese). I can’t help it, though. Big flavours make for good meals. Someone said that if you cook with high quality ingredients, you’ll only have to do half the work, and that’s a hundred percent true.

Do you have a favourite hipster food? Are you on the smoked paprika train? What big flavours do you use to amp up your cooking?