If you do a quick search online for how to make chicken stock/broth/bone broth, you”ll see that there are endless tips and tricks, recipes, and recipes that claim to be the “best.” What very few of them will do is share that, well, there’s really no “best” bone broth recipe. Is it really necessary to add vinegar to your bone broth process to further “pull” out the nutrients from the bone marrow into your stock? Do you need to do a mirepoix (combination of chopped carrots, onions, and celery) to make the most flavorful stock base? Are onions a “must” in any chicken stock? The answer to all the above is “no,” and “it depends.” All global cultures have their version of bone broth/stock, and every version brings a different type of “delicious” to their culture’s food. When I was recently reading about the popular Thai soup tom kha gai or Thai chicken galangal coconut soup, Hot Thai Kitchen warned to absolutely NOT use chicken stock from a can/carton from your average Western grocery store because it would not have the right flavors for a Thai soup. Instead, she suggests making your own very simply with a few ingredients. A lot of people would be confused by what she means. What she’s saying is that the mirepoix mentioned above, which is usually considered key in ideal western chicken stocks, would not work here, nor would flavorings like oregano, thyme, rosemary, or the related that are oftentimes added to western stocks. Typical Asian-based stocks would be nothing more than the chicken itself, occasionally garlic and ginger, sometimes some onion, daikon, cilantro and scallion stems, and that’s it!

I made my Asian-based stock just like this today, with chicken bones, some chicken drumsticks, slices of ginger, a few smashed cloves of garlic, some frozen cilantro and scallion stems, daikon, onion, and peppercorns. And it turned out the way it always turns out: rich, golden, full of collagen, and fragrant. I’m planning to use it for tom kha gai, maybe some future tom yum goong, and likely a third Chinese or Thai soup. Stock is the basis of all good cooking, and in this house, we definitely lean Asian with our flavors.

While still on my Persian cooking kick, I decided to also make some Persian style lentils, also known as adasi (lentils) stew. I soaked some brown lentils overnight, chopped up onions and garlic, and then simply used turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon to spice the lentils and simmered them for about 45 minutes. And when I seasoned and did a taste test, I just thought… wow. This is so warm and hearty tasting, and there’s no animal product in it at all. And though turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon are all spices that cross both Persian and Indian cultures, the resulting flavor is so, so different than any Indian dal you would ever eat, home cooked or at a restaurant. I was texting this with my Persian friend, who also agreed how interesting it was, while also nothing that at one time, they are all one empire. Then, they broke off and developed their own techniques and ways of cooking that are slightly the same, yet different.

I occasionally still meet people who are anti beans, who think beans are gross, give you gas, and should be avoided. I really think that if they had a lentil stew like this Persian version that they would be hard pressed to say it was revolting.

Given that we are now officially in spring, the Persian New Year, aka, Nowruz, has also come. At my last company, I made a Persian friend who was on my team, who also loved food. We spent a lot of time talking about food, different cultural traditions, and the first time we met, the two of us were actually charged with preparing food for two days for my team’s offsite at a semi-remote house in Northern California. The more she talked about Persian food, the more I started reading about it and got into it. And so I started experimenting more with Persian dishes like Persian lentils, rice, chicken and fish. I was amazed at how much saffron can be used in Persian cooking, as I’d never really known what to do with saffron before Persian or Indian cooking. I’d bought a number of small bottles of it from Costco, during travels in India, and had been gifted them by Chris’s mom. But given that saffron is actually more expensive by weight than diamonds, I always used it sparingly.

This week, in light of Nowruz, I made Persian sabzi polo, or Persian herbed rice with tahdig, or crispy bottomed rice, as well as slow-cooked salmon with herbs and spices. I had bought a massive amount of cilantro, parsley, dill, and scallions just for these two dishes. And as Chris watched me chop up a bunch of herbs, he looks at all the greens across the kitchen counter and goes, “We can’t eat herbs!” He meant we couldn’t *just* eat herbs for dinner, but because he said that sentence so slowly and didn’t say much after that, he made it sound like herbs were inedible. I reminded him how lucky he is to have such a varied diet with all my creative cooking even when he randomly forgets that yes, herbs actually are edible, to which he responded, “I give you a varied diet by taking you all over the freaking world!” Talk about men who don’t seem to take feedback well…