chewy nubbins- couldn't resist!

Photo: Yunhee Kim; Styling: Karen Shinto Via Sunset mag

I love me some Sunset magazine. It's supposed to draw people to the West, but for those of us who already live here, it's just one big affirming love fest. And when it comes to the deliciousness of the flavors and cooking styles out here, it can pretty much work me up into a menu-planning frenzy. (Well, frenzy isn't the right word. I'm too low blood-pressure for that. Menu-planning rumpus? Better.)

Enter their issue featuring spices of the world and working them into your cooking. I was fascinated by the possibilities I hadn't previously considered, to dress up dishes both savory and sweet with spice blends instead of measuring out pinches of this and that. Don't get me wrong- I'm a fan of garam masala, we shake the Spike liberally over popcorn and pasta, and we've got at least two or three savory dry spice rubs. But somehow I'd skipped over Chinese five spice, French four spice, zaatar, and Bengali five spice (panch phoron). Wha-? How?!

But the time for wha how was over and the time for cooking it up was now. They said "chewy nubbins" in the description of the Bengali Five Spice Roasted Chicken and Vegetables and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I left out the veggies they suggest (bell peppers and potatoes) because my kids are anti-potato somehow (except for french fries). They're pro-broccoli though, so we did that on the side. I threw in sesame seeds because I thought they'd make the chewy nubbins even nubbier. But other than that, pretty much followed the recipe.

Heaven. Heaven! The hot oven does the trick to make the yogurt sauce turn sublime. I thought this was easy to do as a naptime cooking-- or, since I no longer have tiny babies napping in this house while I work, I think of it as multi-tasking cooking (thank you for teaching me Words to Eat By!). Took a few minutes to fry the spices, let them sit. Took another moment later to marinate the meat, and then let it sit again. Preheated the oven while I did some work, threw it in and it was good to go.

And yes-- I savored all the brown bits and chewy nubbins. Results as advertised. So good!