If you look into my recipe history or you open up my spice drawer, you will notice an obvious trend: Middle Eastern and Asian spices stacked to the brim.
In the fall when temperatures dip into the 30s and 40s here, these spices are an obvious choice. They warm you up from the inside-out and take the chill away. You may find this equally necessary if you, like me, live in a house where the average indoor temperature might reach 65 degrees; 68 degrees if your perpetually overheating husband isn’t home.
Beyond keeping the chill away, these spices have more to offer. They’re incredibly healthy, and they can add such a beautiful punch of flavor to your dish that it may also help reduce your salt intake.
Let me explain:
We season our food with salt because salt brings out the natural flavors of any food – including chocolate. If our food lacks taste, we tend to use more salt to conjure out some of that hidden flavor . Too much salt in your diet can lead to health issues, including dehydration, water retention (Hello, cankles!), digestive and hormone issues, or worse -high blood pressure. Our daily recommended value for salt intake is 2,000 mg, which sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? I thought so, until I figured out how many teaspoons that was (1) and then I poured it into my palm. If you haven’t done this yet, try it. Yikes. It was eye-opening for me.
Getting back to the point. Certain spices may help you reduce salt intake because they are so flavorful on their own that they don’t require added salt to make them sing. These spices happen to be many Middle Eastern and Asian spices, such as cinnamon, ginger, tumeric, cumin, anise – among others.
So flavor is one excuse for loading up your spice cabinet with exotic spices. Another excuse to brave your way into the exotic spices in because each has additional health benefits you may not realize yet. Or, maybe you do, but the reminder is nice. To give you an idea, I’ve created a list for you below with a little help from WebMD and The George Mateljan Foundation.
Common Middle Eastern/Asian Spices and Their Health Benefits:
- Cinnamon: Your daily value % is about 2 teaspoons and its health benefits include its ability to (a) reduce inflammation; (b) act as a preservative with anti-microbial characteristics; (c) control blood sugar; (d) boost brain function; and (e) help protect your colon and your heart from disease.
- Cumin: Like cinnamon, your recommended daily value of cumin is 2 teaspoons. The spice is loaded with iron (16% of your DV) which helps boost your immune system and provide you with energy. Cumin is also good for your digestion, easy on your GI tract, and may have a hand in cancer prevention.
- Tumeric: It’s the main ingredient in curry (which is why I like it), but it’s also known to be a powerhouse with its anti-inflammatory abilities (which is why I love it). Basically, any inflamed, achy joint/muscle ailments can be eased with a (regular) dosage of tumeric, and like cumin, it’s also believed to play a role in cancer prevention. You can eat up to 2 teaspoons of tumeric a day.
- Ginger: Turns out your momma didn’t give you ginger ale when you had the stomach bug because she loved you. Well, maybe she did love you. But, as it turns out, this “old wives tale” of giving ginger to a kid with a belly ache is actually not an old wives tale at all. It’s true; it helps. Ginger, which you can gobble up to 1 tablespoon a day, is an effective way to settle your stomach. Pregnant and have morning sickness? Maybe you can’t take
promethazine, but you can take ginger. Also, if you’ve got a real queasy hangover (not that you would ever do anything like that), maybe instead of the greasy burger remedy, you can reach for some ginger in your morning tea. Oh, and did I mention that ginger ALSO has cancer (colorectal) prevention characteristics in it?
- Paprika: If you didn’t know already, paprika comes from a chili pepper that’s been ground up into a powder. I prefer sun-dried, smoked paprika as it has wonderful flavor, but regular ol’ paprika is good, too. Flavor aside, 1 tablespoon of this gem stimulates your metabolism (yay!), can improve your circulation and can normalize your blood pressure. It’s also antimicrobial and it has more vitamin C than tomatoes. Woohoo!!
- Saffron: I’ll admit that I don’t use this spice so often because it’s crazy expensive. But! Just because I don’t use it often doesn’t mean it’s not super healthy for you. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record here, but saffron has some anti-cancer properties in it and has shown to stop the growth of cancer cells. It also boosts memory and treats depression without side-effects.
- Star Anise: The mother of all spices… the star anise. Ok, it tastes like black licorice a little. So what? It’s health benefits should outweigh the taste – if even just a little bit. I hate black licorice, but I LOVE star anise… when it’s combined with any of the other spices listed. I’m glad for that, because star anise improves digestion, it’s got anti-inflammatory properties as well as antimicrobial characteristics and antioxidants that fight free radicals. But wait, there’s more! Apparently, star anise is also good for women’s health (who knew?!) because it’s shown to improve a mother’s immune system during pregnancy and lactation period. Still not done. Star anise also can help make your stomach feel better or help you sleep at night due to a little bit of a sedative property in it. Phew. That’s a lot of good packed into that black licoricey little star, isn’t it?
- Cloves: Hello, manganese!! Remember manganese? That bone-builder mineral you should be treating your body to – especially if you’re female? Lucky for you, cloves have 127% of your daily recommended value of manganese. 2 teaspoons a day of cloves and VOILA! You’ve got yourself the best display of manganese in any one food. Oh, and it also has some anti-inflammatory characters in there, as well as a healthy dose of vitamin K.
- Cardamom: I’m going to turn this one over to you. Based on what you’ve read so far, if you could choose three things cardamom does for you what would you choose? If you guessed: prevent cancer (skin), stop inflammation, and stunt cancer growth – you win!! I don’t recommend eating the pods, though you can, I suppose. If you crack open the shell and use the seeds inside, you’re in for a treat!
Have I convinced you to go out and load up your cart with Middle Eastern and Asian spices? Ok. If you’re worried about “never being able to use them again” consider this: Bring your memory back to the oven baked chicken recipe… you can sprinkle any and all of these spices onto your chicken before baking and you’ve instantly got a more flavorful chicken breast. I do that all the time – no more boring chicken, AND it was super easy to make. A double-win.
Still not convinced? Then I offer you this recipe: my Savory Moroccan Stuffed Peppers.
You can easily make this meatless by taking out the chicken, or you can keep the chicken in if you’ve got a protein glutton at your house too.
There are two ways to prepare this dish: Easy and Easier. To make it easier, don’t parboil the peppers and use a rice cooker to make your quinoa (What? No rice cooker? WHY!! Pleasegooutandbuyoneimmediately!). Some people stick their nose up at my suggestion to not parboil the peppers, but I’ve done that before to save time and I actually prefer it. By not parboiling, your peppers remain a little crunchy and with the creaminess of the beans the added crunch is sort of nice. It’s a matter of preference, so do what you please in that regard.
Savory Moroccan Stuffed Peppers
Serves: 6
Level: Pretty easy
INGREDIENTS:
- 6 bell peppers (use different colors to wow the crowd)
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. curry
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. tumeric
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. cardomom
- 1/4 tsp. black pepper
- 1 can garbanzo beans, drained
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 c. quinoa*, cooked (in your brand new, amazing rice cooker -woot!)
- 2 Tbsp. golden raisins
- 1/4 c. pine nuts
- 3 chicken breast, cooked and shredded
- salt to taste
*Just a quick note about cooking quinoa. The box will tell you to throw water in the pot and cook quinoa for 20+ minutes or until done, stirring occasionally. Do me a favor. No. Do YOURSELF a favor. Replace the water with chicken broth, or use water and a half-spoonful of Better Than Bouillon. Cook the quinoa otherwise as instructed.
DIRECTIONS
Cook quinoa and chicken as instructed. As both are cooking, either cut tops off peppers or cut peppers in half and seed them. Boil water in a large pot; add peppers to boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Remove from water and cool. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine all the spices in a small bowl. Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a sauce pan. Add onions, shallots, spices and pine nuts. Stir constantly for about three minutes, or until onions are translucent. Stir in the beans and raisins until evenly coated. Turn off heat, add chicken and quinoa. Set aside to cool until you’re able to handle it.
If you cut peppers in half, place face-up on a baking sheet; if you cut the tops off the peppers, slice a little off the bottom to help them stand up on their own, then place them in a shallow baking dish. Fill peppers with mixture from stove-top. Cook in the oven until the top begins to brown, 15-20 minutes. Serve.
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