Inspiration from the West Coast’s Hottest Kitchens

LA chefs Josiah Citrin, Joachim Splichal, Mark Peel, Wolfgang Puck, Susan Feniger and Karen Hatfield shared their cooking secrets during a recent roundtable.

We took a break from eating foods prepared by LA’s top chefs to listen to some of the culinary masters talk shop during a recent gathering at the downtown arts center Redcat. During the roundtable, sponsored by dineLA, Josiah Citrin, Joachim Splichal, Mark Peel, Wolfgang Puck, Susan Feniger and Karen Hatfield answered questions about their “secret weapons” (“morels and asparagus,” according to Citrin), mentors ( “I learned as much from the bad ones who teach you what not to do,” says Puck) and their favorite at-home kitchen appliances (Peel’s is the pressure cooker).

The question that really inspired us was “What do you like to cook at home?” Our favorite response was Feniger’s. Yes, she agreed with all of the other chefs about the pleasures of cooking vegetables freshly picked from one’s backyard; her own garden-to-table pleasures include a vodka and soda with a squeeze of a just-picked Meyer lemon, steamed artichokes and a salad of homegrown tomatoes and avocados with a splash of good olive oil. But since we have neither a backyard nor a backyard garden as urban dwellers, we were also cheered by Feniger’s proclamation that spending time in India had taught her that you can also make “an absolutely delicious meal with very little product: just great basmati rice and some kind of dal.” The secret to getting this simple dish right? “Salt, acid and tasting,” Feniger says.

Later we caught up with Feniger to ask her about her favorite recipe for dal, the deceptively simply legume dish. (You might know Feniger best as one half, with Mary Sue Miliken, of Too Hot Tamales, the duo behind the Food Network series and popular cookbook.) “I like a red lentil or split dal,” she says, “made with lots of onion and garlic and finished with clarified butter, black mustard seeds and curry, or sweet neem leaves, which you can find in a well-stocked Indian market.” She suggested we consult her favorite Indian cookbook Neelam Batra’s 1,000 Indian Recipes (Wiley, 2002). In the meantime, we’ll be experimenting with these five dal recipes from one of our favorite cookbook authors, the New York Times “Minimalist” chef Mark Bittman.

Do you have a favorite Indian recipe? Share it with us!