Because my partner is an artist and a jeweler, I have become interested in gemstones and minerals. To that end I finally bought a book on the subject, a new book by DK, the maker of the world's best picture encyclopedias. As I was reading through the metamorphic rock section I read about marble and how it comes to be. Also, I'm very impressionable. So, naturally I had to have a white marble mortar & pestle.
I've only just begun to play around – after seasoning it. The other day I was going to cook pork chops, so I put kosher salt and peppercorns in the mortar and ground them up, then added some cumin seeds. After that was all ground up I added some garlic cloves. Once I got all of that mushed together I added a bit of vinegar and some cooking oil to hold it together.
Most of the ingredients
The smell was intoxicating. Even just the pepper was making me salivate (and not sneeze!), then when I added the cumin and garlic it was all I could do to not lick the stuff off of the pestle. Who knew that doing spices this way could be so much more aromatic?
I spread this onto the pork chops and let them sit in the fridge for a couple of hours before cooking them. It was amazing. I mean, it was going to be heavenly anyway because it was a pork chop, but the pepper was alive in my mouth and the garlic and cumin just hit the spot. I will definitely have to explore more spices. I'm sure some jalapeños will kick it up a notch. This little gadget really made a difference. Who knew? And, it was SO much fun to do it.
There, now you need a mortar & pestle as well. Or, you need to break out the molcajete that has been sitting on your shelf as decoration. Do it. Have fun. Cook. Let me know how it turns out in the comment section below.
And thank you for reading.