La Boîte, the spice boutique in Hell’s Kitchen, delivers a free online newsletter with news about their products and creative recipes. A recent one for masala cheese toast by Kanchan Koya, a spice expert with a doctorate in molecular biology, evokes an after school snack she once enjoyed. It essentially is a grilled cheese sandwich: She mixes two cups of shredded Cheddar (vegan cheese is an option) with a minced shallot, a quarter cup of chopped cilantro, a bit of minced serrano chile, a half teaspoon of fine sea salt and a tablespoon of La Boîte’s masala blend. The mixture is piled on whole grain bread, covered with another slice and fried, pressed down in butter. The recipe serves four, but that depends on the dimensions of your bread. Like all of La Boîte’s recipes it calls for the company’s own spice mix, in this case Everyday Masala, but another masala would do.
La Boîte Everyday Masala, laboiteny.com.
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