After venturing to Syracuse last week to procure curry leaves, mangoes and other delights, I made brunch for some friends this morning with an Indian theme. I've mentioned before that one of my favorite brunch dishes is eggs made with some curry leaves, onions, ginger and a Thai chile. I supplemented that with a richly spiced potato curry in tomato sauce and some fresh pineapple (thanks, Sahara!).I believe brunch to be incomplete without baked goods, however, so I wanted to make an appropriate scone. I decided to start with Joanne Chang's fabulous recipe for lemon-ginger scones, as both of these are plausibly Indian flavors. Plus, it's a great recipe into which she squeezes fresh lemon zest, fresh ginger, dried ginger and candied ginger. It's topped with a sweet lemon glaze made with just fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar.
To make them more 'Indian,' I added a few (1/2 tsp or so) cumin seeds to the batter. These were very subtle, though, so I wanted to add more punch. To do that, I added some ground cumin (1/2 tsp) and a bit of ground cayenne (1/4 tsp) to the glaze, mixing the spices with the sugar before adding the lemon juice. The result was a powerfully tasty glaze when eaten on its own, but gave a nice subtle accent to the scones when spread thinly on top. A win, I think. And friends seemed to agree.
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