Blog | Oak City Spice Blends

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Whether you are trying to recreate a family recipe from the old world, or you are planning an adventure for your tastebuds, Oak City Spice Blends can take your meal from ordinary to extraordinary. Is your recipe missing just that one flavor that you can’t find on the tip of your tongue? Let us help you to perfect your culinary creations to be better than you remember, and more than you could ever imagine.

THE HERITAGE TABLE: PUFF PASTRY BAKLAVA WITH CHAI PIE WALLAH

Baklava has never belonged to one place. It is a dessert shaped by the hands of many cultures—Persian cooks perfuming nuts with rosewater, Greek bakers layering walnuts between sheets of dough as thin as parchment, Ottoman palace chefs stretching phyllo until it covered entire tabletops, and Armenian home kitchens filling their trays with warm spice and walnuts. Every region believed they made the best version, yet together they formed a culinary lineage that spans centuries.

Crisp Edges, Golden Hearts: A Deep and Long History of Fritters Across Time with 12 amazing recipes for you to try

By Oak City Spice Blends There are dishes that travel through centuries not because they are fancy, but because they are true. Honest. Practical. Comforting. They survive empires, borders, migrations, and the changes of taste and fashion because they meet a simple human desire: To transform ordinary ingredients into something extraordinary with a little heat and a little courage. For me, that first revelation happened in the most unexpected place — not in a culinary academy o

Sweet Potato & Carrot Casserole with Chai Pie Wallah

There is a long and comforting history behind root-vegetable casseroles. Long before canned marshmallows and Thanksgiving ovens, sweet carrots and tubers were simmered, mashed, and enriched with eggs, spices, and dairy across countless medieval kitchens. Recipes from the Eastern Mediterranean to Renaissance Europe often blended vegetable purees with warm spices and honey, creating dishes that walked the line between savory and sweet. This modern recipe follows in that traditi

The Heritage Table: A Thanksgiving Whole Chicken Strategy

Why Stuffing a Chicken (Not a Turkey) May Be the Smartest Holiday Choice This Year Featuring Oak City Spice Blends: French Countryside, Eastern Mediterranean, and Raleigh Rub Historical Context Long before turkey became the American holiday symbol, European and Middle Eastern kitchens celebrated feasts with smaller birds : chickens, capons, and partridges. In medieval households, a stuffed chicken was an everyday luxury—roasted over an open hearth, filled with herbs, bread, g

Steak & Two-Bean Chili with Peruvian Sun

Featuring Oak City Spice Blends: Peruvian Sun & Wilde Garlek Servings: 4 Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes Ingredients 1–1.25 lbs beef steak, cut into small chunks 2 tbsp oil 2 tbsp Peruvian Sun seasoning (divided: 1 tbsp for steak, 1 tsp for sour cream, remaining for pot if needed) 1 (15 oz) can red kidney beans, drained 1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes (with juices) ½ cup sour cream Mexican-styl

The Heritage Table: A World of Meatballs

Featuring Oak City Spice Blends: La Spezia, Wilde Garlek, Umami Fire, and Bountiful Bahia A Young Chef at the Cary Market Last night at the Cary night market, a young boy stopped at my Oak City Spice Blends table. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, but he carried himself with that unmistakable spark — the quiet confidence of someone who already knows what he loves. His mother stood beside him, smiling with the kind of pride that needs no words. We started talking ab

Creamy Tuscan Gnocchi Bake

Featuring La Spezia from Oak City Spice Blends Easy. Elegant. Weeknight gourmet. The La Spezia blend adds layered herbaceous depth — basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme — while garlic and onion notes make the sauce taste slow-simmered even though it comes together in minutes. Serves: 4 Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Total: 30 minutes Ingredients 1 lb shelf-stable or refrigerated gnocchi 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped 3–4 cloves garlic, m

Chicken & Rice Soup with Saxon Silk Dumplings

Featuring Oak City Spice Blends: Saxon Silk Description A deeply comforting, richly seasoned chicken and rice soup made extraordinary with tender, cloud-soft dumplings infused with Saxon Silk . This blend’s warm notes of cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, and herbs bring an old-world elegance to a classic Southern-style dish. Perfect for cold nights, healing meals, or anyone in need of a bowl of pure comfort. Ingredients For the Soup 1–1.5 lbs chicken thighs, chopped 4–5 large carrots

Pilaf: The World Traveler of Flavor . . .

Featuring Oak City Spice Blends: Persian Advieh, Eastern Mediterranean, and Bountiful Bahia Pilaf is one of the oldest and most influential rice dishes in the world, a quiet traveler that moved along caravan routes, sailed through imperial kitchens, and adapted itself to the tastes and customs of dozens of cultures. It is a dish shaped by empire, migration, and trade — a culinary manuscript written not on parchment but in grains of rice. Today, we know pilaf as rice that is l

Tokyo Market Curry Powder

A Clean, Historical Return to Japan’s Most Beloved Comfort Flavor Historical Context Few dishes in the modern Japanese kitchen carry as much cultural weight—or international misunderstanding—as Japanese curry. To many, the familiar brown stew is assumed to be a variant of Indian curry. The truth is far more intricate and entirely global. Japanese curry emerged not from Indian home cooking but from Victorian British curry powder, which itself was a stylized, industrial-era int

The Joy of Collaboration

Creating Custom Blends with Oak City Spice Blends Featuring: Kita’s Southern Smoke & Spice One of my favorite things about Oak City Spice Blends is that it has never just been about spices — it’s about stories, people, and the shared creativity that happens when flavors meet imagination. Every collaboration feels like opening a new chapter in a cookbook we’re writing together — one that connects tradition, place, and personality through taste. When I met Chef Kita , I instant

The Heritage Table: The Rise of Yorkshire Pudding

From Medieval Drippings to Modern Comfort - Featuring Oak City Spice Blends: Wilde Garlek & The Sweet One Historical Context The story of Yorkshire pudding begins long before the age of Sunday roasts and pub suppers — in the smoky hearths of medieval England, where thrift and invention defined the kitchen. As early as the 15th century, cooks made dripping pudding , a thin batter of flour, eggs, and milk poured beneath roasting meat to catch every precious drop of fat. The res

The Heritage Table: The Barons Mustard Soup with Saxon Silk Seasoning.

I first encountered mustard soup decades ago at an East Kingdom Twelfth Night event, deep in the bustle of a Society for Creative Anachronism feast hall. I still remember the hum of voices, the glint of pewter, and the air heavy with anticipation as Baron Salaamallah the Corpulent presided over the kitchen like a benevolent alchemist. When the bowls of steaming golden soup emerged—thick and fragrant with mustard and cream—the room seemed to pause. Even then, I knew this wa

Kita’s Southern Smoke & Spice

Created in collaboration with Oak City Spice Blends, Kita’s Southern Smoke & Spice captures the heart of Chef Kita’s cooking — bold, soulful, and unapologetically flavorful. This unique blend draws on Southern comfort traditions and infuses them with a modern, global touch: the smokiness of paprika and sea salt meets the gentle heat of gochugaru, the sweetness of brown sugar, and the umami depth of mushroom powder. Designed for chefs who cook from instinct and heart, this sea