Case #8: A TWISTED Poppy Seed Couronne

 

Poppyseed Couronne surrounded by chocolate coins.

As Sherlock Holmes’s landlady, one does get to see a good deal of the seamier side of life. “The Man with the Twisted Lip” was a good example of that. Imagine Mr. Neville St. Clair making such a good income begging on the streets and his wife knowing nothing about it! Now, I believe that the vast majority of people who have to get their money this way are truly in extremis, so I feel a little put out about Mr. St. Clair’s play acting. Fortunately, Mr. Holmes put an end to all that.

Neville St. Clair's theatrical skills turned him into a veritable king among panhandlers, so his recipe will be a crown, or in the baking term borrowed from French, a Couronne. Since much of the action of the story takes place in an opium den, we’ll give this Couronne a poppy seed filling. Adding even more poppy seeds to the dough and a drizzle icing makes for a spectacularly-speckled sweet bread ideal for a coffee break.

Note: Mrs. Hudson, like so many other home bakers, is a devotee of the show “The Great British Bake-off.” This recipe takes its basic dough and method from Paul Hollywood’s famous Apricot Couronne. 

Dough

250 g (1.5 rounded cups) bread flour

1 Tbsp. poppy seeds

5 g (1 tsp.) salt 

7 g  (2 ¼ tsp.) dry yeast

105 g (scant ½ cup) milk, slightly warm

50 g (3 2⁄3 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, softened and cut into smallish pieces

Filling

About 1½ cups poppy seed filling, canned or homemade. I used canned filling and added 1/2 cup of finely chopped walnuts to cut the sweetness.

Glaze

Small amount of heated citrus marmalade or apple jelly

Icing

120 g (1 cup) powdered sugar

1 tsp poppy seeds

1 tsp lemon extract

Enough milk to create a drizzling consistency. 

Method

Prepare the dough. Mix flour, salt and poppy seeds in mixer bowl. In a separate small bowl, add yeast to warm milk. Let it activate, then add to dry ingredients. Mix in a mixer equipped with a dough hook for about 4 minutes, then adding the butter bit by bit, mix for another 6 minutes or so until you have a smooth, elastic dough. (Alternatively, knead by hand.)

Form the dough into a ball, cover and let rise for about an hour. Prepare the filling.

After the first rise, roll the dough out into a rectangle, like this:

Spread filling over the dough, leaving the edges uncovered.

Roll the rectangle up along the long edge, then cut the resulting roll in half lengthwise. 

Braid and twist, keeping the cut side showing the stripes of filling right side up.

Twist ends together and form into a crown. Let rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes until cooked through and golden. Set on a cooling rack and brush with glaze while hot.

When the Couronne is fully cooled, drizzle with the icing and serve.

Case #7: Five Orange Pipless Cake

Many strange stories have been recounted in the sitting room at 221B Baker Street. Few are stranger than the one brought by John Openshaw, who told of the morning his uncle received an envelope in the mail containing nothing but five dried orange seeds. Upon opening the envelope and seeing its mundane contents, Openshaw's uncle exclaimed, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’ and then quickly retired from the room stating that death had come upon him.

Imagine being that put out by the sight of a few orange pips! Surely there's no harm in such a thing. Indeed, some of the nicest people I know are Pips. 

Dear Reader, I do hope that you are not a member of a murderous secret society. However, it may be that you need orange seeds one day for some lawful and virtuous purpose. In such a case, I'm sure you wouldn't want to waste the fruit just to get at the seeds. Here, therefore, is a cake that uses every part of the orange except the pips. 

This cake uses five oranges five ways: the flesh is cut into juicy segments, the rind is candied for peel and zested to flavour cake batter and cream, the juice is used to make syrup, and the whole fruit is cooked for marmalade. Each component is prepared separately, and then the cake is assembled.

You can almost any kind of orange for this cake. Blood oranges would be cool, but Mrs. Hudson didn't think of that until she was halfway through the recipe. You'll want to use organic oranges, because you'll be eating the peel, and it's best to avoid the kind that have a very thick skin.

You will need 5 oranges, 3 cups sugar, divided as below, 1 pint of heavy cream and any ingredients needed to make the two layer sponge cake recipe of your choice.

The Recipe

Candied Orange Peel and Syrup for Cake

 

Wash an orange. Slice off the top and bottom and score the peel in 4 sections so that it comes easily away from the fruit. Put the fruit part aside to use in syrup. Cut into strips or shapes. Boil peels for 15 minutes to soften them and get some of the bitterness out. Drain. Add 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar to the pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 45 minutes. The white pith should turn translucent and the peel should be fairly soft.

Remove peels from syrup and dry on drying rack until sticky. You can then roll some or all of  them in granulated sugar for sparkle and crunch. Set aside. They'll keep for a while in an airtight container.

Do not discard the syrup in the pot. It should be quite thick now. Take the inside of the orange that you put aside when cutting the peels and use some of the juice from it to thin the syrup to a medium thickness. Set aside.

Orange Marmalade

Wash an orange and slice it thinly into whole rings. Put in a pot with 1.5 cups water and 1 cup sugar. Boil for about 30 minutes. The white orange rind should start to turn translucent. Take it off the heat and let it cool completely. Sprinkle a teaspoon of pectin or melatin into the pot and stir (if the liquid has mostly boiled off you can add a little more water or orange juice), then put back on the boil for about 10 minutes. Refrigerate. It should set loosely. Note that this kind of marmalade will only keep a day or two. It doesn't last like the standard jarred kind. Set aside.

Orange Supremes 

Supremes is a fancy name for citrus segments that have the skin and pith removed. Cut around an orange removing both the peel and the skin of the orange to reveal the bare fruit. Then cut each segment away from the rest of the skin. Break into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

Cake

We've used three oranges so far. Zest the fourth. Prepare a two layer vanilla sponge cake using any recipe you like, adding the zest to it. If your recipe calls for water or milk, replace all or some of the liquid with juice from this orange.

Whipped Cream

One orange left. Zest it finely and add this to a pint of heavy cream. Eat the rest of the orange. You've earned it. Whip cream and zest to stiff peak stage.

Assembly 

Gather all the components—cakes, whipped cream, orange supremes, marmalade slices and candied peel.

Put one layer of the cake on a cake board or serving plate. Brush some of the syrup over it. You can poke a few wholes in the cake with a fork first so that it soaks in more, but don't add so much syrup that it gets soggy.

Spread whipped cream over the top and sprinkle orange supremes liberally over the cream.

Add second layer of cake. Cover it with whipped cream. Arrange some of the marmalade circles on top. Pipe the remaining whipped cream in swirls around the marmalade center and stick some of the candied peel into the swirls. 

See first photo for the completed cake. This is just one suggestion for a decorative top. You may come up with something better! 

Case #6: Black Jack of Ballarat’s On-the-Lam Lamingtons

 

Cooee! Mrs. Hudson is back in the kitchen after a brief hiatus and the next adventure up is The Boscombe Valley Mystery. It's a good story about a couple of star-crossed lovers and a wicked blackmailer, but for me, it's the Australian element that really stands out. I’d love to visit that country some day. It looks so beautiful, and I’ve heard it’s calmed down quite a bit since John Turner AKA Black Jack of Ballarat was robbing gold convoys in the early '60's. 

It seems fitting that this story’s recipe be a tribute to Australia. It will be based on a famous Aussie treat called the Lamington and named for Jack, who was "on the lam" from justice.

The classic Lamington is a square of vanilla cake dipped in chocolate, rolled in coconut and sometimes layered with berry jam and/or cream. From this basic format, countless variations are possible. What to do for a Boscombe Valley variation? For one thing we'll use passion fruit jam to represent the young lovers. It's a bit runny, so we'll mix it with pineapple jam. This tropical mix will go nicely with the coconut and dark chocolate. 

The Lamingtons will be decorated to look like a clue from the story. It was quite a break for Mr. Holmes when he found that discarded cigar in the moss, so the coconut will be tinted a mossy green and topped with a small cookie cigar.

Ingredients: 

1 prepared sponge cake or pound cake

Passion fruit and pineapple jam 

Chocolate for dipping 

Fine coconut flakes tinted green 

Cookie “cigars” (see below)

Prepare the decorations.

Tint coconut flakes with food colouring. Fine cut flakes more closely resemble moss and are typically used on traditional lamingtons, but you can use larger ones if you prefer.

Next we need the discarded cigar stump. Mrs. Hudson is kept quite busy running 221 Baker Street, so she doesn’t have a lot of time to work on her trifling monograph “140 snack foods that can be made to resemble tiny tobacco products.” However, she did pop over to a nearby Asian market to see what she could find. We have three candidates in the category of biscuits that could pass as cigars: Pepero (Lotte), Pocky (Glico), and Roly Poly (Haitai). Here's what they looked like when cut, complete with the characteristic crumbs or “ash” they produce.

You can use one of these options, another type, or roll your own. Cut as many cigars as you’ll need from the biscuit of your choice, then set them aside with the coconut moss while you prepare the Lamingtons. 

Cut your cake into four equal pieces. Spread jam on two sides and then sandwich them together with the two other pieces. Cut the cake sandwiches into small rectangles or squares. 

Now to dip the little sandwiches in chocolate. First set up your work area. Mrs. Hudson has these fancy dipping tools from a chocolate class she was taking, but a regular fork will work, too. You could also spread the melted chocolate on with a knife.

Easy microwave-tempered chocolate: cut your chocolate up into small pieces or use chips. Put the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for about 20 seconds at a time, watching carefully to see when about 3/4 of the pieces have melted. Some whole pieces should remain. Remove from the microwave, stir until the rest of the pieces melt and use immediately.

Dip the cakes. The chocolate tends to get less smooth as you go on because each piece dipped will leave a few crumbs behind. They don’t have to look perfect, though, because the coconut will hide any uneven bits. 

If you wait for the chocolate to set a bit before rolling it in the coconut, it will be easier to handle. Don’t let it firm up too much, though. It has to remain a little melted for the coconut to stick.

Add the cigars. The picture below shows a lamington adorned with one of each type. To my mind the Roly Poly biscuits looked the most like "an Indian cigar, of the variety which are rolled in Rotterdam," so I used them to finish the rest of the batch.

Serve them on your favourite plate, in the fine company of some Australians, if at all possible.

Case #5: He’s-No-Angel Case of Identity Cupcakes

 

Mrs. Hudson does not normally have the temerity to disagree with Mr. Holmes about his cases. I’m sure I know my place as his landlady. However, the conclusion of A Case of Identity didn’t sit right with me. What, not tell a woman that her lover is really her stepfather trying to cheat her out of her money? How awful! Mr. Holmes made some excuse about a woman’s “delusions” as if that made it alright. We women are romantic creatures, it’s true, but when faced with the truth I'd say we can accept it as well as any man and better than some.

Well, nothing left to do but bake about it now. This is not a fancy recipe, but you can have fun with it by playing a little game with your guests.

The ironic alias "Hosmer Angel" makes me think of Angel Food Cake, and since Mr. James Windibank turned out to be a devil in disguise, we should have Devil's Food Cake, too. For this recipe, you need to bake a batch of each in opaque cupcake liners and frost them so that the two varieties look identical. Anyone selecting one of these cupcakes will get a surprise flavour--a much nicer surprise than finding out that your soft-spoken suitor is your mother's husband! 

When I served these cupcakes upstairs at 221B, Mr. Holmes acted like distinguishing between the two varieties was no mystery to him. So typical of his conceit. Then, when he chose an angel food cupcake, he had to pretend to be delighted with it, even though I happen to know he's devoted to chocolate. 

It's not a lot towards getting Miss Sutherland a bit of her own back, but it's something.

The Cupcakes

Make a batch of angel food cupcakes and devil's food cupcakes. You can either bake them from scratch using a standard recipes, or take advantage of modern convenience foods, like Mrs. Beeton's line of cake mixes. 

Mrs. Hudson decided to make it easy on herself this time.

It's important to use opaque liners for the cupcakes so that the different colours of the cake batter don't show through. Metallic liners are ideal for this, or use any dark shade of paper liner. In the first photo you can see that I also added a second liner at the end, which gave a pretty, layered effect.

The cupcakes prior to the final frosting disguise

The Frosting

The cupcakes are frosted with a buttercream frosting tinted purple in an homage to the lovely dress Miss Sutherland wore to the Gasfitters' Ball. 

Frosting ingredients 

1 cup Butter 

4 cups Icing Sugar

3 tbsp Cream

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Pinch of salt

Food colouring 

Mix together the butter and icing sugar, then add in the rest of the ingredients and whip until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. You could spread the icing on the cupcakes with a knife, but piping gives a more consistent coverage which will make it harder to see the cakes underneath. 

Which would you choose?

Case #4: Jabez Wilson’s Spicy Ginger Nuts

A little edible glitter added to the finished biscuits is purely optional,
but it is reminiscent of the “3 gilt balls” hanging outside Jabez Wilson’s pawn shop.

I was very taken with Mr Jabez Wilson’s blazing red hair when he visited 221 Baker Street during The Adventure of the Redheaded League. Any recipe devoted to that story has to feature ginger in some way, so I’ve chosen ginger nuts as a starting point. These old fashioned biscuits are normally rather simple (like Mr Wilson himself, poor soul,) but we can’t stop with just the sort of basic bake you could find in any shop. We’ll aim, like Mr Holmes, at something “outside of the conventions and humdrum of everyday life.” This variation on a classic is brought to you by the letter A, since that’s the section Mr Wilson was copying so laboriously from the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

To a basic ginger nut recipe we’ll add Aniseed, Allspice, Apples, Apricots, and Almonds. Strangely enough, ginger nuts don’t usually contain nuts. They got that name because they are traditionally very  hard and crunchy, like a tough nut. This version, by contrast, does contain nuts and is actually rather soft and chewy due to the addition of the dried fruit and liquid sweeteners. To make these biscuits gingery enough for even the Redheaded League, there will be freshly grated and candied ginger in the mix in addition to the usual powdered variety. I’m also going to put in a little hot pepper. It doesn’t start with A, but it does go with fiery red hair.

I must tell you that when I mentioned the name of my new recipe to Dr Watson he laughed rather coarsely and said something about the carpet matching the drapes. I never understand that man’s pawky sense of humour. I’m sure there’s never been anything wrong with the carpet or drapes in this house! Well anyway, he still ate a whole plateful of them when they were warm out of the oven.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour 

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp allspice 

1 tsp cayenne or Aleppo pepper 

1 tsp baking soda 

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter 

1 cup granulated sugar 

1-2 inch knob of fresh ginger, grated

1 egg

1 tbsp water

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp corn syrup or molasses 

1/2 cup toasted and chopped almonds *

1/3 cup chopped dried apples *

1/3 cup chopped dried apricots *

1/3 cup chopped crystallized ginger *

* I chopped my fruit and nuts fairly small, but you can change that if you want a chunkier biscuit.

Optional: edible gold glitter for decoration 

Three gingers

The “A” team. Almonds, apples, apricots, aniseed and allspice.
Add some cayenne pepper—or Aleppo if you’ve got it!

Combine the flour, spices, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In a larger bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth. Mix in grated fresh ginger. Mix in egg. Mix in water and liquid sweeteners until well combined and light. 

Add the flour mixture in about three steps and incorporate well. 

Add almonds, apples, apricots and crystallized ginger. Chill the dough for about 30 minutes and preheat the oven to 350°.

The ginger nut dough just before incorporating the fruit and nuts

Putting in a bunch of ingredients based on the alphabet isn’t usually how I’d develop a recipe. However, I tasted the dough at this stage (because I live in the 19th century and I’m not worried about raw eggs) and I think these ginger nuts are going to be really good!

When the dough is chilled and the oven preheated to 350° take about a tablespoon of the dough at a time and roll it into balls. Set them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until golden brown. This takes about 8-10 minutes depending on the size and the oven. To keep the ginger nuts soft and chewy, be sure not to over bake them.

You can finish the cookies with a sprinkling of edible glitter when they’ve cooled down if you would like to reproduce the effect shown in the photo at the top of the blog.

Serving suggestion: enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea, a good book, and—if possible—a redhead.

Case #3: Scandalous Bohemian Tart

 

Scandalous Bohemian Tart under a sugar cage bonnet with edible flowers 

Mrs Hudson is not calling Irene Adler a tart, you understand. 

Indeed, I quite admire The Woman—the way she made her way in the world, and the way she bested Mr Holmes. It’s also a relief not having him making merry over the cleverness of women of late, having myself been the subject of too many of those jokes.

However, if we’re going to create a recipe for “A Scandal in Bohemia,” it should be inspired by the adventure’s  famous heroine, and I can think of no dessert better suited to eclipse all others than a fresh fruit tart of several components—ripe, juicy, buttery, crumbly, creamy, boozy, crunchy, flowery-sweet.

[Note: the prune purée should be started the night before.]

The Shortbread Crust

1 stick unsalted butter 

1/3 cup sugar 

I rounded cup all purpose flour 

Pinch salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

Cut together ingredients with two knives, then work lightly with your fingers until everything is combined into small crumbs. Press into tart pan. Poke the bottom with a fork. Chill for 30 minutes, then bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until golden brown. Let cool while you prepare the fillings.

The Fillings

Pastry cream: 

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup sugar

1/8 cup cornstarch 

2 egg yolks (or 1 egg)

2 tablespoons butter 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

Whisk the cornstarch, egg yolks and 1/4 cup of the milk in a medium bowl and set aside. Bring the rest of the milk, the sugar and the pinch of salt to just short of boiling point in a small saucepan over medium heat. Pour the hot milk into the egg and cornstarch mixture in a slow, narrow stream while whisking quickly to avoid cooking the eggs. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens. Take off the heat, add the butter and whisk to incorporate. Cool completely in refrigerator and then put into piping bag.

Prune purée:

2 cups pitted prunes

Brandy 

Vanilla extract or orange zest

Put the prunes in a bowl. Pour brandy over them. Cover and leave overnight so the prunes soften and absorb the brandy. You’ll need enough moisture to make a smooth purée. If there’s not enough liquid when it’s time to purée, you can add a little hot water, orange juice, or more brandy. (Mrs Hudson doesn’t judge you.) Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract or orange zest for flavour, and purée to a smooth, pipeable consistancy. Put in a piping bag.

A note about prunes: Mrs Hudson can hear you, you know. I’m standing right here. Not everyone loves prunes, but trust me on this. This is not your grandmother’s dried plums. A vanilla-scented purée of brandied prunes is a delicious treat. If you have some purée left over after making the tart you can do as the French do and pipe it into plump whole prunes. Maybe you don’t like the idea of prune on prune, but are you going to argue with the French over patisserie? 

Pipe the pastry cream and prune purée side by side into the cooled tart shell, using any design you like. 

The Fruit and Glaze

Get the ripest plums you can find. Slice them and let them drain a bit in a colander if necessary. Arrange them on top of the filling. Heat a small amount of apricot jam and brush on top of them. This helps to keep the fruit fresh and adds shine.

The Sugar Cage Bonnet 

Granulated sugar

Water

Corn syrup or glucose (optional)

Edible flowers 

Ok, are we ready for this part? Mrs Hudson has never made a sugar cage before, but let’s give it a try.

Get a metal or Pyrex bowl big enough to fit over your tart. Grease well or spray with cooking spray. You can use the inside or outside of the bowl. I used the inside for mine.

Put a cup of sugar in a saucepan and add about a quarter cup water. The exact proportions aren’t very important but there should be mostly sugar in the pan. If you have corn syrup or glucose on hand you can put a tablespoon in to help with texture but it’s not essential. Bring the mixture to a boil. You can use a wet pastry brush to brush down any sugar crystals that form on the side, but don’t mix after the boiling starts. Heat slowly to about 150 C/300 F or until brittle strands form when a bit of the mixture is dropped into water. At this point you’ll see that it has become thicker and is just starting to turn gold. Don’t let it burn.

MRS HUDSON WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT THIS NEXT PART.

Boiling hot sugar can cause very serious burns. Don’t let children do this part. Don’t do it yourself unless you’ll take care to keep the sugar away from your skin.

Take the pot off the heat as soon as it reaches the right stage. Working quickly (but safely) use a spoon to drizzle sugar over the greased bowl, creating a sort of basket with a lacy network of strands. Let cool enough to set.

If you have a preferred deity, this would be a good time to enlist his/her/their help. Gently loosen the sugar network, and then place the bowl over the tart, hoping it will slide out.

It did! A little breaking here and there but it mostly created a solid dome. Hooray!

Now pretty up your bonnet with some edible flowers. 

A photo of the finished tart is a the top of this post. Below is a serving suggestion.

Case #2: Agra Treasure Curried Vegetable Pie

Mrs Hudson thinks that “The Sign of the Four” is one of Mr Holmes’s most exciting adventures. So fascinating, with the Indian elements, those peculiar twins, and the one-legged man and his friend the tiny gentleman with the poisoned dart.

All that lovely treasure sunk to the bottom of the Thames, though. It doesn’t bear thinking about. For this adventure I’ve decided to memorialize the lost treasure in a pie full of golden roasted vegetables. I’ve been hearing about the wonderful curries Her Majesty the Queen enjoys at the palace and I think we should add some Indian flavours via a creamy sauce. The star of the dish will be pearl onions. They remind me of the beautiful pearls belonging to that nice Miss Morstan that married Dr Watson.

Agra Treasure Pie with Sign of the Four decoration

Ingredients 

Pastry for single crust pie, plus a little extra for decorations. Any recipe for flaky pastry is fine as long as it's unsweetened. Frozen pie crust will also work. 

Vegetable filling:
5 cups of roasted vegetables. In this recipe I used about 15 pearl onions, 1 yellow pepper, 3 parsnips, 2 medium potatoes, 2 medium sweet potatoes, and a cup of sliced heirloom baby carrots. You can use any combination you like. 

1/2 cup unsalted roasted cashews, chopped

Curry sauce for filling:
2 cups diced canned tomatoes, drained
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic. minced
3 tbsp butter or ghee
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala or curry powder
1 cup heavy cream

Yogurt sauce for serving:
1 cup of plain thick yogurt 
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt 
1-2 tbsp chopped cilantro 

A selection of vegetables for the filling

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

To prepare the filling, cut up the vegetables, toss in a bit of oil, salt and pepper, and roast in batches in a 400 degree oven. Large pearl onions should be cut in half, or if you'll be serving this to small children, cut them all in half. (Mrs Hudson is paranoid that way.) Put them aside in a large bowl. Stir in the chopped cashews.

To prepare the sauce, heat the butter or ghee in a wide saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and sauté for about 3 minutes or until the onions become translucent. Add all the spices and sauté for about 3 more minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the heavy cream and simmer for another 10-15 minutes until you have a thick sauce. I pureed mine with a hand blender to make a smooth sauce, but that's optional. Pour the sauce into the bowl of vegetables. It's a good idea to pour in the sauce in stages. Only add enough until you get a creamy, but not liquidy, filling. 

Roll out the pie dough and put in the pie pan. For a decoration,  cut out 4 + (plus) signs from a bit of leftover dough. I baked these separately so that they wouldn't burn, and added them on top of the pie afterwards.

Pour the vegetable filling into the pie pan and cook until the filling is hot and the crust is browned. This will probably take about 30 minutes.

While the pie is baking, prepare the yogurt sauce by mixing all ingredients together and chilling in the refrigerator until serving.

Roasted vegetables and pre-baked decorative "Sign"

Spicy curry sauce

Serve the pie warm with some of the cool yogurt sauce. This recipe can be adapted in many ways. You can use different vegetables, but to suit the treasure theme be sure to include some onion pearls and golden root vegetables. The yogurt sauce can be made more like a proper Indian raita, or you could use your favorite herb and spice combination. If you think cilantro leaves taste like soap, by all means pick something different. Do whatever you like--Mrs Hudson is not the boss of you.