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Nov. 17th, 2008 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickNew recipes from 660 Curries book.
This week's efforts are "Lamb Curry in sweet onion-tomato sauce" (p. 190) but it'll be with pork instead of lamb b/c I don't *like* lamb... and "Red and Yellow Lentils with garlic and curry leaves" (p. 405) except I don't have curry leaves and can't get them. So, y'know, no curry leaves.
Using the power of the internets, I sent away for some ingredients that I can't get here. Those should arrive in the mail late this week and will expand the recipe options available to me. I am actually following the directions pretty closely, making the suggested substitutions for the weirder ingredients, and generally trying to cook as authentically as I can, given the constraints of my locale and the limitations of my grocery options.
The sudden interest, if you will, in the Indian food thing is because Dad's in Mexico and I need lunches to take to work. Lunch is A Piece of Fruit (or two, if small) and A Cup of Food Item (like Curry or Red Rice or whatever). The Food Item travels in small cottage cheese containers from the grocery, which probably counts as recycling. (I reuse them until they get gross or broken.) There's a nuke oven at work, so I can reheat stuff without difficulty. As I go along, I'm taking notes in the book on what I make so that I will know the ones I've tried and how they worked out.
Even this early in my journey, I'm running into techniques of interest like "blacken the dried peppers in a skillet with a small amount of fat" -- this really does work, but don't lean over the pan while you're doing it. After I got over the eye-watering and the coughing fit, though, I had to admit that the blackened chilies were pretty nifty. I also did "boil whole milk down to milk solids" and that actually worked as advertised, too. There are actual solid solids in milk. Really. Milk solids look/feel like beige Play-Doh and they taste *sort of* like milk. Very interesting.
This evening's effort will include making my own ghee, which obviously I have to do because the fucking grocery doesn't sell it. Recipe review forthcoming as soon as I'm done making it.
This week's efforts are "Lamb Curry in sweet onion-tomato sauce" (p. 190) but it'll be with pork instead of lamb b/c I don't *like* lamb... and "Red and Yellow Lentils with garlic and curry leaves" (p. 405) except I don't have curry leaves and can't get them. So, y'know, no curry leaves.
Using the power of the internets, I sent away for some ingredients that I can't get here. Those should arrive in the mail late this week and will expand the recipe options available to me. I am actually following the directions pretty closely, making the suggested substitutions for the weirder ingredients, and generally trying to cook as authentically as I can, given the constraints of my locale and the limitations of my grocery options.
The sudden interest, if you will, in the Indian food thing is because Dad's in Mexico and I need lunches to take to work. Lunch is A Piece of Fruit (or two, if small) and A Cup of Food Item (like Curry or Red Rice or whatever). The Food Item travels in small cottage cheese containers from the grocery, which probably counts as recycling. (I reuse them until they get gross or broken.) There's a nuke oven at work, so I can reheat stuff without difficulty. As I go along, I'm taking notes in the book on what I make so that I will know the ones I've tried and how they worked out.
Even this early in my journey, I'm running into techniques of interest like "blacken the dried peppers in a skillet with a small amount of fat" -- this really does work, but don't lean over the pan while you're doing it. After I got over the eye-watering and the coughing fit, though, I had to admit that the blackened chilies were pretty nifty. I also did "boil whole milk down to milk solids" and that actually worked as advertised, too. There are actual solid solids in milk. Really. Milk solids look/feel like beige Play-Doh and they taste *sort of* like milk. Very interesting.
This evening's effort will include making my own ghee, which obviously I have to do because the fucking grocery doesn't sell it. Recipe review forthcoming as soon as I'm done making it.
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Date: 2008-11-18 01:59 am (UTC)1/2 cup each masoor dal and moong dal
3 cups water
^^^ put this in pan, bring to boil, lower to simmer until done.
2-4 hot peppers (serrano or thai or cayenne)
2 big cloves garlic
2 slices fresh ginger
2 teasp. whole cumin seeds
^^^^ mash in mortar using pestle
Add pepper/garlic/ginger to 1 small onion, diced small and 2 Tbsp. ghee in frying pan. Fry until onion is browning.
At that point, add 1 lg. tomato, chopped, plus 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro and 1/2 teaspoon turmeric and some salt. Cook until tomato wilts and sauces. Stir, pour into lentils. Stir some more. Salt to taste, after a couple of minutes. Serve.
In tasting amounts, it's good. I already had dinner, so stowed this in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow and future work lunches. I also took out the pork loin to thaw for tomorrow's cooking effort (it's my faux lamb for the non-lentil dish I talked about above).
I think I'm burning holes in my tastebuds. Two years ago, this amount of hot peppers would have rendered a dish inedible. Now, not so much. Has this (acclimation to hot peppers) happened to anyone but me?
Also, for brother-the-younger: Mortar and pestle v. fun, exceedingly helpful for this recent foray into curries and things.
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Date: 2008-11-18 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-19 11:30 pm (UTC)Also, for people wishing to play along at home, all "tomato" ingredients that would be fresh in this recipe and others? They're canned, this time of year. Sorry, but canned tomatoes are more realistic-tasting than the cardboard store kind you get in November.