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Dec. 5th, 2008 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI need to start trusting the guy who wrote the 660 Curries book. (Mr. Ragahavan Iver, book is called 660 Curries. Dude's directions are clear and the food, it is good. Worth buying if you want to be able to make stuff what tastes like the kind you buy only I can't buy decent Indian food within a hundred miles of here which is why I'm learning to make it myself.) Seriously. I do things I should not do with the book. I use pork instead of lamb. I use pork instead of chicken. (I like pork and I have two whole pork loins in the freezer to use up. I also don't like lamb and am not a huge fan of chicken.) I use eyeballed measurements and I substitute or omit things at will. I try recipes that tell me to do weird, stupid, bizarre things (Cook this milk until it makes a solid. Take these dry skinned lentils and cook 'em , dry, until they are reddish brown.) that I do not think can possibly result in food.
The food, it still does not suck. WTF, curry guy? Are you magical?
Today's foray into the wonderful world of curry food items was
Toasted Split Green Lentils with Spinach except I used collards instead of spinach.
(bhaja moong palak)
1 cup skinned split green lentils (yellow, moong dal)
1/4 teasp. ground turmeric (or more, if you like more, which I do)
8 oz fresh baby spinach leaves (A pound of collard greens, rinsed and cut chiffonade. Kale is a suggested substitution but I like collards over kale every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I find kale distracting because of its mouth-itchy, ruffledy leaves. Collards have compliant, big flat leaves with no ruffles that can be tightly rolled and sliced into orderly ribbons. I also don't mind things that are "Collards with toasted split lentils" instead of being "Toasted split lentils with collards". More like guidelines, is what I'm sayin', and I loves me some collards.)
1 tbsp canola oil (I used ghee, being out of lard and too stupid to buy it at the grocery this evening)
1 teasp. fennel seeds
1/2 teasp whole dried cloves
2 to 4 dried red chiles (I used 4. There were a lot of collards, there, and they stand up well to the heat of chiles.)
1 1/2 teasp salt (I don't measure it. I salt some, but undersalt, and then I salt at the table. Okay. At the counter before I carry my food to the couch where I eat it in front of the laptop or a novel, depending on the evening. I *have* a dining room table but I don't use it for eating dinner.)
1 teaspoon white sugar (omitted entirely)
1 Tbsp ghee (I put this in with the other, above, because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
Directions.
1. Brown lentils in saucepan on med-high heat until they are reddish brown and smell nutty. Takes about 6 minutes. Stir 'em around a good bit while you're waiting for 'em to brown, yo.
2. Put 3 cups water in with the lentils (it will boil right away) and cook lentils until they're mostly done.
3. While the lentils are cooking, wash your greens and pile 'em on top of the lentils to wilt.
4. While greens are wilting, put fennel, cloves, chiles in oil in small frying pan. Cook a bit. Dump over greens/lentils. Stir.
Okay, I thought this was a dipshit thing to try. I thought it would suck. Toast the lentils until they're reddish brown? (They're a bright yellow to start with.) For real? So I toasted the lentils, as directed. I poured in the water. It boiled. It looked very unpromising. I wilted my collards and stirred in my spices and hot ghee. The whole thing looked unpromising right up to the part where I stuck a forkful of ribboned collards-n-toasted-lentils into my mouth.
Fuck. How does the curry guy *do* this?
There will not be helpings of this for sharing because fennel seeds are a significant flavor component. I like fennel, but other people, people who might otherwise be getting curry, are not fans. Also, collards chiffonade are NOT easy for silverware-challenged older people to eat. I try pretty hard to make curry for grandma that she can eat without slopping it all over everything and collards chiffonade are not very user-friendly on that front. (My collards are cut up into ribbons because I like eating them that way. I understand that other groups of people tear their collards by hand into pieces or perhaps buy the pre-cut collard greens in the bag. Good for them. As for me, I like them in ribbons. A lot.)
There will be happy pork curry of some sort over the weekend which I will make enough of that there will be some for sharing. I'm still trying to decide which one I want to do, but rest assured that I will be doing one. The pork loin is even now thawing in the fridge.
The food, it still does not suck. WTF, curry guy? Are you magical?
Today's foray into the wonderful world of curry food items was
Toasted Split Green Lentils with Spinach except I used collards instead of spinach.
(bhaja moong palak)
1 cup skinned split green lentils (yellow, moong dal)
1/4 teasp. ground turmeric (or more, if you like more, which I do)
8 oz fresh baby spinach leaves (A pound of collard greens, rinsed and cut chiffonade. Kale is a suggested substitution but I like collards over kale every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I find kale distracting because of its mouth-itchy, ruffledy leaves. Collards have compliant, big flat leaves with no ruffles that can be tightly rolled and sliced into orderly ribbons. I also don't mind things that are "Collards with toasted split lentils" instead of being "Toasted split lentils with collards". More like guidelines, is what I'm sayin', and I loves me some collards.)
1 tbsp canola oil (I used ghee, being out of lard and too stupid to buy it at the grocery this evening)
1 teasp. fennel seeds
1/2 teasp whole dried cloves
2 to 4 dried red chiles (I used 4. There were a lot of collards, there, and they stand up well to the heat of chiles.)
1 1/2 teasp salt (I don't measure it. I salt some, but undersalt, and then I salt at the table. Okay. At the counter before I carry my food to the couch where I eat it in front of the laptop or a novel, depending on the evening. I *have* a dining room table but I don't use it for eating dinner.)
1 teaspoon white sugar (omitted entirely)
1 Tbsp ghee (I put this in with the other, above, because it seemed like a good idea at the time)
Directions.
1. Brown lentils in saucepan on med-high heat until they are reddish brown and smell nutty. Takes about 6 minutes. Stir 'em around a good bit while you're waiting for 'em to brown, yo.
2. Put 3 cups water in with the lentils (it will boil right away) and cook lentils until they're mostly done.
3. While the lentils are cooking, wash your greens and pile 'em on top of the lentils to wilt.
4. While greens are wilting, put fennel, cloves, chiles in oil in small frying pan. Cook a bit. Dump over greens/lentils. Stir.
Okay, I thought this was a dipshit thing to try. I thought it would suck. Toast the lentils until they're reddish brown? (They're a bright yellow to start with.) For real? So I toasted the lentils, as directed. I poured in the water. It boiled. It looked very unpromising. I wilted my collards and stirred in my spices and hot ghee. The whole thing looked unpromising right up to the part where I stuck a forkful of ribboned collards-n-toasted-lentils into my mouth.
Fuck. How does the curry guy *do* this?
There will not be helpings of this for sharing because fennel seeds are a significant flavor component. I like fennel, but other people, people who might otherwise be getting curry, are not fans. Also, collards chiffonade are NOT easy for silverware-challenged older people to eat. I try pretty hard to make curry for grandma that she can eat without slopping it all over everything and collards chiffonade are not very user-friendly on that front. (My collards are cut up into ribbons because I like eating them that way. I understand that other groups of people tear their collards by hand into pieces or perhaps buy the pre-cut collard greens in the bag. Good for them. As for me, I like them in ribbons. A lot.)
There will be happy pork curry of some sort over the weekend which I will make enough of that there will be some for sharing. I'm still trying to decide which one I want to do, but rest assured that I will be doing one. The pork loin is even now thawing in the fridge.
