Rick Stein and Pork Curry

‘Ah summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it” what an absolutely perfect quote by Russell Baker. This summer has been pretty hot and pretty unbearable but honestly, I would rather have this than the dank, gray, demoralizing and insipid days of winter. I do complain a lot about the heat and on more than one occasion have resorted to sitting in a tub of luke warm water with a glass of juice. Regardless, summer! The season of my people!

Which segues well into a little documentary I have begun watching on a video sharing website we are all oh so familiar with. Mr. Rick Stein of Britain has decided, in his documentary, to travel to my beautiful, dysfunctional and glorious motherland of India in search of the perfect curry. To him I say, good luck, you won’t find what you are looking for because in all technicalities, we do not really have “curries”.

Let’s clarify the situation. Curry is a westernized general term for any meat or vegetarian or legume or pulse dish that comes with spiced gravy. The thing is, we like our gravies a lot and as such we have a whole other set of nomenclature to denote the various mystical amalgamations of spices and whatever main protein. Calling a beautiful nut and cream based gravy as a curry does it a grave injustice. The correct word is korma. However this post would be ridiculously long if I had to sit and go through the many names and idiosyncrasies of local “curry” varieties and I am sure few of you actually care or have the time to learn.

Mr. Stein’s colourful documentary made me terribly homesick. I miss the hustle and bustle of India and the fresh smell of fruits and vegetables in the early morning open air market. I am not sure whether I am romanticising, reminiscing or whatever other –ising I am doing but I honestly believe open air farmers market type stalls are where you will find the best vegetables. I digress, returning to the main point, this documentary made me want an oniony garlicy flavoured meat dish pretty badly. Plus the weather being a balmy nearly 30 degrees Celsius I felt nothing would be better served for dinner than a curry. So it begins

I made this in a fairly traditional Bengali style and so what I call it is “Pork Jhol.” Other than the actual gravy spices and cooking method this is rather atypical. Bengali’s do not eat pork unless they are Christian, and since me and my family are not Christian, this recipe would easily give my mom a heart attack.

To begin

Marinade

•          3 lbs of pork tender loin cut into ¼ of an inch slices
•          Two fat pinches of kosher salt
•          Drizzle of olive oil or other oil
•          1.5 tsp cumin powder
•          1.5 tsp coriander powder
•          .5 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder (This packs a serious punch so figure out what your spice limit is and adjust)
•          Juice of 1- 1.5 limes

Marinate this for at least an hour and ideally overnight.

Cooking the meat 

     

•          1.5 onion
•          4 fat cloves of garlic
•          3 inches of ginger
•          2 tbs of peanut oil
•          1 tbs of butter
•          1 large bay leaf
•          1 inch of cinnamon bark
•          4 cloves
•          2 tsp cumin seeds
•          4 cardamom
•          1 tsp of garam masala
•          Handful fresh torn cilantro (optional)

Blend 1.5 medium sized red onions along with 4 fat cloves of garlic and 3 inches of peeled ginger.

Heat up a deep pot with 2 tbs of vegetable or peanut oil and throw 1 tbs of butter into it. When the butter has melted and begun to froth add 1 large bay leaf, an inch of cinnamon bark, 4 cloves, 2 tsp of cumin seeds, 4 cardamoms (smashed) and temper until the cumin pops a bit and everything smells fragrant and not burnt. Add the onion mixture and sauté on low heat for at least 20 minutes. Be gentle, be loving. In the words of Michael Pollan, when you are cooking onions, just cook onions. Giving them time to slowly caramelize will add a depth of flavour that is outstanding.  Add turmeric, ground cumin, coriander and ¼ tsp more Kashmiri chili and cook out the raw flavour some more (about 5 to 10 more minutes). At this point, add your meat and stir to combine along with salt to taste and water to come up just underneath the top of the meat. Reduce to medium low heat and simmer away. Right before serving add the garam masala and garnish with fresh torn cilantro. I served it with saffron rice but this goes just as well with plain rice. But please, no short grain glutinous rice: it will alter the consistency of the gravy. 

A Conversation and a Clafouti

The Russian: So I am going to Prague

Me: *puts broom down* what? Like…in the future some day?

The Russian: No, Tuesday, family stuff, anyway what’s for dinner?

I find it so incredible that men have this insane gift of dropping extremely important or staggering news on you like an atom bomb and be completely unfazed.  I continued to stare at him like he had grown a pair of devil horns and was violently performing the Macarena. How does one just tell their significant other that within two days you are going to travel half way across the world? PRAGUE! CZECH REPUBLIC! That’s like in Europe!

I am the type of girl that likes to have detailed itinerary and have everything in my (our) life super planned out. Ya, sometimes this doesn’t reflect into my academics but that’s only because I get so panicked from planning the plans for study plans that I just lay down like a star fish and cry. Anyway, so here he was telling me that he was off on some European escapade with his Grandmother and father while I sit in our apartment hyperventilating and willing myself not to beg my parents to let me fly to Prague. I don’t know, I guess I got extra paranoid and extra jealous. Why can’t I go to Prague?

I do like people from Czech Republic I am sure they are absolutely sweet and lovely. However I am quite worried about Czech girls (a lady does not discuss where these worries stem from…), so what else was I to do other than fatten him up.

Off I go to bake something delicious to remind him that tall leggy blonde girls won’t let him indulge in desserts but will crack a whip at him at a gym!

The Russian isn't really super fond of desserts however he does enjoy clafouti given it’s not too sweet. Generally I like making clafoutis with cherries but I had none, only strawberries. I used Julia Child’s recipe.

Strawberry clafouti

•  1 1/4 cups milk
•  1/3 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 pint strawberries sliced
• 1/3 cup sugar
• powdered sugar

In a blender (or with a whisk and a bowl) blend up the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla. When well mixed add in sifter flour so there are no clumps and whizz up some more but don’t overdo it or you will lose the fluffiness. Pour into a round pan (I used square because I thought I didn't have a round pan). Scatter the strawberries into the batter and bake in a 350 Fahrenheit oven until the top is not sticky or brown but just a cooked golden custard colour. Insert a toothpick in; if it comes out clean you are done! Shake some powder sugar on top for some jazzy garnish, I didn't do this and it was still good.

Enjoy with a cup of cappuccino and realize that although you find comfort in micromanaging every one’s life sometimes it’s OK to get a surprise. Unwanted situations force you to mentally grow just like working out forces your muscles to grow. Surprises are good for you!

Black Bean and Mushroom and Procrastination

Exams are at an end. Freedom you have never tasted sweeter. Or in this case black  beany-er. I don’t really know what it is about soup it is universally seen as the most satisfying and comforting thing. I have never looked a soup in the face and not been in love (Except that one time I had pasta soup from the McMaster Hospital café, it wasn’t soup it was pasta). I digress, as I tend to do often. Having been done school for about three days I really haven’t accomplished anything. It literally took me 2 days to do one measly pathetic pile of laundry. I managed to stretch out a task that takes my mom 3 hours at most over 48 hours. I think I am gifted… not it in anything good I fear. So with all that aside, I decided today would be the day, today the sun was shining, spring birds were tweeting… I was tweeting, and I decided it must be a culinary productive day. I set the ship S.S black bean and mushroom soup on its maiden voyage. Bon voyage.

The artillery for the soup that one requires is listed as follows. I find it really hard to come up with measurements so bear with me.

1 can of black bean
0.5 medium onion
0.5 green bell pepper
1 carrot
6 button mushroom
2 tablespoon chipotle concentrate*
1 heaped teaspoon of tomato paste
2 big bay leaves
2 tablespoon cumin
6 cloves garlic
2 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

• Chop up the onion, bell pepper carrots as tiny as you possibly can. If your knife skills are somewhat questionable or you are pressed for time food process them till they are tiny pieces.
• Sautee the onion, pepper and carrot mixture till the onion lose the raw onion smell, shouldn’t take too long. At this point add the super finely diced or smashed garlic cloves. Cook it out yet again
• After a few minutes add the bay leaves and a heaped teaspoon of tomato paste cook… again so that the tomato doesn’t taste like sour funky tomato paste (hey! I know you want to whack it all together and simmer it but good soup takes some time and some gentle lovin’ this is soup making foreplay! Go with it).
• Now add the thinkly sliced mushrooms and a touch of water to deglaze the pan, I guess ideally you want to aim for stock of some kind but I don’t have any so water it is!
• Add the rinsed canned beans and a can full of water with the chipotle concentrate dissolved into it and let simmer for half hour or so till everything is sexy bubbly and voluptuous. Like Christina Hendrik’s bosoms.
• Take it OFF THE HEAT and add a big fat handful of chopped cilantro
• Serve it as you like. I added julienned green apples squeeze of lime juice and some red bell peppers. But you could go with cheese or avocado or sour cream (you should really go with Greek yogurt instead of sour cream though…).

So that’s that, maiden voyage seems to be a success, in my mouth anyway. The Russian returns to me from 8 long months of law schooling on Thursday, if the soup survives till then, he will get to eat some. If not, PB&J it is! 

Keffir Lime Shrimp

Why do I start things and don’t finish them? This goes for a lot of things. I started a painting of my dog roughly a year ago, so far on the canvas there is just charcoal outline of my fur baby. Sometimes I start cleaning and I just get distracted or annoyed so I half clean (it drives my boyfriend crazy; I think he might have clinical OCD with cleaning). This occasional half ass’ed-ness also goes right into the kitchen, into the vegetable crisper to be precise. I don’t know what it is, when I go to the grocery store (my favorite being T&T) I look at all the fruits and vegetables and they remind me of the precious jewels at Tiffany boutiques, delicately encased in protective cellophane and lit up in all their magnificent colourful glory. It just looks so damn tantalizing, it doesn’t matter what it is called or what weird plant it may have come from, I will try to eat it to the best of my abilities. My affinity for vegetables came, no doubt, from my parents and my heritage.

 I am a Bengali; my family is from west Bengal in India. We are primarily pescatarian and vegetarian. Meat was an afterthought as we mostly ate a crazy amount of various fish and vegetables and I just assumed this is how everyone eats. Well, then we moved to Canada where I soon realized people LOVE their meat here. It felt to me that if it had aerobic respiration and lived on land North Americans would eat it! Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy the occasional steak cooked mid rare (incidentally, I have only truly ever been satisfied with the steak at Auberge Du Pommier. All other steak places just don’t taste that great.) But what my body craves are my mother’s magical lightly spiced vegetable medleys and her fish curries.

When I started writing this blog I was just on ramble about how I don’t finish things and how currently there are vegetables in my fridge yearning to be eaten.

Currently I have water spinach, half a pound of Brussels sprouts, a head of cauliflower tons of potatoes and one lonely daikon. I could probably make my mom’s “chorchori” which is a Bengali vegetable medley mildly spiced and flavored with cracked mustard seeds. It’s my comfort food, my equivalent of a meat loaf or shepherd’s pie.  However I decided to go with something I know the Russian would love equally as much.

He’s a huge fan of Asian foods specially curries with Kefir lime flavours. so I set off on a journey to make some kind of a curry with kefir leaves.

500 grams shrimp

1 red onion brunoised

One lemon grass stick smashed

4 kefir lime leaves

Pint of brussels sprouts halved

2 garlic cloves

½ tbs of shrimp paste

¼ cup water 

¼ greek yogurt

1 star anise

1 inch ginger

4 cardamoms

Salt and pepper to your likings

Brunoise the onion, which basically means super small square cuts of onions. Almost like it’s been pulverized but not quite. Do the same with the garlic.

Wash and halve the sprouts, take off any wilty or weird looking outer leaves

Peel and devein the shrimp if they are not already done. In case you didn’t know the vein in the shrimp isn’t used for circulating vital body fluids, rather it’s the garbage chute.

In a pan temper the spices in hot oil, be quick on this because if you let it temper too long it will burn and everything will taste like it had grated charcoal on it.

After a quick tempering, toss in the onion julienned ginger, garlic, kefir leaves and lemon grass and sauté it off so the raw flavour is no longer with us.

While most of the pan is still fairly dry toss in the sprouts and let them caramelize and make friends with the flavours, this helps reduce the odd flavour sometimes associated with these baby cabbages.

After 5-10 minutes of this add in the shrimp and ¼ cup of water so that the water can steam and cook the shrimp cover and let it steam itself done. Also, don’t forget to salt it to taste.

Off the heat add the yogurt and stir until you achieve a nice creamy texture. I added a bit too much water so my curry turned soupy. 

I served it with rice but if the sauce is thicker I assume itd be great with noodles.

That’s my rambling on lonely vegetables living in the bowls of my fridge waiting to be eaten. Eat your vegetables! 

Garlic Press and Garlic Bread

I don’t own a garlic press; somehow I failed to take heed of my own advice. What I do own, however, are packs of pre-peeled, ready-to-go cloves of garlic. Maybe I just haven’t found the right garlic press. That probably says something deep and fundamental about me like, I have an unreasonably high expectation as far as garlic presses go, or simply that I just over looked this simple and oh so useful kitchen tool. I think though it’s more an outcome of the fact that in my adult life I have only been in need of a garlic press in the last four months. I am not a natural cook, not one of those lovely women you meet who whip up delicious, delicious gourmet meals while juggling a job, a cat, a boyfriend and whatever else. I started off as a baker, not an intense baker, but one who enjoyed making the occasional chocolate torte and cookies galore (none of which I ever ate, I don’t like sweets). I blame my random cooking and feeding frenzy on my extremely long term boyfriend. He has a terrifying aversion to sweets. It was upsetting for me that I’d spend a couple hours baking only to have the products fester in fridge. What was a girl to do! Cook it seems! So I started slow. REAL SLOW. I started with garlic toast.

It is one of those “recipes” that some people just intrinsically know and for other is a total revelation.

We start with,

• 1 loaf of good crusty bread, baguettes are quite good actually.

• 1 clove of garlic

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Pecorino or parmesan slivers

Slice up the bread about ¼ of an inch, not too thin but thick enough to not burn in the oven.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit. When the bread is read drizzle on some good extra virgin olive oil on it.

I know people always say this but I honestly had no idea what extra virgin olive was supposed to be, that is until I got to go to Terroni’s in Toronto and had fresh bread dipped in olive oil. It was good! Kind of peppery, smells like well marinated olives and it makes the sides of my tongue pucker up a bit in an enjoyable sort of way.

Anyway! Toast the bread until its golden brown and the kitchen smells like a bakery (I think doing this in a small kitchen is awesome! I loooove the way toasted bread smells. I would buy toasted bread air freshener – psst Fabreeze!). pull the bread out and while it’s hot rub the garlic clove hard on one side! The crumbs act as a natural grater. Don’t go crazy one or two good rubs is enough too much and you will have garlic breath that will terrify everyone around you. When the bread is all ready to go put some of the pecorino on the slices garlic side up and broil it quickly till the cheese gets melty. Pull it out and eat and revel at the most simple and delicious garlic bread. Mmmmm!

It was a while ago that I fed the boyfriend this, he liked it a lot! Maybe I will make some this weekend along with pork belly fat roasted potatoes and some kind of a meat