Hot Dry Meat Curry

I don't normally try to grow things. I do not own plants, I don't have a vegetable garden or a windowsill full of herbs. I'm not the Martha Stewart homemaker type with a clean crafty home. I cook and that's about all the homey stuff I do.
But if you saw this in my fridge, you might think I was trying to grow something:

You might think to yourself, how sad that Shalaka doesn't know her plant has died. But really all I'm doing is extending the life of my cilantro. Cilantro is not expensive. But you buy a bunch of it and use a few leaves chopped into your homemade guacamole or sprinkled in a curry (see below) and before you know it the bunch is turning brown and leaking something across the bottom of your fridge. Oh cilantro, how fleeting is your life.

So now I put my cilantro on life support. A glass of water is all it takes. This cilantro is about three weeks old, wilted but not going bad. There are still plenty of leaves to sprinkle into my Hot Dry Meat Curry.

If you think that I'm writing about this recipe because of its name, you'd be correct. I'm also writing about it because it was surprisingly tasty. But the name is ridiculous! There was never a more generic name for a recipe than Hot Dry Meat Curry. Most curries are hot. Many curries have meat. The word that got me was Dry. A meat curry is usually saucy and wet. Curry spices can be used on meats that are roasted or fried but when the dish is called a curry, it seems like an oxymoron to call it a dry curry. So the name and the fact that I had nearly all the ingredients convinced me that I should make it. Besides, my cilantro was in top form.

An aside on Indian food: I don't cook Indian food very often but I do have a couple of good cookbooks plus I can call my mom any time and get a random recipe without measurements. The fact that recipes require a lot of ingredients and spices, time to marinate, and time to stew make it unlikely that I'll choose anything but the most straightforward of recipes. What could be more straightforward than Hot Dry Meat Curry?

The recipe called for extra hot curry paste and the only thing I could think of to fit that description was the red curry paste usually used in Thai curries. To that I added chili powder, five spice powder, turmeric, bay leaves, and the usual onion, garlic and ginger. So the Hot part was covered. To take care of the Meat part, I added lamb shoulder chopped, with the bone. But in contrast to the Dry part, the recipe did call for coconut milk, which is added after the meat has cooked for 20 minutes. Then the meat and spices are simmered in coconut milk until the meat is cooked, and finally the liquid is reduced. Aha! Hot Dry Meat Curry at last, though if you're impatient like me you'll still end up with some good liquid curry to sop up with your naan. Don't forget to garnish with cilantro.

Hot Dry Meat Curry (from The Complete Book of Indian Cooking)

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely sliced
1 piece fresh ginger, crushed
4 cloves garlic, crushed
6-8 curry leaves (I used bay leaves)
3 tablespoons extra hot curry paste (I used Thai red curry paste)
3 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
salt to taste
2 lbs lean lamb, beef or pork
3/4 cup coconut milk
chopped tomato and cilantro leaves, to garnish

The recipe doesn't require marinating, but I like to marinate my lamb overnight so it tastes better. A typical Indian marinade is ginger, garlic, salt, chili powder, and turmeric.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion, ginger, garlic and curry leaves until the onion is soft. Stir in the curry paste, chili powder, five-spice powder, turmeric, and salt and cook for a few moments, stirring frequently. Add the meat and stir over medium heat to brown the pieces. Keep stirring until the oil separates. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Add the coconut milk, mix well and simmer until the meat is cooked. Toward the end of cooking, uncover the pan to reduce the excess liquid. Garnish and serve hot.

Molten

This picture was supposed to be better. There was another, blurrier picture I took before this one, so I only posted the one. Honestly, I should have taken more pictures but I was in such a hurry to eat this Hot Chocolate Fudge Cake, this molten, gooey, chocolaty melted goodness that I hurriedly snapped some shots and ditched the camera in favor of a spoon.

Luckily the recipe in Cooking Light has a beautiful picture - but then, they don't use real food in those pictures do they?

This was my third attempt at baking the cake. It took me three attempts to even get a picture worthy cake because the cooking time on the recipe was far too long for molten, and my first two attempts resulted in very good but fully cooked cake. Such a disappointment when I wanted a messy melting spoonful in my mouth, not a dry cakey one. I've wanted some good molten chocolate cake ever since a long ago meal at M&S Grill in Minneapolis where I had one for dessert. So for my final attempt, I reduced the baking time drastically, from 21 minutes to 11 minutes.

This recipe actually has espresso in it, which means for the last three nights I've been restless and sleeping fitfully and am writing a long blog entry at 11:45pm. While I don't like coffee flavors much, espresso mixed with chocolate is wonderful. I'll write about chocolate espresso cookies one of these days. However, for the caffeine sensitive I would tone it down a bit in this recipe or get rid of it completely. When I lived with Kristen the dessert girl, she started popping chocolate covered espresso beans that someone gave her, and then had trouble sleeping for days until she made the connection. Espresso is strong stuff.

The original recipe was for ten servings. Now depending on how well you know me, you know that a)I don't have nine other people living with me, b) I can barely gather nine friends in the same zip code, and c) I am somewhat smaller than I have been in the past and intend to stay that way.

So making ten cakes was not option. I only have four ramekins anyway because my mom did not expect me to gather more than three friends in the same zip code when she bought them for me. So I divided the recipe by three and made three perfect servings (perfect = slightly large than Cooking Light deems appropriate).

Here it is then, the proportions for three servings. You can find the remaining instructions via the recipe link.

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 2/3 teaspoons instant espresso powder
• 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• Dash of salt
• 1 1/3 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup egg substitute
• 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 ounce bar dark (71% cocoa) chocolate (such as Valrhona Le Noir Amer), finely chopped
• 2/3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Bellywashed

When I moved to Deerfield, I was a sophomore in high school and like any teenager I was worried about fitting in. If I wanted any friends at all, I had to do what the Deerfield kids did - luckily this wasn't drugs, drinking, or unprotected sex. (In fact these Deerfield kids were disgustingly smart and over-achieving). But one thing that was popular with my new friends was pineapple pizza.
The first time I was invited over for pizza, it was a given that we were getting pineapple. Where was the pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, mushrooms, etc. I wondered. Those were the popular toppings. The pineapple, that was like the misfit, the Ally Sheedy of toppings.
Well I didn't want to be the misfit so I said nothing, ate my pineapple pizza and thought it was weird. And then the next time we had it, I was prepared and kind of used to it if not loving it. By the third time, I was enjoying it - and finding that this Deerfield place wasn't half bad.
How did this happen? How did pineapple pizza, something I had never conceived of at age 14, become one of my favorite pizzas to this day?
There's only one explanation - I was bellywashed. That's right - bellywashed. My stomach was brainwashed into believing that I liked this odd combination of sweet and savory. And I would never go back. That's what happens when you're bellywashed. Someone else's favorite food (often your significant other or roommate or person who just won't leave you alone) becomes your favorite food. At first you only eat it to be nice or to not make a fuss. The next thing you know, you're buying things like fresh fennel to roast, and never looking back.
That's my goal in cooking for friends. Yes, I want to make them food that they enjoy, but I also want to convert them to loving food that I enjoy. (Why do you think I write this blog?) And the funny thing is, when they begin to love it, I remember why I loved it in the first place. So when my friend Monika raves about goat cheese mushroom tarts with GOAT CHEESE in all caps, or my friend Katy repeatedly makes a garlic shrimp recipe I gave her or my dad keeps asking me to make risotto, I know they've been bellywashed. And that makes me feel like the popular kid.

Dessert Girl

I never used to be a dessert girl. I don't have a sweet tooth. I'll order an appetizer and forgo dessert. I hate it when Thai curries are sweet, when salad dressings are sweet, when barbecue sauce is sweet - as barbecue sauce tends to be. I prefer a spicy bloody Mary to a syrupy daiquiri and a salted yogurt lassi to a mango one. I love it when you can taste the salt in chocolate chip cookies, a cheese plate makes the perfect end to a meal, I like bacon in my ice cream for pete's sake.
No, I definitely don't have a sweet tooth.
But the funny thing about dessert is that once you start eating it, you can't stop. Oh, I don't mean in one sitting, that would be disgusting but have no long term effects. I mean, night after night you will begin craving dessert. You'll scoop Nutella out of the jar with a spoon for the hazelnut sugar rush. You'll concoct odd combinations of puff pastry, chocolate chips, and frozen peaches. You'll make a microwave brownie.
I didn't eat dessert every night growing up. This is because I tend not to like Indian desserts (too sweet) but the only things lying around the house were Indian ice cream or barfi. I was rarely hungry for dessert. Everything changed after living with Kristen in Chicago. She was always talking about dessert. She's been known to scoop frosting out of the container and eat it with graham crackers, a far more ridiculous dessert than a spoonful of Nutella. Her boyfriend calls "eating ice cream" one of her hobbies. Kristen wanted dessert all the time, and she made quite a few good ones. I got recipes like chocolate espresso cookies, ginger ice cream, and football shaped mini carrot cakes from her. I also got my dessert craving from her, because now I always feel like a sweet treat after a meal.
So where does this lead except to a story about making dessert? Last weekend, Katy (another fan of dessert, specifically cookies) and I took a chocolate cooking class at The Chopping Block in Chicago. We made chocolate souffles, chocolate espresso pudding parfaits, and devil's food cake with buttercream frosting. Of the three, I was most excited about and most gratified by the souffles. I never made a souffle before, I was unsure how difficult it was. Turned out to be easy. You can find a chocolate souffle recipe anywhere so I won't type it out for you. Here are the basics: Separate your eggs properly. You can even buy an egg separator, which is basically a plastic spoon with a space to let the white drip out while the yolk stays put. Beat the yolks with sugar, vanilla, and melted chocolate. Whip your whites to stiff peaks, then fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into ramekins and bake for 10 minutes or until just set. That's it. Instead of having to concoct strange things with leftovers, you can be sophisticated and make chocolate souffles. So maybe I am a dessert girl now, although I still like bacon in my ice cream. But that's a story for another day.

It's a Pasty!

September is particularly chilly in Marquette, Michigan. My roommate Jessica's family cabin was located on Lake Superior and she had invited 10 of our closest friends to spend Labor Day weekend there in September 2000. We had underestimated the rapid temperature decline that far north as soon as summer was over. Bundled up in sweatshirts and jeans, we took windy walks on the beach, played pool at empty bars with locals giving us dirty looks, and searched for a local specialty - pasties.
Not to be confused with pasties. One is a meat and potato and rutabaga filled pastry and the other is an adhesive strip that is literally the fine line between going topless and not. We were looking for the first. Although the men (with 14 year old teenage boy mentality) liked to say we were looking for the second.
They are spelled differently in the singular (pasty vs. pastie) and pronounced differently. Paaaasties are a comfort food. Pay-sties sound uncomfortable to remove.
The origin of a pasty is actually England, Cornwall to be specific. Why this savory turnover became a local specialty in Marquette must have something to do with the English origins of the locals. I love a savory turnover. It has all the elements of a hearty meal (meat, potatoes, bread) in a tidy package. A good crust is key, as is a good steak which steams inside the package and becomes quite tender. Other versions of this food I enjoy are Jamaican meat pies (look for them in the Montego Bay airport for $2 each), my mom's kheema (ground and spiced goat meat) stuffed in bread and pressed in a panini press, or Chinese crescent moon turnovers filled with curried ground chicken.
The pasties we found in Marquette were traditional. The pasty recipe I found in Bon Appétit this month was modern and slightly upscale, as BA tends to be. But it had all the comfort of a good pasty. The crust was excellent. Because it requires a significant amount of chilling time in the fridge, I made it the night before in my food processor, blending shortening, butter, flour, salt, baking powder, and ice water into a sticky dough. I divided it into equal portions and wrapped it in plastic. I also caramelized some onions and refrigerated them overnight. The next evening I cut up some steak (tri-tip from Trader Joe's) and crumbled some blue cheese (goat cheese blue cheese from Whole Foods, a creamy not too strong blue). I rolled out the dough into circl-ish shapes and piled on the onions, steak chunks, and blue cheese. After brushing the edges with egg white, I folded and sealed the dough. The style of folding is up to you though ideally the package is a half moon shape with prettily crimped edges. But I was hungry and the dough was sticky so I ended with some odd shaped packages. I cut slits in the top to let the steam out, and put the pasties in a 400 degree oven for half an hour.

My pasty didn't end up being a perfect shape but it was steamy and moist inside, flaky and buttery on the outside. By itself and this size, it makes a satisfying meal. The recipe for four pasties can easily be made into six smaller portions and served with salad or other side dishes. It's plenty of food. But please pronounce it correctly when you serve it.

Beef Pasties with Caramelized Onions and Stilton Cheese

Caramelize

Some people are like onions. They have a sharp bite and they're hard to take raw, but they have their uses. Cooked correctly, those too tangy onions can become sweet and succulent. If you want to get the best out of them, sauté them slowly in a light olive oil, for 30 to 45 minutes. Keep the heat on medium. Don't turn it up or you'll burn them and ruin the effect. Watch them turn a warm brown shade, the smaller slices getting crispy, and notice the air filling with a delicious savory scent reminiscent of seared meat or buttery fried potatoes. You've just caramelized onions, bringing out and browning the sugar in them. Now they don't have to be hidden in a supporting role but stand proudly on their own in a dish. Aren't they beautiful?



Caramelization takes patience and so do some people. It's amazing what a little warmth can do.

You Can Wrap a Crêpe Around Anything

It was hot that day walking down the Rue Mouffetard in Paris. My friend Katy and I had already been to a couple of museums and the Latin Quarter that morning, and it was barely lunchtime. But we were in the perfect place for lunch because the Rue Mouffetard has a number of food stalls, tiny shops, and an open air market.
We were in Paris for only two days and I had a list of food I wanted to eat while I was there. Duck confit, paté, pain au chocolat, a variety of cheeses, and of course crêpes. I had read in my Lonely Planet guidebook about some crêpe stands which could be found on Rue Mouffetard. So I suggested that we should find one of them for lunch.
Katy was hesitant. I couldn't figure out why. I had been eating crêpes for years, since my 7th grade french class went to La Crêperie in Chicago for dinner. I had an escargot filled crêpe in Ft. Lauderdale of all places. My roommate Kristen's German classmate held famous crêpe breakfasts with a buffet of fillings. I took visitors in Minneapolis to the Mall of America crêpe stand. And (naturally) I finally got my own crêpe pan and started making them myself, filling them with mushrooms and bacon when I took brunch to my friends Dan and Bonnie after they had a baby, or spending a day making three dozen crêpes for a dinner party for 8, which included a choice of fillings of chicken and mushroom, or ham, spinach and cheese, as well as fruit, whipped cream, and nutella for dessert. As I said to Kristen when she took me to the famous crêpe breakfast, you can wrap a crêpe around anything.
Eating a crêpe in Paris was not optional. So I dragged Katy to the crêpe stand. The options included fillings like ham, cheese, mushrooms, and tomatoes. What was unusual about the crêpes offered was that they came with lettuce, like a deli sandwich. Katy ordered reluctantly, got her crêpe, and then was surprised to find out it was quite good. Why wouldn't it be, I asked. It turns out she had never had a savory crêpe before, crêpes were always a dessert in her mind. Until she tried it, a savory crêpe was the equivalent of having a ham and cheese cake (given the stuff I see done on Iron Chef, this may not be half bad).
Savory crêpes are the best kind. Cheesy, sauce oozing out the sides, flavorful meat and veggies on the inside of a buttery thin pancake. The batter can be made without sugar, neutral, so the crêpe can be filled with savory ingredients for the entree and sweet ingredients for dessert. Here's my foolproof recipe, easy to memorize in case you have to make dessert for a cooking challenge, and a suggestion for a savory crêpe dinner. But of course, you can wrap them around anything in your kitchen.

Spinach Stuffed Crêpes with Feta Cheese White Sauce

Crêpe Batter:
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup flour

Filling and Sauce:
6 cups packed spinach leaves
1 tablespoon water
1/2 tsp salt
dash of pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons feta cheese
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Make the crêpes: Beat together the ingredients for the crêpe batter. An immersion blender works great for this to get the flour completely incorporated into the wet ingredients. Heat a crêpe pan or non-stick frying pan on medium heat. It is ready when a drop of water sizzles on it. Add about 1/4 cup of batter to the pan and swirl to coat. Add a little more to fill in the holes. This does not have to look perfect. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, until you can slide a spatula underneath and the crêpe holds together and is lightly browned. Flip and cook for another minute. Remove to a plate and keep covered with plastic wrap or paper towels, or keep warm in a 200 degree oven. Repeat with remainder of batter, should make about six crêpes.

Make the filling: Put spinach leaves and 1 tablespoon water in a large pot. Cover and heat over medium heat until spinach is wilted, about five minutes. Remove from heat and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp of salt and a dash of pepper.

Make the sauce: Remove the spinach from the pot and reheat the pot on medium heat. Add butter and allow it to melt. When just melted, add the flour, whisking until smooth. This forms a roux, the base for many sauces. Cook roux about two minutes but do not brown. (Brown and dark brown sauces can be made by browning the butter, but in this case we're making a white sauce which would be aesthetically less pleasing if browned). Whisk in the milk slowly, adding a little at a time to maintain a smooth sauce. Sprinkle in the feta cheese and allow it to melt, then remove sauce from heat. Stir in nutmeg.

Assembly: Distribute the spinach among the crêpes and roll them up. Top with sauce. Sprinkle additional feta on top. Serves three, two crêpes each.

Fresh Corn

Yesterday I slid a knife down the side of a cob of corn and then held the cob up to my nose to smell it. Have you ever done this? The cob has the most delicious scent, like fresh yeasty bread. You can only smell it after you cut the kernels off. The outside of the corn smells good too, fresh and sweet, especially in the peak season. But the inside - wow! Bottle that scent.

So that's why corn off the cob tastes better than frozen corn kernels. But the cob is so flavorful that it's used to add depth to soups and custards before discarding. Unlike a banana peel, useless after removal, the cob seems a waste to just throw away.

I know it's funny to write about corn in the middle of winter, but when the temperature drops into the single digits yet again, I need a reminder of summer. I used to roll my eyes at recipes that called for fresh corn, resorting to my trusty staple of frozen corn for all recipes. They're not bad, but they don't have the milky sweet taste of fresh, which can be eaten raw or just barely cooked. You can't go wrong if you serve them because they require so little effort. But if you want a recipe, try this. Cut up some bacon (about 1 strip per corn cob) and fry it with some chopped scallions. Cut the fresh kernels off the cob and sprinkle them with chili powder, then add to the bacon and scallions and saute for just a minute or two. Add some salt and pepper to taste.

Johnny Cakes

When my friend Jess visited me in Minneapolis, I took her to a little restaurant called Cafe Maude for brunch. She noted that they had a most unusual brunch menu (offering things like chorizo hash and tempura asparagus) and happily ordered a Croque Madame. I ordered the Roasted Sweet Corn Johnny Cakes with sauteed shrimp.
I never had johnny cakes before. Johnny cakes were originally made back in pioneer days. The flat cakes were a mix of cornmeal, milk, and salt - simple and inexpensive to make on the frontier. They were cooked on a griddle, or in the absence of one, on the blade of a hoe. That is why in some recipes they are called hoe cakes. This makes them sound like a Little Debbie snack cake!
When Jess got the Croque Madame she ordered, the waitress brought me the wrong order. Instead of johnny cakes she arrived with flatbread. So I sent it back and waited. Jess chowed on her sandwich while I watched. When she was done eating, I started shooting the waitress nasty looks. She stopped by once and said the kitchen was backed up. Finally, after 45 minutes, she brought out my order and said it was on the house. And even though one of the cakes was burned, they were good enough for me to forgive the poor service and plan on making my own, timely johnny cakes.
A modern johnny cake recipe, like the one in Cooking Light that I found, has more than just cornmeal, milk and salt. Fresh corn, egg, and leavening make the cakes puffy and moist. The recipe also calls for scallops, which I replaced with shrimp. The sauce, a blend of mayo, ketchup and mustard with sour cream, slightly resembled McDonald's "orange sauce", and would probably be better with just sour cream, onion and herbs.




The johnny cakes turned out beautifully and would be ideal for someone who likes cornbread and fresh corn. My favorite part was the extra shrimp that I fried up to garnish the cakes. I doused it in lemon juice, salt, pepper, and chili powder and tossed it into the pan. I added some of the leftover corn kernels and then arranged the garnish on the cakes with a scoop of sauce and some chopped chives. I don't know what took them so long at Cafe Maude...