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!