Kitchen3N

Recipes and food fun from Apt 3N

Your Mama’s Goat Curry (almost)

imageI wanted this blog to be part-South Asian cooking primer, part musings on Mediterranean/American/Italian cuisine and part dessert food-porn. I haven’t had much opportunity to cook South Asian food post baby no.2, mainly because I’ve been blessed with my mom’s good old home cooking most of the time.

But since it was Eid ul Fitr and my mom ran off to the homeland for a month, I got a chance to whip up some of the good stuff. The stuff that when I asked my husband to give a taste, rolled his eyes back and said “THIS is what makes the world go round”. Now, I won’t take all the credit. It’s a pretty standard curry recipe: onions, garlic, spices – with the exception of tomato paste. That’s a nifty little trick I learned from my mother in law. Intense tomato flavor and meat tenderizer in one. But it’s the meat that makes all the difference. Goat meat, very popular in the subcontinent, not so much in the states – is so flavorful, so tender. Though not as overpowering as lamb can be. I usually get ~3lbs from the shoulder/ribs/foreshank area.

I know it looks like a lot of ingredients, but they are seriously things to invest in if you enjoy south asian cooking.

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Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 large yellow onion or 2 small
  • 2 tbsps garlic/ginger paste (or 5 garlic cloves and 1.5 in ginger root, minced)
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 tsps cumin powder
  • 2 tsps coriander powder
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne powder
  • 2 tsps turmeric
  • 4-5 lbs goat meat (cut into small pieces)
  • 2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
  • 6 cardamom pods
  • 6 cloves
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 4-5 peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2.5 cups water

Directions

Heat oil over medium high heat in a nice, big pot. Slice onion and add to hot oil. Let it soften (for 5 to 8 minutes) and add the garlic/ginger paste, tomato paste, cumin, coriander, chilli and turmeric and mix  well. Let the spices cook for 2-3 minutes, adding water as necessary to keep he spices from sticking to the bottom. Add the goat meat pieces and stir to coat every piece with the flavor base. Let cook for 10 minutes (similar to the searing stage of a meat braise). Add salt, then the garam masala (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and peppercorns). Add water and bring to a boil. Then cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Let simmer for 45-90 minutes, depending on the age of the goat. Young goat cooks in as little as 45 min.

Taste for doneness (meat should be tender) and seasoning.

South Asian rice pudding (Kheer)

Apologies for dragging him into yet another one of my posts, but I’ll do it anyway. One of the many things my dear husband and I bond over is our mutual disdain for South Asian sweets. It seems they’re all permutations of milk products or by products, overly sweetened and offering little by way of depth of flavor (think: golap jam, rosh golla, malai kari and so on). We have, however, a few exceptions:  sweet doi (yogurt), rosh malai and my Rahima Aunty’s kheer.

This is a very traditional dish done in a not-so-traditional way. In the olden days, you would slave over a hot stove all day, slowly reducing a vat of milk to about half, then adding the rice and sugar until cooked and sufficiently thickened. Rahima Aunty has figured out a way to cut down the cooking time and even add richness by using a 2:1 milk to heavy cream combination. She also blitzes the rice (increasing the surface area), which allows the starches to develop further, resulting in super thick and creamy, almost gelatinous pudding.

To achieve the traditional smokey flavor of a gurer (date molasses) kheer, I’d highly recommend picking up some from your local South Asian market. I haven’t tried it with regular molasses, but you’re welcome to give it a shot! And of course, because I can never just stick to a recipe, I added a dash of salt and bit of vanilla to round out the flavors. I’ve already made a serious dent to the bowl…thanks, Aunty!

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup basmati rice
  • 4 cups whole milk
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 3/4 cup date molasses
  • 3/4 tsp vanilla
  • dash salt
  • 1 tbsp butter (or ghee [clarified butter])

Directions

Soak the rice in water for 8 hours or overnight.

When ready to prepare the pudding, drain the rice and dump into a food processor. Pulse to break up the rice (don’t overdo this step…you don’t want a paste).

Combine milk and cream in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Pour in the rice and simmer until the rice is cooked through, stirring occasionally (about 20 minutes). Continue to simmer until reduced, for 15 minutes. Add molasses, vanilla and salt and stir continuously for the last 5 minutes. Off the heat, add the butter (or ghee) until melted.

Pour into serving bowl immediately and cover with plastic wrap to keep a skin from forming.

Cilantro Dipping Sauce

This sauce, for my husband, is the pastrami to his rye. The basil to his tomato. The mustard to his hot dog. OK, maybe not that last one. The point is – he loves this sauce and could eat it on top of anything. It’s a great condiment to have on hand to jazz up roasted meat or wake up weeknight leftovers. It’s based on this jarred condiment sold by Swad in Indian grocery stores called “Coriander Chutney” but oh so much better. Kind of a chutney-pesto hybrid. And boy do they make good babies.

There’s the kick from the garlic and a nice edge from the green chili. Trust me, you need both to stand up to the bold, verdant flavor of the cilantro.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 bunch cilantro (about 4 cups, unpacked)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 green chili (use more if you like it hot)
  • 2 tbsps lime juice
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/3 cup olive oil (plus more if needed)

Directions:

Rinse the cilantro to get rid of any dirt/grime. Rough chop, then toss in the food processor. Give the garlic and green chili a rough chop, too. Add them to the guest list. Add salt and lime juice and start the processor. While running, drizzle in the olive oil slowly to help emulsify. If it’s not coming together to a nice saucy consistency, add more oil. Taste for seasoning and serve.

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Here I used it in lieu of basil pesto over roasted shrimp and linguine. Yum!

The perfect cup of (milk) tea

IMG_4899Every South Asian is familiar with the following scenario: impromptu guests late in the afternoon. While you scurry to make your place somewhat presentable, you run through the inventory of sweet and savory snacks to serve. Then they say, “Oh we’ll just have some tea and be on our way.” Easy enough. Throw some water, milk and tea bags in a pot. Simmer, then sugar. Wait, is that 50/50 water and milk? Or am I supposed to use evaporated milk? How long should I simmer again? Aw, crap, the milk’s bubbled over.

A decent cup of milk tea (cha if you’re bengali, chai if you’re not, venti skinny extra foam chai latte if you’re a gringa) should not be a challenging endeavor. But when you’re on the go-go-go and Barista B. is serving up your caffeine fix every morning, you might forget the proper ratios, simmering times and techniques. After being consistently disappointed that the tea I concocted each morning did not live up to the $1 cup of tea from the local bengali joint, I decided to experiment with a few different techniques and ingredients to come up with a foolproof, delicious-every-time cup of cha.

First you need a really good tea (if you try this with Lipton, you WILL be disappointed). My tea of choice is PG Tips. The flavor profile is robust; it really stands up well to milk. Any good quality tea sourced from Assam or Darjeeling is ideal. I use 1 tea bag per person (1 tsp loose). Teas that are not as strong (Ceylon comes to mind) will require 1.5 tsp per person.

Second – evaporated milk. I’ve tried all reduced fat milk, half water, half whole milk, sweetened condensed milk. Nothing delivers quite as consistently as evaporated milk.

Third – a measuring cup helps.

Keep in mind, this will make 2 generous cups (not those teensy tea cups). Adjust sugar according to yourpreference. So, here we go:

Ingredients:

  • 2.5 cups of water
  • 2 bags/pyramids of strong tea (PG Tips, Tetley, etc.)
  • 1/4 cup evaporated milk
  • 2 heaping tsps sugar

Bring the water to a boil. Add tea bags and reduce to a simmer (you still want to see bubbles bursting, just not violently). Add the evaporated milk and set your timer to 5 minutes. This will allow the flavors to develop and the liquids to evaporate a bit, intensifying the flavor and richness. Add sugar and pour through a sieve.

Scaling up: this recipe scales well. To adjust simmering time, keep an eye on the hue. When the liquid has reduced a bit and the color looks like the picture, you’re good.

Spicing it up: add a pod of cardamom and/or cinnamon stick per 2 people if desired