The International Pot Luck
Well, y’all missed it. The International Pot Luck Special Interest Group (IPLSIG) Happened last Sunday, and we had a lot of good eating and good visiting. The first meeting was to feature Italian cooking, and the people who came thought up some nice out-of-the-way dishes to bring with them—braised fennel, cassata (made with pound cake instead of sponge cake, which I liked better anyway), modified Caesar salad, and (well, you can’t be creative all the time) a pizza. Life became even more interesting when the bad weather stuck our original hostess in Fort Worth for the weekend, so I wound up as The Accidental Host and my wife as The Accidental Hostess. On that ground, it’s a good thing no more people showed up than did for the first time; we couldn’t have seated them all conveniently. As it happened, dining was make-believe al fresco for most of us, because we don’t have enough chairs to go around.
The next meeting well be held at Kelly and Steve’s new house, and they promise they will have enough unpacked to entertain us. The cuisine for April will be Indian (no, not red Indians, the other kind; we are NOT having pemmican and parched corn!).
In consideration thereof, therefore, thereupon, whereafter, hereunto, or hereinbetween, to me in hand paid, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, I do hereby give, grant, transfer, and otherwise convey a couple of recipes for next month’s meeting in case you don’t have easy access to an Indian cookbook. These are from Madhur Jaffrey’s The Taste of India, which is one of the neatest cookbooks for India I’ve seen recently. She lets us know that Indian cooking isn’t just Delhi cooking or Punjabi cooking, which idea you might get from all the Punjabi restaurants in America. For more extensive comments, see my column where I put in a chicken recipe (Moghlai murgh dumpukht) and a spinach recipe (soppu pullya) from the same book.
The first recipe for the month is one from the north central state of Uttar Pradesh, and all the ingredients are pretty easily available these days, except for maybe the asafetida, which you might have to go to an Oriental grocery to find.
GAAJAR AUR SOOAY KI BHAJI
Carrots with Dill
| 1 pound peeled carrots | 1 or two Thai chiles, finely chopped |
| ¼” cube of fresh ginger, peeled | 1 teaspoon ground coriander |
| ¼ cup vegetable oil | ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric |
| ½ teaspoon whole cumin seed | 1 ounce (2/3 cup) fresh dill, cleaned and chopped |
| 1/8 teaspoon asafetida (optional) | ½ teaspoon salt |
Slice the carrots into eighth-inch thick coins. Mince the ginger very finely. Heat the oil in a wok or heavy frying pan. When the oil is hot put in the whole cumin, and just a second later the asafetida, then the ginger and chiles. When the ginger starts to brown, put in the carrots, coriander and turmeric. Stir for two minutes, then add the dill and salt and stir. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and simmer one or two minutes until the carrots are just done. Remove the carrots with a slotted spoon to leave the oil in the pan.
Now it’s perfectly possible to have an Indian banquet without any meat at all, as the Jains prove quite frequently, but this is Western culture after all, and we are meat-eaters, maybe more so than necessary. I will not, though, attempt in this column to reform those attitudes, the more so as “I have left uneaten those things which I ought to have eaten; and I have eaten those things which I ought not to have eaten, and there is no health in me.” Hence I’ll include here a meat recipe—for “mutton” which, as I said before, was a British euphemism for kid goat. I’m not expecting that you’re going to go out and find a kid just for this; it’s dreadfully expensive when you do find it, and many people just don’t care for it (I do, though). However, you can use lamb quite easily in this recipe (not that lamb isn’t also expensive, but it is more readily available and more people will eat it).
The recipe is for mutton cooked in the style of Kolhapur, which is in the state of Maharashtra. The main thing you will need that isn’t available at the local supermarket is cardamom pods.
KOLHAPURI MUTTON
2 pounds boned lamb from the shoulder,
cut into 1½” cubes | |
| Marinade |
| 4 tablespoons plain (unsweetened) yogurt | 2 teaspoons fresh ginger
peeled and very finely grated |
| 1 teaspoon garlic, finely crushed | ¼ teaspoon turmeric |
Put the meat in a bowl. Add all the marinating seasonings and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for three hours, or overnight if you like.
| Sauce |
| ½ teaspoon vegetable oil | 3 medium onions, peeled |
| 2 to 4 dried hot Thai red chiles | 2 tablespoons vegetable oil |
| 1½” cinnamon stick | 2 teaspoons very finely crushed garlic |
| 10 whole cloves | 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and very finely grated |
| 10 whole cardamom pods | ½ pound small ripe tomatoes, very finely chopped |
| 2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds | 1¼ teaspoon salt |
Before, you begin, I warn you: Thai chiles are hotter than any jalapeño you ever met, and it’s a good idea to wear gloves when you handle them. Don’t rub your nose or touch your eyes, because the oil from the peppers will burn very badly for a long time, and can temporarily blind you if you’re incautious. This also should warn you that if you’re not partial to very hot food, go on the low side when deciding how many peppers to use. I find two is plenty.
Lightly grease a small cast-iron frying pan with the half teaspoon of vegetable oil and heat it over a medium-low flame. When it is hot, put in the Thai chiles and the cinnamon stick. Stir them around until the chiles darken. Remove the spices and put them in a plate. Put the whole cloves, cardamom pods, and coriander seeds into the frying pan. Stir and roast the seeds until they darken a few shades, but don’t let them burn. You should smell the coriander seeds as they get properly roasted Put these spices in the same plate as the chiles and cinnamon. Put all the roasted spices from the plate into a clean spice grinder and grind as finely as possible, or grind with a mortar and pestle.
Cut all the onions in half lengthwise. Slice half the sections crosswise into very thin, fine half fings. Chop up the remaining half of the onions as finely as you can.
When the meat is through marinating, heat the remaining two tablespoons of oil in a wide, heavy pan over a medium-high flame. When it is hot, put in the onion slices. Stir-fry them until they are a reddish brown. Next, put in the very finely chopped onions and stir them for one minute. Turn down the heat to medium low. Put in the garlic and ginger, and stir for a few seconds. Put in the ground spices, and stir once. Add half a cup of water. Continue to stir and cook on a medium-low flame, stirring as you do so, for three to four minutes. You will begin to see the oil as it separates from the spice mixture.
Now put in the marinated meat. Turn up the heat to medium high. Stir and fry the meat with the spice paste for ten minutes. Add the tomatoes and salt. Continue to stir and cook for another five minutes. Now add about one cup of water and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan, turn the heat to low and simmer for about an hour, or until the meat is tender. Just before serving, skim the oil from the top.
first ran: April 1989
Text ©1989 by Sam Waring. All rights reserved.