Requested recipes -

This is kind of a long post, but it is the recipes requested. They are spicy,
and look harder to make than they are.  Lezlie

My daughter, Thea's "You Light Up My Life Salsa"
A really spicy fresh salsa for dipping or topping or whatever you use salsa
for. If you don't like the heat, cut down on the chilies.

Some chilies - seranos, habajeneros, Anaheims, red cherries, those little Thai
chilies, whatever you like, about a fourth cup full
Five fat jalapenos
One sweet pepper (any color)
Two or three tomatoes.  (romas are good)
Two limes worth of juice, plus the zest.
Tsp. of ground cumin
A handful of chopped cilantro
Some green onions, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

Chop everything up really fine, and add to a bowl.  Add the limejuice, and
chill for about two hours.  Enjoy!  (This is good on just about everything from
chips to shrimps to black beans.) 

Variation: Some wild loquats or kumquats, if you can find them are really good.
Any sort of fruit works, I've used melons, strawberries (really), papaya,
guavas.  It's the spice-sweet-acid-salt mix/balance you are looking for & that
says "salsa". 


Lezlie's Almost Calcutta Curry
Curry is kari as translated by the British Raj.  It means a sort of stew, and
there is a saying that if you are lost in India, start to prepare a kari, and
someone will stop to tell you how you are doing it wrong, whereupon you can ask
for directions - and share a good meal.

One chicken chopped up in the Oriental manner.  Put it in a bowl or a flat
baking dish, sprinkle garum masala (recipe at the end), salt (a good bit), and
some chopped onion, ginger, garlic, chopped up lemons or limes (two will do)
and cilantro over it.  Massage it all into the chicken pieces (so, you like
getting personal with your food?).   Cover all with some white or rice wine or
brandy.  Leave it to marinate for a couple of hours.

[ NOTE: If you want to make a good tandoor, add a cupful of yogurt, a bunch of
cardamom, some chopped up fresh chilies, a tablespoon of turmeric, a star
anise, some black pepper, more cilantro, a teaspoon full of cumin, a couple of
heaping teaspoons of garum masala, some annato seeds (optional) and a lot of
red food coloring or "tandoor coloring" from the local imported
foods store. 
Set aside for a several hours, or even overnight.  Grill it on a coolish Weber,
covered, and brush frequently as you grill it with ghee or olive oil into which
you have added a good sized chili.  Let the oil simmer on the grill as you make
the tandoor.  Do not save the leftover marinade, it gets icky.  The left over
smoky flavored oil is tasty, and can be used for just about anything.]

Toss the "bits & ends" from chopping chicken and vegetables,
and the neck and
the giblets into a pot to make stock for the rice.  When the pot is simmering
good, take out a cupful and melt some tamarind (available in cans or in
shrink-wrap packages) paste.  Just add all the left over pieces and ends of the
remaining ingredients to the stock as you go along, along with some spices and
a cup of cheap wine or brandy and you will have tasty stock to simmer the rice
in.

Start melting about ten threads of saffron for the rice and set aside.

One white onion, chopped

About a quarter sized piece of fresh ginger

Some of each (this is a matter of taste as to how much: tomatoes, a handful of
eatable pod peas, a few string beans, a couple potatoes chopped in medium sized
pieces (try whole new ones, Yukon Golds), a few baby carrots, and/or some fresh
anise root all chopped up.

A about one and one half cups plain yogurt (Nancy's is what I prefer) and/or a
can of sweet, thick coconut milk - not juice-  ("Thai Taste"
brand works well).
 You can milk a coconut & mush up some of the meat in a food processor - and,
once in a panic, I used the "daiquiri-mix" coconut milk in a
frozen can.  Was a
little weird to work with, but it tasted OK. 

Two cloves garlic, chopped

Handful of cilantro

Some chilies, your choice, to taste.  Chop into  smallish pieces - the seeds
make the "hot" part. 

Some lemongrass, chopped in smallish pieces

A star anise, whole

Three or four whole green cardamom pods

Tsp. each: turmeric, ground cumin, white pepper, salt

And, 2 or 3 tsps. each: whole mustard seeds, fenugreek (optional),  & cinnamon 
You can add some black peppercorns, grains of paradise, whole cloves and whole
cumin seeds, pretty much to taste.

In a dry iron pan (a big one) put the And, 2 or 3 tsps. each: whole mustard
seeds, fenugreek (optional), cinnamon, black peppercorns, grains of paradise,
whole cloves and whole cumin seeds and heat to high - let it get to smoking. 
The mustard seeds and fenugreek will start "jumping".  Keep the
doors & windows
OPEN during this process.  Stand back, and DO NOT BREATHE!  Add chilies, and
hold your breath while they "pop". 

Now, turn down the heat, air out remaining smoke, and breath again as you add
some oil to brown the chicken in.  Ghee is the preferred oil, but if you don't
have any or can't make it, you can use clarified butter, olive or peanut oil. 
I've used canola or safflower, but it just doesn't have that nutty, buttery
flavor that is under everything else in a curry. 

So: Ghee is made by putting sweet cream butter - salted or not - in a pan and
eating it ever so gently, on the very lowest heat you can manage for several
hours.  The fat will rise and crust over, like it does when you clarify butter,
and under that is the "butter oil".  This is perfectly OK to use, and is
basically clarified butter, you can stop now.  But for ghee, keep heating until
the "fat crust" turns brown, and the oil is very, very clear and
smells kind of
nutty.  Ghee keeps for months in a glass container in the refer, it solidifies
in the cold, but it melts again when you use it for cooking.  You can buy the
stuff in a gourmet food store.  The Indians say that it is actually good for
you - I don't buy that, but that's what they say.  

Use about a tablespoon of ghee to brown the chicken parts, and do it on a
medium heat, with all the chilies and spices in the pan.  Then remove the
browned chicken and place on a platter.  DON'T deglaze the pan; add all the
chopped up veggies and spices, stir them around for awhile until they are soft
and partially cooked.  This process is exactly like doing basic Mediterranean
cooking, adding each vegetable in order from longest cooking to shortest.  When
the vegetables are partly cooked and a "sauce" begins to coat the bottom of
your pan, replace the chicken.  This is the time to add turmeric; probably a
tablespoon will do it, for that "curry" color.  If you like it
Really Hot, add
some cayenne about now as well.  Toss in the handful of cilantro and cover the
pan for about a half-hour.  Check it often so that it doesn't scorch boils over
or anything else.  At the end of a half-hour, you should have a lot of
"broth"
in the pan, and a wonderful smelling concoction.  You can eat it right now,
nothing added.  To finish this curry, add the yogurt and/or coconut milk and
let things just simmer along, uncovered, reducing the liquid into a sauce about
the consistency of a thick fruit smoothie.  (There are no rules about this -
reduce it until it looks right).  While you are finishing your curry, make the
rice. 

Rice: Two cups liquid, one cup of rice.  Basmati is the traditional variety -
you can tell it from other rices because it smells like popcorn when it's
cooking (really).  In a saucepan, melt a little more ghee; add some salt and a
little chopped onion and a pinch of powdered ginger and a pinch of cinnamon or
garum masala.  When all is bubbly, add a tiny amount or honey, raw sugar or
jaggery - if you don't have any of these, omit this. Now, add the rice and
toast it until it start smelling like popcorn and turns color - not all the way
to rice-a-roni brown, just a little whiter on the way to brown.  When Now, you
have a pot of delicious stock bubbling away with all the flavors that went into
your curry, you will need about a cup - maybe a little more - to add to the
rice, don't bother to cool it, just add it bubbling.  Add water to make up the
remaining liquid, and let the rice boil until holes appear in the top of the
rice.  Add the glass that the saffron has been melting and a couple green
cardamom pods, a sprinkling of whole cumin, and cover.  If you like fresh peas
in your rice, add those now, too.  Do not stir, as it will make your rice
sticky.  When the rice is done, about 20 minutes of steaming in the covered pot
will do it, fluff it and gently mix in the spices and ingredients with a wooden
spoon.  You can put all of this n a serving bowl, put it n the table with a
garnish of cilantro and a sprinkle of garum masala.

The curry should now be done, I usually stir it up a bit, squeeze a little
lemon over it (adds a tartness that cuts the sweetness of the rice & also
brings up the "heat" of the chilies.)  My guests put the rice on
a plate or in
a bowl and spoon the curry over it, and we enjoy it.  A little orange, yogurt,
or bread will cut any overdone spice.

Now, in case you don't know what garum masala is, it is a traditional
seasoning.  You make it by taking whole spices: cloves, peppercorns, cumin,
cinnamon, cilantro seeds, cardamom (sometimes others, sometimes omit, there are
many recipes for this).  I toast this in an small iron pan on the grill - the
smoke from the spices toasting doesn't bother anything, and you can just leave
it there overnight after a BBQ, the coals stay hot a long time even after the
grill is shut down.  Do not use any oil.  When the spices are good and toasted
(some will look quite black, burned even, like the cinnamon) grind it fine in a
coffee or spice grinder.  Store it on you herb shelf.  Another traditional
garnish is toasted cumin seeds, they toast the same way & toasting brings out
the oils.  You can do this in the oven, but it takes several hours at a very
low heat.  

Garum masala to garnish 


- From "Good Cooking in the Peoples' Republic of Berkekey" A cook book I am
going to write some moment when I have time. Lezlie









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