Autumn is when a lot of squash varieties are in season. Butternut squash is one of my favorites because it can be roasted pretty easily with brown sugar and olive oil, it can be deep fried as a vegetable (if it is sliced thinly enough), and it can be made into a nice and hearty soup.
Ingredients
One butternut squash (approx 3 lbs), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1" pieces
1 qt organic chicken broth
1 organic medium carrot, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp curry powder
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
1. In a stockpot, melt butter and olive oil together over medium heat. Add carrot, garlic, squash and curry powder. Let vegetables sweat for a few minutes, then add the broth. Bring soup to a boil and simmer over medium heat until squash is tender, 20-25 minutes.
2. Using an immersion blender or regular blender, pureé the mixture until smooth. Season with sea salt and black pepper, to taste. Serve while hot.
Note: If you like onions, a medium chopped onion can be added when the garlic and carrots are added. Let the onions caramelize in the oil before adding the squash and curry powder.
Showing posts with label curry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label curry. Show all posts
Curry sauce, version 2
There is a hint of sweetness with this flavor blend, even though there are no sugars in it.
1 tbsp curry powder
1/4 tsp Chinese five spice powder
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin (cooking sake)
+ enough boiling water to cover the meat
1. As you would with any meat you're about to fry (e.g., chicken drumsticks), heat the olive oil over medium in a heavy bottomed pan that is large enough to accommodate all the chicken on a single layer. Once the oil is hot enough to swirl easily across the bottom, add the curry powder and five spice powder and cook for about a minute.
2. Add the chicken and lightly brown both sides of the chicken part. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat. And, lastly, add the soy sauce and mirin.
3. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Simmer the chicken for 45 minutes, or until the meat starts pulling away from the bone.
You'll have a lot of curry sauce leftover. I removed the chicken to a serving dish, and then added sweet potato chunks to the sauce and cooked that on medium heat for 20-30 minutes. The longer the potatoes cook for, the thicker the sauce becomes, so add more water if necessary.
1 tbsp curry powder
1/4 tsp Chinese five spice powder
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin (cooking sake)
+ enough boiling water to cover the meat
1. As you would with any meat you're about to fry (e.g., chicken drumsticks), heat the olive oil over medium in a heavy bottomed pan that is large enough to accommodate all the chicken on a single layer. Once the oil is hot enough to swirl easily across the bottom, add the curry powder and five spice powder and cook for about a minute.
2. Add the chicken and lightly brown both sides of the chicken part. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat. And, lastly, add the soy sauce and mirin.
3. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Simmer the chicken for 45 minutes, or until the meat starts pulling away from the bone.
You'll have a lot of curry sauce leftover. I removed the chicken to a serving dish, and then added sweet potato chunks to the sauce and cooked that on medium heat for 20-30 minutes. The longer the potatoes cook for, the thicker the sauce becomes, so add more water if necessary.
Tomato curry rice
This recipe uses Alton Brown's method of making brown rice, except I cook for one and this is too much rice for me to eat, even for a couple days. Only white rice has a 1:1 ratio with water. Brown rice has more substance to it and requires a bit more water.
Basic recipe
1 c. brown rice (long grain like basmati, or short grain)
1 1/2 c. water
1 tbsp unsalted butter
pinch of saffron (optional)
pinch of salt
1. In a small saucepan, boil water, butter, and saffron (optional) together.
2. In an 8" x 8" baking pan (preferably glass), add rice pour water-butter liquid over it. Cover with a heat-proof lid or with aluminum foil.
No need to preheat the oven. You can put this into the oven as it heats up, just set the timer for 10 minutes longer, depending on how fast the oven comes up to temperature.
3. Bake at 375 degrees F for an hour.
Tomato curry rice
Instead of using water/butter/saffron as the liquid, use an equal amount of the sauce from the tomato curry chicken recipe, up to 2 cups of liquid for half a cup of brown basmati rice (long grain).
This dish tastes a lot like a rice pilaf or a rice dish that you'd find at an Indian restaurant. I'm sure someone has given this rice cooking method a name.
Basic recipe
1 c. brown rice (long grain like basmati, or short grain)
1 1/2 c. water
1 tbsp unsalted butter
pinch of saffron (optional)
pinch of salt
1. In a small saucepan, boil water, butter, and saffron (optional) together.
2. In an 8" x 8" baking pan (preferably glass), add rice pour water-butter liquid over it. Cover with a heat-proof lid or with aluminum foil.
No need to preheat the oven. You can put this into the oven as it heats up, just set the timer for 10 minutes longer, depending on how fast the oven comes up to temperature.
3. Bake at 375 degrees F for an hour.
Tomato curry rice
Instead of using water/butter/saffron as the liquid, use an equal amount of the sauce from the tomato curry chicken recipe, up to 2 cups of liquid for half a cup of brown basmati rice (long grain).
This dish tastes a lot like a rice pilaf or a rice dish that you'd find at an Indian restaurant. I'm sure someone has given this rice cooking method a name.
Tomato curry chicken
This is basically two dishes mixed together. This is tomato soup plus an already baked sweet potato that was diced, and a batch of curry chicken. The curry chicken is a family recipe.
Curry Chicken
4 tsp mild curry powder + 1 tbsp water
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 chili pepper, seeds removed and chopped (optional, if you like it spicy)
about 1 lb chicken parts, such as drumsticks
Directions
1. In a small prep bowl, combine curry powder and water to form a paste.
2. In a kettle, bring several cups of water to a boil. Set aside.
3. In a 2-quart pan (with a lid), heat olive oil until it spreads easily across the pan. Add the curry paste and stir until the oil is fragrant with the smell of curry. Quickly add the chicken and brown the sides of the chicken.
4. Add soy sauce and chili pepper. Then fill the pan with boiling water until the chicken is submerged.
5. Cover the pan with its lid and cook the chicken over low-medium heat for 45 minutes. If you were using a glass, enamel, or stainless steel pan, you could also bake this covered in the oven at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Tomato curry chicken
One batch of curry chicken, cooked
One batch of tomato soup
One baked sweet potato, diced (optional)
In the same pan that has the chicken, add the tomato soup and diced sweet potato. Cook until the liquid has reduced somewhat. Serve over rice.
Curry Chicken
4 tsp mild curry powder + 1 tbsp water
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 chili pepper, seeds removed and chopped (optional, if you like it spicy)
about 1 lb chicken parts, such as drumsticks
Directions
1. In a small prep bowl, combine curry powder and water to form a paste.
2. In a kettle, bring several cups of water to a boil. Set aside.
3. In a 2-quart pan (with a lid), heat olive oil until it spreads easily across the pan. Add the curry paste and stir until the oil is fragrant with the smell of curry. Quickly add the chicken and brown the sides of the chicken.
4. Add soy sauce and chili pepper. Then fill the pan with boiling water until the chicken is submerged.
5. Cover the pan with its lid and cook the chicken over low-medium heat for 45 minutes. If you were using a glass, enamel, or stainless steel pan, you could also bake this covered in the oven at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Tomato curry chicken
One batch of curry chicken, cooked
One batch of tomato soup
One baked sweet potato, diced (optional)
In the same pan that has the chicken, add the tomato soup and diced sweet potato. Cook until the liquid has reduced somewhat. Serve over rice.
Elk curry
I am a big fan of wild game meat, except I live in a quaint suburb of Los Angeles and there's often no such meat to be had unless I go out of my way to a specialty meat shop. Fortunately, there's a shop a few miles away, Harmony Farms. I have eaten elk jerky before, but with all the spices really hard to tell what elk really tastes like.
Any meat cooked with curry is prepared a lot like a stew. You take some flavoring agent like ginger or garlic, heat it up with some oil (usually 2 tbsp) in a skillet and add whatever meat. With the exception to roast duck, I don't think anyone else in my family likes eating game meats. I love it and I love reading folklorist-styled cookbooks that talk about the olde ways of preparing food. Anyhow.. onto the recipe.
There's a small hole-in-the-wall Middle-Eastern foods specialty shop that sells a lot of dried goods and spices in Burbank called Y & K Distributing. The curry that I have is packaged under their label and the spice ratios of it are unknown to me; but it is rather mild and flavorful.
Ingredients:
4 tsp curry powder + enough water to make a paste
2 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 lb elk stew meat
boiling water
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp wine (I used red xiao-xing wine)
Directions:
1. In a skillet, heat oil until hot but not smoking; add curry paste and stir until fragrant but not burning.
2. Add the elk meat and brown the elk meat. This step takes a lot less time than with beef stew meat since there is a lot less fat in elk meat. About 5 mins, or less.
3. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat.
4. Add soy sauce (this is a natural glutamate)
5. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. You could add wine to this step. It is optional.
Serve with steamed rice, noodles, or fresh lavash bread.
IMHO, it tastes pretty good.
Any meat cooked with curry is prepared a lot like a stew. You take some flavoring agent like ginger or garlic, heat it up with some oil (usually 2 tbsp) in a skillet and add whatever meat. With the exception to roast duck, I don't think anyone else in my family likes eating game meats. I love it and I love reading folklorist-styled cookbooks that talk about the olde ways of preparing food. Anyhow.. onto the recipe.
There's a small hole-in-the-wall Middle-Eastern foods specialty shop that sells a lot of dried goods and spices in Burbank called Y & K Distributing. The curry that I have is packaged under their label and the spice ratios of it are unknown to me; but it is rather mild and flavorful.
Ingredients:
4 tsp curry powder + enough water to make a paste
2 tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 lb elk stew meat
boiling water
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp wine (I used red xiao-xing wine)
Directions:
1. In a skillet, heat oil until hot but not smoking; add curry paste and stir until fragrant but not burning.
2. Add the elk meat and brown the elk meat. This step takes a lot less time than with beef stew meat since there is a lot less fat in elk meat. About 5 mins, or less.
3. Add enough boiling water to cover the meat.
4. Add soy sauce (this is a natural glutamate)
5. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. You could add wine to this step. It is optional.
Serve with steamed rice, noodles, or fresh lavash bread.
IMHO, it tastes pretty good.
Wild mushroom and curry risotto
I read an article online that if you make risotto correctly, the rice becomes naturally creamy in the broth & wine when it cooks in due to its high starch content; and that you should never add butter or cream as the finishing step. I picked up some arborio rice from Whole Foods today. All the recipes that I came across seemed to have a similar theme going on...
Some type of oil + rice + broth >> Simmer >> Add other ingredients >> Add other seasonings >> Simmer >> Add wine >> Simmer >> Serve
For this experiment, I didn't use much curry since I only wanted to color the dish yellow and not have a curried rice dish; much like how saffron is typically used to flavor and impart color to the rice in a traditional risotto. This recipe makes 2 cups of cooked rice.
Ingredients & Directions:
1 tbsp butter or olive oil
1 c. dry arborio rice
Heat a skillet and add the butter. Once the butter has melted, add the rice. No, you're not cooking the rice in the butter. This is to keep it the starch in the rice from sticking to the pan. In a separate pot, rehydrate the dried mushroom with 1 c. boiling water. When softened, drain and reserve the mushrooms. Before the rice has a chance to burn and before all the moisture wicks itself away from the pan, add:
2 c. chicken broth
1 c. broken bits of dried mushroom
Cook on low-medium heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes until nearly all the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. If you're going to watch the director's cut of Dune while cooking, stir and check the rice frequently.
Add some white wine, no more than 1/4 cup or the alcohol won't burn off before its served
When this liquid has all been just about absorbed by the rice or cooked off, turn off the stove and stir in 1 tsp curry powder. The curry taste mellows out when the rice sits refrigerated for a day or so. Salt to taste.
Total cook and prep time: 40 minutes
Notes:
In the mushroom rehydration step, you can reserve the liquid as a mushroom dashi soup base for another dish. The curry powder could also have been added to the butter and heated until fragrant.
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