I don't think running out of a spice a terrible wife makes.
Although we were all horribly shocked the first time my mother ran out of something; I remember it distinctly. I was 13. It was vanilla. We were horrified.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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And yes, it is a big deal. We eat mostly rice and curries.
Luckily, I am a good cook. No, scratch that, I'm a damn good cook. And I still have red chiles, black pepper, cumin, coriander, turmeric, garlic, green chiles, garam masala and other such things with which to make fud.
posted
Actually, you had the ingredients for making curries from scratch, though maybe not a full range. Commercially-prepared/advertised curry powders and pastes are dessicated of the aromatics which lend the essence of flavor, savory goodness to curried dishes. Besides, the curry pastes tend to be way too salty. However... And it is even more necessary to have good ventilation when frying chiles to add to the other spices. It may be possible to find those who specialize in making fresh*curries. Anyway here's some links to sites where you may find some recipes for SouthAsian curries. There are many many many more curries if you can find similar links to Thai, Malaysian, and Indonesian cooking sites.
* Curries refers to the various mixtures of spices, and not to the curried foods.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Aspectre, yes, I'm well aware of that. That's why the day isn't a total loss and I don't have to commit ritual suicide.
However. I'm lazy and like to use the curry powder I can get here. Although I do also make it from scratch. The blend we buy is a really really good base.
Besides, that's where the humour comes from.
Edit: Should have responded with:
Really? Is that how it works? I had no idea!
But no, I'm slow, my brain doesn't work, and I have no humour! Drat! Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Thought that you might have known&teased, quidscribis, but also that most of the other readers wouldn't. So what's the name of this wonderful commercial curry? Cuz it's really hard to find any curry powder/paste worth using over here.
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posted
It's a local variety that isn't available outside of the country, as far as I know. Or, at least, if it is, it'll have a different brand name or packaging or something.
You know, it's also not like I use curry powder in something and nothing else. I don't. I'll mix it with red chili powder, pepper, cumin, coriander, ginger, garlic, green chiles, cilantro, lime, turmeric, tamarind, goraka, cloves, cinnamon, or... Or a combination thereof. It's more accurate to say that our curry powder provides a nice blended background. At its plainest, it might be curry powder, salt, and coconut milk with fish. Or perhaps curry powder, yellow mustard, honey, salt on chicken. Or curry powder, red chili powder, salt on fish. But it's usually got other stuff added to it.
There's also roasted curry powder, which goes best with meat or mushrooms or eggplant.
But then, as you know, there are so many ways to mix curry powder that the list is almost endless.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Aspectre - I agree that it's hard to find curry powders (well, in Australia, but I assume in the US as well). I tend to always make my own dry powders.
I usually make my pastes also but if I'm feeling lazy it is possible to get some quite good pre-prepared ones, actually made in various SE Asian countries.
Go to your local asian grocery store and check 'em out - my favourite ones usually come in foil packets. The brand I have in my pantry is Mae Ploy Brand, made in Thailand.
Masman, Panang and Tom Yam paste. The ingredients are all good and happy too - no colours or flavours or nasty numbers.
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posted
I wouldn't even know how to explain. Well, I'll try anyway, though. I've only seen the jar with the paste and it has a picture on the front of something that looks like a gourd, but this is Sri Lanka, so there may be a lot of creative license taking place. It's black and it's kinda bitter & sour. I use it when I'm making hot & sour fish with red chili pepper, black pepper, turmeric, salt, cumin, and lime, for example. I got it when I thought I was picking out tamarind (had just ran out) and wasn't paying attention to the labels but just to the color of the contents. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Ahh, google thinks it is related to tamarind.
The gourd would be the fruit it's made of, I'm guessing.
quote:Sri Lanka has already produced and exported two value-added products from goraka and gotukola. Goraka is used in the USA to produce an expensive “over the counter drug” which is taken to reduce body fat
posted
I should make that curry dish that I liked and my husband didn't like but I forgot about it before I decided that I have a right to like things he doesn't like. It's pretty lame, just curry in some cream of chicken soup over chicken, broccoli and rice.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I must be the worst wife ever, because I've never had any curry (powder or otherwise) in my house. Garlic, either. I can't stand the smell and taste of either of them. Andrew is not allowed to kiss me for 48 hours after consuming either of them. I shudder to think what those smells would do to me now.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
I got Indian and Middle Eastern food cravings when I was pregnant. (I wanted LAMB of all things! And spicy, spicy curries.) The up side is, we ate it enough, the baby got used to it; and then, in those early months, when I wasn't cooking much and we ate out quite a bit, when she nursed after I'd eaten spicy food, she seemed to enjoy it more. At five months, she had her first spicy lentils (she wouldn't leave me alone until I let her try a bite, thinking she would spit it out, cry to be nursed, and leave it alone; boy, was I wrong!) At 13 months, she eats all the foods we eat (although the REALLY spicy stuff sometimes has to be mixed with rice or avoided, since babies taste things much more strongly than adults, and she can't eat TOO much, or the diaper changes are h-e-double-hockey-sticks.) My family thinks it's the coolest thing ever, and frankly, so do I; she's coming with us when we go for Indian food at DallasCon, and you can bet she'll be eating at least some of the food!
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I just thought of something. We are going to have to make sure to have a toast at dinner to quidscribis, and make sure to get a picture of it for her. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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imogen, thanks for the link. I didn't know that about goraka. It also said that gotakola, which we use in sambols mainly, is good for improved memory.
Um, would you settle for me adding more curry recipes to my own site and providing a link?
My niece, who was the biggest spice wuss ever, emerged on the other side of 6 months in the Maldives being able to handle spicy food. 14 years of my sister trying to get her to eat spicy food, and no luck. But the Maldives... kq, I love your baby already! And kq, I love you even more... You're so sweet!
Kwea, you can just go away. I have nothing more to say to you. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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לא קשיא הא באירוניא והא דלא באירוניא ואיכא דאמרי קסבר רבן יונתן הא בקלאוזה מתוחכמת והא בקלאוזה לא מתוחכמת ס"ד קלאוזה הוה קלאוזה בין תחכום ובין לאו ואמר ליה רב נדב לרבן יונתן כי אירוניא תוקפה לעד ממאי דכתיב והארץ לעולם עמדת אל תקרי ארץ אלא ארן נו"ן וצד"י הן נ"ץ ובהנץ החמה י[ש]תמשו בפעלין רב נדב אמר בהנץ החמה כרבולתו של השכוי חווירתא קא משמע לן שנאמר אל זועם בכל יום וכמה זעמו רגע ומאי רגע אחת מחמש ריבוא ושלשת אלפים ושמונה מאות וארבעים ושמונה בשעה זו היא רגע ואין כל בריה יכולה לכווין אליה חוץ מבלעם הרשע דכתיב ויודע דעת עליון אפשר דעת בהמתו לא הוה ידע דעת עליון מי הוה ידע מאי דעת בהמתו לא הוה ידע בעידנא דחזו ליה דהוה רכיב אחמריה אמרו ליה מאי טעמא לא רכבתא אסוסיא אמר להו ברטיבא שדאי ליה מיד ותאמר האתון הלא אנכי אתונך אמר לה לטעינא בעלמא אמרה ליה אשר רכבת עלי אמר לה אקראי בעלמא אמרה ליה מעודך ועד היום הזה ולא עוד אלא שאני עושה לך רכיבות ביום ואישות בלילה כתיב הכא ההסכן הסכנתי וכתיב התם ותהי לו סוכנת אלא מאי ויודע דעת עליון שהיה יודע לכוין אותה שעה שהקב"ה כועס בה ודכתיב עד יעבור זעם ומתי יעבוא אמר רבן יונתן בתלת שעי קמייתא כי חיורא כרבלתא דתרנגולא כל שעתא ושעתא מחוור חיורא כל שעתא אית ביה סורייקי סומקי ההיא שעתא לית ביה סורייקי סומקי
My attempt in Gemarrah Writing.
EDITED FOR SHORTER LINES, FOR THOSE WHO DON'T SUPPORT HEBREW CHARSETS.
[ May 18, 2005, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Jonathan Howard ]
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posted
JH, for those of us without whatever character sets you're using, you are breaking the frame something awful. Could you please either delete that or add some hard returns? Thanks.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Um, does it have relevance to this thread? In any way? Would you mind providing a translation?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Because here's where I found two of rivka's contradicting statements, with my Gemarra-style analysis. (Potrtions actually taken out of the books.)
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Yup, I can. Well, by the 8 ounces, at any rate. Still, that link is pretty cool. Thanks! Yeah, I suspect I have more and better access to curry powder than anyone else on this forum. There are a lot of varieties available at the grocery store... A lot of locals make theirs from scratch every day, I'm just too lazy.
Oh, and when I mean from scratch, I mean whole spices, roast, then pound to powder, et cetera ad nauseum.
posted
Oh, good grief. Jon, I don't understand spoken Aramaic too well. You can absolutely forget about me trying to decode a screenful!
In any case, even without decoding it, I can answer your objection. I didn't say use exactly one verb per sentence. I said, "Use one in every sentence." This would include situations where more than one is used.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Not with the curry powder this time, although I did run out of that again a few months back. Whatever is this world coming to? I'm horrified at the thought!
But no, this time, it was both red chilli powder and red chilli flakes.
Sigh.
This time, I was cooking up roasted peppers in a cream sauce (peppers roasting in one pan, cream sauce making in another) and was about to add some red chilli powder to the cream sauce. Well, it wasn't cream sauce yet - it was, at this point, onions, garlic, and Thai chillies sauteing - and I'd just added salt and was about to add the red chilli powder.
I'd just filled up the jar two days ago. The jar holds an entire bag (100 grams, I think) of chilli powder. So*, no, not running out yet.
But then I dropped the jar.
It landed on the counter, bounced off, and landed on the floor.
Tiled floor.
Hard as concrete tiled floor. Probably because beneath the tiles is concrete.
And it shattered.
All that red chilli powder on the floor mixed in with shattered glass.
And because I'd just filled up the jar, I didn't have a spare bag on hand. Or, er, in the freezer, since that's where I've taken to keeping our spices so the bugs don't get into them and they don't go bad. Cuz that's what ya gotta do in this country.
So* I grabbed my jar of red chilli pepper flakes.
There was only a couple teaspoons left.
I wasn't worried before the jar of red chilli powder broke. About the red chilli flakes being so low, I mean. It could have lasted us until we go shopping on Friday. But now, with no red chilli pepper powder...
I dumped it all in with the onions, garlic, and green chillies.
And I'm sad.
Sad that, now, for the rest of the week, I have no more red chilli powder or red chilli pepper flakes to use.
The only good news to come out of this? At least I have enough Thai chillies in the fridge. And in the cream sauce (I put in four or five). We won't have to go without spicy food in its entirety.
But it just isn't the same. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Oh, and the roasted peppers in cream sauce, inspired by a conversation with ketchupqueen (thanks, kq ) turned out really really really really really good. If I do say so myself. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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And I still have red chiles, black pepper, cumin, coriander, turmeric, garlic, green chiles, garam masala and other such things with which to make fud.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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What time will you be by to pick it up? I was thinking about getting to sleep soon.
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