Food Crimes

PET & Shulkie (and anybody else who is interested) - the thing about Indian food is that it's not really recipe-based; it's all technique. I have a couple cookbooks (including one signed by Madhur Jaffrey) but the ingredients and measurements are only a suggestion. The repertoire I've learned from aunties is all from practice. They never measure or write anything down. Depending on the climate, available ingredients, and family preferences, dishes can be cooked with a great deal of variation and still be 'authentic' as long as they come from Subcontinental hands (and yes, the corollary to this is that, in my opinion, anything cooked by non-brown hands for non-brown people is, by definition, not 'authentic' - might still be tasty, but it's not the real deal any more than my homemade pasta is authentically Italian).

My recipe for restaurant-quality 1 pot chicken korma calls for a package of chicken (approx 1 lb. or more of one's desired cut - I prefer leg or boneless thigh), a yellow onion of desired size, and a small carton of plain yogurt (approx. 1 pint, preferably greek, with some fat content).

For spices you will need at a minimum: 1TBSP turmeric powder, 1TBSP garlic powder, 1TBSP ginger powder, 1tsp-1 heaping TBSP red chili powder, 1tsp - 1 TBSP salt (preferably sea salt). Some people also like to add cumin or coriander or garam masala ("hot mix") but moifam ain't got time for that stinky shit. Furthermore, most aunties keep a jar of ginger paste, garlic paste, or ginger/garlic paste in the fridge as it is the basis of every Indian dish. Personally, I don't like the preservatives or lack thereof in these pastes, plus I find them hard to balance with other ingredients. For the same reason, I definitely don't recommend freshly grinding your ginger, garlic and/or turmeric. It will completely fuck up the flavor. Powdered ingredients are weak, you say? Not if you know how to use them...

Start with a little oil in the saucepan - maybe 2-3 TBSP of something healthy like EVO or vegetable oil on medium heat. Add to this your diced yellow onion and stir until it sweats. (NOTE: in tropical climates where refrigeration is poor, they use more than twice as much oil and add the onion later, essentially frying the onion. This is why a lot of Indian takeaway food is so greasy and bad). Once the bits of onion get soft and a bit translucent, add the turmeric, ginger, garlic, and red chili (I shake them up in a little tupperware and note the color to ensure I've got a balanced mix. It should be medium brown like a cardboard box. If it's too yellow with turmeric the sauce might be bitter; if it's too white with ginger the sauce might be astringent; if it's too garlicky or too hot, you might still get away with it). Now the most important step: you must toast the spices for at least a few minutes - the longer the better. You do this by coating the onions in the spice mix and stirring good. Once it's smelling delicious, sear your chicken in the spice and onion mix and add salt to taste. I say 1tsp minimum, but more like 1TBSP. You may turn up the heat to cook the chicken faster, but make sure to stir so that the onions don't scald. Once the chicken is at least 75% cooked, turn the heat down and stir in your yogurt. You will see the whole mix turn golden yellow. Continue to cook on medium/covered if you're in a hurry, medium/uncovered if you want a thicker sauce, or low/covered if you want nice rich flavor. At this point, you should cut off a tip of chicken and taste it - you can add salt or red pepper as needed, but that's it. You want at least 5-10 minutes of simmering, stirring occasionally before turning off the stove and letting it sit for a few minutes. I usually serve over IMPORTED basmati rice, as texmati is another criminal offense that tastes nothing like the thing it's supposed to be for people who clearly don't know better. 

Anyway, here it is: 

It's my first food thread! This one is on gastronomic offences so egregious as to merit public condemnation and/or unceremonious tossing in the bin. 

The first that comes to my mind is unseasoned chicken. Living in the midwest, I come across it frequently. I recently attempted to gently inquire as to why a good friend of mine (who is unfortunately a crap cook) did not season meat (including nachos, clam chowder, and thanksgiving turkey). She said it was because she's 'afraid of putting in too much'. I don't even know how to approach that logic, which is why I usually end up taking over in the kitchen. Can someone be taught how to season? So far my attempts to teach non-Indians to cook Indian food have been unsuccessful.

A friend of mine gave me the 5 Spices, 50 Dishes cookbook for Christmas one year (along with the spices), & I really like it. The recipes are not complicated at all, and the spices aren’t hard to find, which I think puts a lot of people off trying new spices -having to hunt them down and somehow thinking new spices make it harder oh noes.

Course I  have a two Indian markets with 15 miles of me, so it’s easier for me to branch out from the original five. And I just discovered what had been missing from my palak paneer- fenugreek!  bought it on a whim, smelled it once I got home, and was all “OH  that’s what it needed!” also makes the house smell amazing for days.

Is delicious, and provides a delightful, tartly sweet contrast to the rest of the standard pizza toppings, which are almost uniformly salty?

Pineapple is good on pizza, is good in various Thai curries, is good as part of a ham or roast pork glaze. Pineapple is good.

I went to a restaurant in Dallas years ago that put fenugreek in their mashed potatoes, and it was an instant love affair with the spice. Sweet, fragrant, unmistakably maple-y. I just love it.

Folks, pineapple--it's good!

Meanwhile, check out this literal food crime:Teenagers face criminal charges for 'pineapple attack' on classmate with severe allergy