Too much ginger; trying a curry again
Fred’s folks came over to our place for Yule this year. I made the roast (tofurkey!) and cranberry sauce, while they brought some squash, some potato pancakes, and the dessert.
The food turned out great, though I had a bit of a problem with the nifty cranberry-sauce recipe I got from Whole Foods. Turns out that, while it’s great fun to attempt to puree crystallized ginger, it’s also futile; the bits become sticky and merge into large clumps. I didn’t really notice this as I was cooking the cranberries, though, and added everything as the time demanded. When it came time to eat, the ginger flavor was quite nice in the first couple bites — subtle and enhancing the cran-flavor. And then I hit the first big chunk of crystallized ginger.
INTENSE. WOW. I like ginger, but not that much. Sadly, the rest of my portion was rife with big chunks, which soured me on the leftovers.
Needless to say, I’ve learned my lesson: “pulses” means “seriously, don’t lay on the fracking ‘chop’ button”.
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Fred’s folks did come through on some extra-awesome kitcheny gifts: an electric kettle, a French press, and an enameled cast iron Dutch oven. We’ve used them all, and so far they’re all making the kitchen easier to handle.
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As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m always interested in re-interpreting my family’s traditional New Year’s black-eyed peas into something tasty. In my childhood, we always had a fifteen-bean soup that was disparagingly bland; I remember drowning it in so much ketchup that the otherwise-off-white broth became blood-red. Most of my attempts have involved replacing another sort of legume with black-eyed peas; this has had mixed results, including a strongly-worded rebuke from somebody who didn’t like me replacing the pigeon peas in his curry recipe.
Since we’ve vegetarianized the house, Fred and I have taken a new approach to menu planning: each night of the week is a different cuisine, and whenever appropriate we stick to said cuisine for holiday meals. As it turns out, 1 January 2009 is Indian night, and I am pleased to report that black-eyed peas are a common component in many traditional curries and that it is not necessary to substitute them for anything else. After a little Googling, I found a suitable recipe (though I feel compelled to point out that that should be “Masala”, not “Marsala”) and hit the store.
I’ve got all my ingredients now (including ghee! I LOVE GHEE!). We already had some nice brown rice in the cabinet, some heat-and-serve naan in the freezer (um, duh), and some India pale ale in the refrigerator, so we can round out a nice complete meal without too much trouble. (I will confess that the IPA is a bit of a stretch, but damn if it isn’t good stuff.) The recipe doesn’t call for an overnight soak, so I can leave the black-eyed peas alone until mid-afternoon on the day proper.
So far this recipe shows quite a bit of promise. If it works out, then I might just keep it for next year. I’m already thinking about growing black-eyed peas in the garden, which would make this even awesomer, but if that doesn’t work out then the bulk section at Whole Foods has dried organic black-eyed peas for pretty cheap.
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Since I mentioned Whole Foods… If anybody from said establishment is reading this, then please give a substantial bonus to whomever came up with the quickie “hearty winter vegetable soup” package in the produce section. The soup was fast and delicious and smelled SO GOOD as it was cooking, and I didn’t have to chop anything or even learn what a whole rutabaga really looks like. My only suggestion would be to find some way to better sequester the onions from the other components; that would make it easier to get the onions into the pot without accidentally dropping in some parsnip or sweet potato.
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Finally, my mother gave us all bottles of rosemary-enhanced olive oil for Christmas this year, in a brave attempt to use some of the rosemary that’s taking over her front porch. We used some to sauté the onions in the aforementioned winter veggie soup, and it worked out beautifully. Good call, Mom.
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