THERE IS ALWAYS TIME FOR MASALA

Sometimes I remember the foods from the restaurant where I worked for several years with longing. Our chef made delicious food, and even the nasty Bengali muslim who substituted for him when he headed back to Tehri Garhwal for several months two or three times did great stuf. Imagine something equidistant between Delhwi, Awadhi, and Kashmiri.


I can also remember the proprietor once lecturing someone on how healthy Indian food was. Which it absolutely is not. Because properly prepared and safe for all castes usually means that the very first thing in the pot is ghee, the great purifier, which may also be added a few times at later stages. The naans, of course, are slathered with melted butter.

Many prosperous subcontinentals will die of heart attacks.
Their plump children will probably have diabetes.
But they will have fun eating.
And likely get fat.

Yes yes, I know that there is much in Indian cuisine which is not a heart attack on a plate, but realistically that is not why you go to a restaurant nor what anyone fondly remembers from their Brahmin aunties tables. Plain boiled lentils, no ginger or garlic or heating spices.
With a bowl of salted yoghurt. Mmm, no.


GOSHT NI TARKARI
A meat curry

One pound mutton on the bone, large chunk cut.
Three Bombay onions, diced.
Three tomatoes, ditto.
Six cloves garlic, minced.
One thumb sized piece of ginger, minced.
Three or four green cardamom pods.
Half dozen whole pepper corns.
One or two bay leaves.
One or two whole cloves.
One black cardamom.
2 tsp coriander powder.
1 tsp cumin seeds.
1 tsp cayenne powder.
1/2 tsp turmeric powder.
One stick cinnamon (or cassia in the U.S.).
Two or three TBS ghee (can substitute cooking oil).

Put the grease and the whole spices (cardamom, pepper, bay leaves, cumin seeds) in the pot, stir until the comin seeds darken slightly. Add the onion, cook till starting to gild. Then add the mutton chunks and stir a while. After about five or ten minutes, while the meat is still pinkish, add the garlic and ginger, and cook till the garlic and start to colour. Then add the powdered spices and turn well to coat the meat while cooking. It will be fragrant. Then put the tomato in the pot and stir to break it up. Add water and simmer, stirring periodically, for one and a half to two hours.

I would also at the time of the water add two or three whole Jalapeños to float in the goo and lend their aroma, plus a bit more grease, and instead of water I might use red wine or sherry. Sort of a 'curry Bourgignon'. Or Indonesianize it with coconut milk. In any case, the end result should be a savoury gravy with chunks, perfect over a plate of rice.

Like everything, have some sambal on the side.


After dining, go out onto the veranda with a short shot of strong sweet cardamom coffee and a pipe, and watch the tropical river sludging past while smoking (a fine broken flake by Rattray's), and listening to the distant crepuscular marsh birds.
The Kuwak-putjong, or a Tjabak, for instance.

I have no veranda, there is no tropical river here, and we have crows.
A walk around the block while spotting corvids.
The same tobacco.



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