CHICKEN CURRY

People all have certain memories that spell home, often related to food and physical comfort. For my father, as an example, a long soak in the tub with a tea tray alongside was an essential weekend ritual. Walking past the bathroom, I could hear the rustle of paper -- either the local news sheet, or the Saturday Evening Review -- and mingled with the whisps of tobacco smoke there would be lingering hints of Assam and soap. The occasional clink of porcelain. Late afternoon on Saturday or Sunday meant that the old man was "occupied".
Please do not disturb unless the world is ending.
And something can be done about it.
If not, deal with it later.

In consequence of that, you might well think that my mental sense of home involves smelling a middle-aged man immersed in water, with tea and a pack of smokes. Well, yes......... But I am the only middle-aged man in my life, and I neither smoke nor drink tea in the tub. It's just quiet time. The long moment when the world slows down, the sun crystallizes in the airwell, and dust motes dance.

Twiddling toes in warm soapy water is good for the soul.

My apartment mate does the same, and I now know enough to head somewhere else while she's soaking. Even though we're no longer a couple, haven't been for years, the image of her in warm water is perhaps not what I need to visualize.


At such times I might consider going off to get a bite to eat instead. Thinking of certain foods and smells instead induces peacefulness, and some things just scream home-comfort.
Tea and toast. Cinnamon. Scotch whisky. Marmalade.
Pipe tobacco. Fresh coffee. Coconut cookies.
Soup. Noodles. Hot chicken curry.
Chicken curry noodle soup.


CURRY CHICKEN AND RICE STICK NOODLES

Brown a large chopped onion in oil or bacon fat, add minced ginger and garlic halfway through, and add spices in stages when they have started to colour. First four teaspoons of ground coriander, then one teaspoon each of turmeric and ground cumin. When all this is nice and fragrant, decant to a bowl, and in the remaining oil gently gild large chunks of chicken (bone in), about a pound and a half.

When nicely soft golden, add the onion mixture, a hefty tablespoon or two of hot chili paste, some cracked peppercorns, a small piece of cinnamon stick, and, if you have it, a fresh stalk of lemon grass. Plus chicken stock and coconut milk to very generously cover, about two cups each. And a very hefty squeeze of lime or lemon juice.

Simmer on low for less than an hour. Adjust the taste at end with a sprinkle of salt and the merest pinch of sugar. If you used fish-paste and a dash of shrimp sauce, as many South East Asians would, the salt is unnecessary.

Putting cooked potato chunks into the soup at this point is a good idea. Dumping in several whole green chilies at the very beginning of the simmer time is also splendid; they will yield their fragrance but hardly any heat, and they look festive. As does the generous strewing of fresh cilantro mere seconds before turning off the heat.

Apportion the wet curry-soup to individual bowls, leaving plenty of room. Add some chunks of peeled cucumber.

Boil the rice stick noodles as you normally would, merely three minutes or so. When done, rinse under cold to stop the cooking, and dump a clump on top of each serving.


There will be enough for two or three people. If you are alone, use only the amount of curry, cucumber, and cilantro for one person, and put the rest in the refrigerator for tomorrow or the next day.


For a truly degenerate bachelor experience, eat in front of the teevee when Fox News or the Real Housewives are on, muttering "shut up you clods" while slurping. Dump crumbled cashews on top of your noodles, and the chicken bones on an old newspaper.


There is no small naked woman in the bath.
And the world is manifestly not ending.



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CURRY - WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU?

To many English people, nothing speaks so strongly of home as 'curry'. Which most of them never cook themselves (English can't cook; it's a genetic condition), but purchase instead from dubious restaurants run by Bengali immigrants. The two great national dishes of Britain are mystery meat Vindaloo for the yobbos and Chicken Tikka Masala for the middle-classes.
Both are actually very fine preparations, but they don't resemble Indian food very much. In point of fact, neither does Indian food.

Naan was invented by Persian speakers, kulcha ditto, and most famous "North Indian" dishes derive from the cuisine of Northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan. The tandoor, it will be recalled, was created in Central Asia by the Turkic nomads.
Roghan Josh ("grease frazzle stew") is an Afghan dish from Kashmir.
Chilies were native to Central America, cloves and nutmeg are of Indonesian origin, pepper is Tamil, Vindaloo is a bastardised Portuguese preparation further bolicksed up by Brits and restaurateurs, and rich creamy spiced-up sauces are not really common in Indian households, except among the gross pudge-pot matrons of Delhi.
Which is an absurd enclave to begin with.

Many Indians nowadays do actually enjoy a spot of 'curry' with their sarson da saag, dhal, raita, achar, and roti. And almost anything tastes better with some chilies and dark-toasted cumin. Even Chicken Tikka Masala!
Possibly excepting laddoos and sevian ki kheer, but much further research is needed.

Ghee, of course, is the great purifier and can be added to anything.
......Rivulets of golden ghee, over velvety curves, mmmmm......
...............It's clean, I tell you, clean!


Curry powder is not Indian either, but originated in the spice trade. In India it's closest relative is conceivably Tamilian sambhar powder, but the proportions of spices used to compound the product are much more Sinhalese - Malay - Indonesian in inspiration.
The consumers of curry powder, traditionally, have been English.
Refer back to snarky comment concerning genetic condition.

Two parts coriander powder, one part turmeric, one part ground toasted cumin, and one part or a hell of a lot more of fried mustard seed.
Plus other spices, in either minute or insane quantities.
Fenugreek, cayenne, cinnamon, cardamom.
More coriander won't do any harm -- a popular Delhwi meat dish bases its appeal entirely on coriander, black pepper, and green cardamom -- but increasing the proportions of turmeric and cumin (especially raw) leads to rather dubious results. Turmeric mellows upon exposure to heat and looses that earthy bitterness it has when raw, and cumin in large quantities can end up brutally dominant.


WHEN IN DOUBT, BHUNA TILL YOU DROP!

Essential to almost any curry is onion fried brown and mashed up, along with additional flavours such as methi, garlic, and ginger. Indonesians will add galangal and lemon grass, along with shrimp paste and sometimes an inordinate amount of fresh red chilipaste, and nearly everywhere rich grease and a minor souring agent are also added. The browned onion gives body to the sauce. The basic spices provide the fundament of the flavour, additions tweak it, and ghee, cream, coconut milk, tamarind, tomato, katambi (cocum), et mult altres will fine-tune taste and mouthfeel, as well as determining whether it goes with breads or rice. Both in North India and the Indonesian areas ground-up nuts may be added for extra richness. Almonds, chilgoz, and pistacchios among Hindustani speakers; peanuts, cashews, candlenuts, kluwak (pangium edule) in Java and Sumatra. Thais, Balinese, and others, also include diverse bitter fragrant kaempferia roots.
The total effect need not be strong; curry can be mild.
Whether it is soupy or dry is up to the cook.
Accompaniments vary by cuisine.

Start with the onion. Add the spices. Extend the sauce.
Add a little more spice at the end. Serve.
Provide other dishes alongside.
Wets, dries, crunchies.
Plus a starch.
Simple.


*-----Sambal, Sriracha hot sauce, krupuk, srundeng, onion salad, chutney-----*


Ground coriander is almost always part of the programme. Turmeric need not be, and cumin likewise might be missing. Almost all other spices will be a decision of the moment. Additions to the sauce are a natural inspiration, garnishes such as fried shallots, crumbled nuts, crispy crap, or minced fresh herbs, provide a lovely touch.


While the English and Dutch consider beer and ale the natural drinks to enjoy with their curries, that probably isn't a good idea. Indians might serve a buttermilk beverage, Indonesians and the Malays put a tureen with soup or singgang on the table for diners to wet their rice or drink from a separate bowl. Beer, as everyone who has been in rumbles with Northern Europeans knows, inflames the bestial passions and makes their breath profoundly rancid. As well as promoting digestive issues such as stupidity, gout, and dyspepsia.


Avoid beer. Have a glass of sherry instead.



*-----Sonf, mitha paan, succade, murabbat sfarjali, badha peg, oporto-----*




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MALAYSIA, BERKELEY, BIGOTS, AND, GENERALLY SPEAKING, AN APPRECIATION

A few years ago I wrote a post that, upon revisiting, I realized was far too mild and bland.
Still, worth considering again, and rereading it might give you a nice warm feeling.
You deserve that.
I'm all about nice warm feelings.

http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/04/trolls-with-keyboards.html

Referenced directly or otherwise were Dick Becker, tightly clenched Lily Haskell, Yaman Salahi, Barbara Lubin, Finkelstein, Mahathir Mohamad, and Joe Stalin.

Nothing but love, babies, nothing but love.

Both Malaysia and Berkeley are pretty ghastly places, and while Berkeley does have less rape, incest, and casual abuse of small animals than Malaysia, the food is far worse and the natives are much more likely to be tattooed savages.
On the plus side, however, it's easier to get to, and Mahathir Mohamad doesn't live there.
Both places are also unbearably precious and full of themselves.

Whether either place is better than Pakistan is debatable.

Again, feel the love.
Nice and warm.
Chihuahuas.



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HOT SAUCE IS A VEGETABLE

When it comes to lunch, the financial district is rather ... ghastly.
Boring. Dreary. Repulsive. Suburbanite. Appallicious.
And treify.

You already knew that that last qualifier doesn't mean too much to me, but I'm just warning you. If you're planning to visit me during working hours, bring your own lunch, please. In fact, bring two - something kosher would really brighten my day.


In the meantime, I have a new favourite lunch.


Two scoops of rice, one scoop of macaroni salad, and chicken curry (with potatoes), from Lee's lunch counter.

Plus a really hefty squirt of Rooster Sauce.
When all you're eating is starch and protein, Rooster Sauce keeps you regular.
Would I lead you mis?

I'm feeling all koosh right now.
Oojah cum spiff.

HEAD-HUNTING CHICKEN

A whole chicken, pale-cooked for presentation; a ritual dish. The coconut broth is barely tinged with turmeric, to the faintest of yellow; necessary, because it would otherwise have a slight greyish hue. Traditional.
A dish to calm the spirits of heads taken in war.


BULELITJA

One whole chicken.
Two to three each: bruised stalks of lemongras, whole shallots, whole green chilies, thick slices of ginger.
One Tsp each: salt, sugar.
Half Tsp each: white peppercorns, coriander seeds.
Quarter to half Tsp turmeric.
Generous pinches tamo kuntji, langkwang.
Two whole cloves, a bay leaf, and a piece of dried orange peel.
Eight cups water.
Four cups coconut milk.
Quarter cup white liquor (either Dutch gin, or Vodka).
A jigger of vinegar.

Bring all save chicken to a boil, simmer for five to ten minutes. Inundate the bird and bring the pot back to boil. Turn off heat. Weigh the bird down - a large ceramic bowl partially filled with water will do so nicely. Do not use a metal object as it will affect taste and appearance. Let the pot sit for an hour. Then remove the chicken to a broad basin.
With a slotted spoon remove all solids from the broth. Bring the broth back to a roiling boil and pour slowly over the chicken, making sure all of it is touched by the hot liquid. Drain chicken, reserve broth to a pot and bring back to boiling, then simmer for ten minutes.
Serve the chicken and broth separately; chicken cool, broth hot.
Eat with compressed rice, chili and fishpaste strifried longbeans, and ripped vegetables.

[Lemongrass: Sere or Sae - a stalkgras with a pleasing lemon-like aroma used in South-East Asian cooking. Tamo kuntji: Kaempferia Pandurata (Boesenbergia Rotunda) - a root related to ginger and galangal, with minor antibacterial and anticancerous qualities. It has a perfumy bitter taste. In the west it can be found in Thai, Indonesian, and some Chinese stores - temo kunci (Indonesian), krachai (Thai), fingerroot, Chinese Keys (Singaporean English), 凹脣姜 (Cantonese: au-suen-keung). Langkwang: galangal (Kampferia Galanga, Alpinia Galanga), also called red ginger or dwarf ginger. Called Kha in Thai, Laos in Malay. Dried orange peel: dry your own, or purchase chan-pei (陳皮) in Chinatown, even though it comes from a different citrus (Citrus Aurantium). Dutch gin: not the same as the aftershave lotion favoured in the English speaking world, this is more like kummel - except it is flavoured with juniper berries, not caraway. The Oude Genever is a pot still product, and will take your legs out from under you if drunk to excess. The Jonge Genever is made in a patent still, and is much smoother, though still likely to commit treason on your judgment. Oude Genever is the favoured style of import-plonk in areas up from the coast. Longbeans: also called yard long beans, these are much preferred over haricots.]


NOTE: The chili paste and fish paste are on the stir-fried vegetables, because they are NOT in the broth or on the chicken. The chicken is mild flavoured, to correlate to a head taken after downing the victim. Arabs are cowards and barbarians because they take prisoners, then behead their captives alive. Such a head concentrates fear and is useless. Gut-stab to kill, then cut to harvest the head; such is the only proper way.

EURABIA? HMMPH! AN ABSURD CONCEPT!

In an article in The Brussels Journal, journalist Paul Belien paints a picture of a Europe destined to disappear before a tide of Islamists and non-Europeans. He writes that Muslims will outnumber, by outbreeding, the European natives, and that in twenty-five years immigrants will take over from a population that has neither the will nor the spirit to resist.


Wikipedia entry for the author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Belien
Link to the front page of the Brussels Journal: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/
The article in question: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1609/print


That point of view is unnecessarily defeatist.


A generation from now, many of those Muslims will be European - much more European than their more noisy elements seem at present.

[They are more likely to blend into the overwhelming majority and common culture than blend into each other - on the way to sameness with an Algerian, for instance, a Pakistani will have to go through English and French first. A Dutch Moroccan will need German to speak to a Berlin Turk. And your average Somali in Rotterdam has nothing in common with a Bengali in Warsaw. Not even religion unites them, even though they claim that in common. The idea of a pan-Islamic Umma is an abstract concept that only grabs your loyalty if you speak the same language as whoever else is in your mob.]


There are already intellectuals, professionals, scholars, and businessmen of Muslim background - some of the best writing in Dutch today is by people of Turkish or Moroccan extraction. Their writing is secular, and humanist. And while they appreciate their parents culture and history, to them it is mostly something they know second or third-hand; they read about it, in Dutch, from an academic pov.
Hell will freeze over before they think of "returning" to the back of the Riff mountains or Anatolia.
If they were forced, by rising European xenophobia and intolerance, to do so, they would upset the applecart in North Africa and Asia Minor. They are too European.


The other tendency that is often overlooked is that underneath that flinter-thin veneer of civilization, most Europeans are still too darn close to the homicidal maniacs that they were for twenty centuries.
Europe has indeed experienced peace longer than ever before..... As a continent. As individual countries, much of Europe has experienced civil discord and repression: Spain was a brutal dictatorship until the seventies, along with Portugal and Greece. All of Eastern Europe was under the boot of Stalin and his successors until the eighties. Northern Ireland has barely had ten years of peace. The Balkans haven't even had that.
The Dutch didn't start getting over the loss of their empire till the seventies. The French still hold on to a few scraps of empire, and fought savagely in Indochina and North Africa till barely one generation ago. The British have sent troops overseas fairly regularly, even up to the present. Europeans are less removed from organized violence than we think.

Underneath that seeming calm (remember, flinter-thin veneer), the average European has less tolerance towards otherness than many Americans. The likelihood of ethnic bloodshed is probably greater than when anybody still felt any guilt over the Jews.


Turkish and Moroccan neighborhoods conveniently concentrate the probable victims of future pogroms, in combustible substandard housing, away from the limelight. The Banlieus of Paris will never be economically developed - any Arab living there who wants a better life will have to yank himself out of that environment and into the middle-class. And there is no other way to do that than by becoming middle-class. That same Arab will not look kindly on thuggery and goon-style behaviours from his kindred; they more than anything else will be a hindrance, and a threat to his family's wellbeing and future. And he knows that. Boy does he know that. The cries for a stronger police come loudest from the people on the verge of escaping poverty. They do not want the open doorway and the beckoning brightness to be shut off by Abdoullah the high-school drop-out or Iftakar the drug-dealer and petty-thief. Heck, they won't even admit that Abdoullah is their cousin, or Iftakar their former classmate.


Meanwhile, in the small towns of Europe, the inhabitants beat the crap out of anything too foreign. And shut off their society from weirdoes, freaks, and outsiders.

Trust me - I grew up in liberal, tolerant, humanist Holland. You do NOT want to be an immigrant in the country districts of that society. Those folks simply haven't discovered lynching yet; when they do, they'll take to it like they were to the manner born.

Every week, there are reports of immigrants being persecuted, beaten up, harassed out of their homes, threatened........
Pogrom doesn't seem to be a Dutch word.... Yet.
Other Europeans aren't any better. They too will discover the meaning of that practice, even if they have to invent a different word for it.

[Perhaps the term Serb will become a verb - even though many people seem to have forgotten that the Serbs committed mass-Hutu in the Balkans. It's worth speculating about.]


I do not fear for the Europe I know. It was not a very pleasant place to begin with, and that which was indeed pleasant will quite probably survive. The immigrants have already enriched the host countries - not only by their cheap labour, but also culturally.
As just one facet of that change, English food nowadays is even half-way edible (both Chicken Tikka Masala and Vindaloo compete for British National Dish), the Dutch certainly would face gustatory boredom were it not for Indonesian, Surinamese, Turkish, and Moroccan influences, and the best that can be said for German and Scandinavian cuisines is that they do not particularly offend (well, other than 'Curry Wurst' - that offends beyond all reason).

More Europeans today speak English than ever before, and European horizons have expanded enormously.
The world has become a different place. That is all. There is no deluge.

Now if only the twentieth century would finally penetrate to the provinces, things would be perfect.

MY GAST IS VERY MUCHLY FLABBERED!

A comment which Muse (http://me-ander.blogspot.com/) left underneath one of my posts about bank scam spam alerted me to the fact that I made it to the finals in the JIBS.

Floor me with a feather.

I didn't even know I was in the running.


See the bottom of this page:
http://www.jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=193
Where you will see the name of this blog listed among the Best Kosher Food/Recipe Blog - Finalists.

[Time for a brocha: "Baruch atta Adonai Eloheinu, Melech ha olam, asher flabberei et-gasteinu".]



Someone must have nominated me. I don't know who you are, but thank you.



The other finalists are :
http://rjmedwed.blogspot.com/
Because I'm In My Twenties And It's What You Do (Robbie - think about Coca Cola and brisket, among other things).
http://glutenfreebay.blogspot.com/
Gluten Free By The Bay.
http://fireinmykitchen.blogspot.com/
Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen - single dad, kosher food.
http://humus101.com/EN/
Humus 101.
http://inmolaraan.blogspot.com/
The Chocolate Lady - In Mol Araan: A blog about food and words in Yiddish and English including but not limited to cooking, recipes, culinary lexicography, delights and curiosities of the plant world, and cookbooks.
http://jcarrot.org/
The Jew And The Carrot - Jews, food, and contemporary issues.
http://www.me-ander.blogspot.com/
Me-ander. Three contributors: Sarah, Muse, and Isramom. All three of these are multi-bloggers, being contributors elsewhere besides.
http://twoheadsoflettuce.blogspot.com/
Simple recipes for vegetarian potlucks by: Ezer K'negdo, Ruby K, BZ, Suz, shamirpower, General Anna, Ahavatcafe, Amanda M, EAR, Sarah Chaya, Feygele, bgp, abunaftali, granola bard, ZT, MR.


Considering the excellent company I find myself in, I am humbled.
And I realize that I have some standards up to which to live. Uuuuy.

ALAS! ALACK! OH WOE! AND SOMETHING CHEESY

On the way to the Indian restaurant yesterday evening we passed by the cheese shop. Savage Kitten snorted angrily, but did not say anything.

An hour later, as we waddled home replete, we passed the cheese shop again. And now she howled. A long kvetching ranting wail, though not so loud as to draw any attention from any passers-by, relating that she had gone there recently to buy some Schokinag, but all... they... had... was... Scharfenberger!
Which, apparently, is crap. Her opinion. Utter crap.
Despicable overpriced snob white twenty something yuppie ignoramous rotten garbage crap.


Can't say I particularly disagree.

Schokinag is good stuff.
[See here: http://www.worldpantry.com/schokinag/home.html]


Scharfenberger, while highly reputed among the snobnoscenti, just ain't right. Good chocolate is more than advanced chemistry and math. There is no inspiration in Scharfenberger.
Tain't bad, but it ain't exciting either.

[Unless your taste runs to overpriced snob white twenty something yuppie ignoramous chocolate.]



The cheese shop has recently changed hands, and the food maven wot run the place is no longer there. Now it is uninspired as far as anything which isn't cheese is concerned (the cheese selection is sterling - hence the nickname 'the cheese shop', it is actually called something else).


Good drinking chocolate is hard to find in San Francisco (Ghirardelli is not nearly as good as the tourist brochures claim). Schokinag drinking chocolate has fragments of ground chunk-chocolate in among the prepared cacao, which give the hot beverage made with their mixture a wonderfull mouth-feel and aroma. And a depth of flavour. Most hot chocolate mixes are little more than mediocre generic cacao with essences and stabilizers. But Schokinag is indeed special. Luscious.

[Mind you, I am not going to tell her that because of me her supply of Schokinag diminished quite a bit more rapidly than it should have. There are some things one's significant other does NOT need to know. Like about the afternoon that I had a furious argument about wild clover honey with her teddy bear. She does not need to know that either. I do not wish to pay with my life for speaking firmly to the Ms. Bruin about honey, nor for stealing Schokinag.]


We still have Cadbury's. And Droste in a pinch. One can always melt some fine bar chocolate and whip it into the scalded milk. Add a pinch of freshly grated cinnamon (not cassia but real Ceylon canela).

Some vaunted Mexican cacao mix is also available at the cheese shop. It costs nearly twenty dollars for a tin. What kind of price is that? Does anybody really think very many Mexicans will fork over twenty bucks for cacao? Any Mexicans? Any at all? Hmmmph!

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For more on chocolate, and the important soul-soothing qualities of a good cacao fix, please visit this site: http://goingslightlymad.blogspot.com/
Browse until you stumble over Maltesers.
There's chocolate in them there hills.