in the kitchen

Since tomorrow brings another farmer's market with more vegetables, I thought I would recap what's been made this past week.  Does anyone else struggle with making sure nothing spoils in the back of the fridge or the bottom of a drawer?  I know it's happened to me more often than I would like to admit... so here's last week's recap:

Tossed Salad  (lots of it)

Steamed Bok Choy with Ginger

Asian-style Lettuce Wraps

Dhal with Methi (fenugreek leaves)

Guacamole and Chicken Roast used up the cilantro

Russian Kale Thoran (Malayalee sauteed vegetable)

A little bit about Thoran.  This is a common way to prepare vegetables in Kerala cooking - it's simple, healthy, and tasty.  To prepare, you first fry mustard seed, then add in onions, grated coconut, green chilis, curry leaves, and turmeric.  In the case of dark green vegetables, I like to add in some cooked masoor dhal, a couple cloves of garlic, a little bit of cumin and chili powder.   I mash all these ingredients into a coarse paste and add it to the mustard seed.  Once your onions are cooked through and the coconut is toasted, you add in your chopped vegetables.  Season with salt.  Cover the mixture and let it cook through.

 While making the thoran, I just had to take some pictures of my little assistant. He really likes to be in the middle of all the action which in this case means he's on the kitchen floor playing on his activity mat with his little birdie. 

Chicken Curry

Chicken curry is one of those staple dishes we typically make once a week at our house. Today, we'll have it with rice, a dal curry, and an indian vegetable. Tomorrow, I'll probably make chappatis. I don't follow a recipe, so it usually tastes different from batch to batch. Perhaps one of these days I'll write down a real recipe, but in the interim this is the basic method for our (south indian) curry:

Heat some oil in a heavy pot

Fry mustard seed. Once popped, add in your whole spice. Today, I used 3 dry red chilis, 2, 1-in. cinammon sticks, 3 cardamom pods, 4 cloves, 1 star anise, 1/2 tspn of fennel seeds, and 3 bay leaves

Once you can smell the aroma, add in your onions (2 medium). I like to put this in first and let it caramelize well before I add in the garlic (10 cloves) and ginger (2 inches)

 

Once brown (but not burned), add in a tomato or a couple spoons of tomato paste

Add in ground spices. I use coriander powder (2 heaping tspns), chicken masala powder (3 heaping tspns), red chili powder (3/4 tspn), and turmeric (1/4 tspn) and fry well

Add cut chicken* and salt and black pepper to taste. Mix well. Once it begins to boil, lower heat and let simmer

When almost done, add in a couple tspns of garam masala and a tspn of red pepper flakes. Stir and finish cooking

Add chopped cilantro and serve

* I don't have a good estimate on the pounds.  Today I used 4 split chicken breasts and 5 drumsticks.