Very simple and easy. And damn tasty. It was served over noodles, and eaten with chopsticks. This reminded me of an episode of The Sopranos, where Tony went on about the great achievements of Italian-Americans, while having some Chinese takeway with his family. His dim-witten son asked if it wasnt the Chinese who invented spaghetti, which of course irritated Tony no end. But I've gotta admire his answer: "Now, why would someone invent spaghetti, if they eat with sticks?!" So I switched to a fork after a while, heheh.
The tandoori paste is from Gordon Ramsay, and I've used to several times before with great results. But on those occasions, I sautéed the salmon in a non-stick pan. In this case, I decided to grill it. This didn't do wonders for the tandoori paste — it lost almost all its flavors. D'oh. That's a bit of a novice mistake — a friend of mine does a fantastic ribeye steak on the grill, upon which he heaps frightening amounts of garlic and rosemary. The grill reduces the potency of the flavors, and it comes out just right. I should have thought of that. Oh well. The salmon was caught though, and not purchased, so it was of excellent quality and still came out tasting great.
Sadly, I kinda lost my nerve after having pulled it off the grill and discovering that it hadn't cooked through properly (it was frozen and hadn't thawed out properly yet) — and then I sort of lost my nerve and ended up overcooking it a bit.
Some environmentalists have an infantile and fanatically despondent self-loathing view of humanity — that somehow, we're just not a natural part of the ecosystem. And that pretty much all our influence on nature is negative, while all other creatures live in perfect, beautiful balance with it, allowing nothing to go to waste.
Well, screw that. Birds are damn wasteful. This isn't the result of birds being scared away mid-meal — this is just the normal way birds eat tomatoes. Got some netting up eventually, but the first half dozen tomatoes went to the birds. Bastards.
One goal I set for myself this summer, was to make some cold soups. I was kinda thinking about gazpacho or vichyssoise when I came up with this idea, but then I ran into a recipe for this soup, which recommended it to be served either hot or cold. And I agree wholeheartedly — this thing works both ways. I've done it warm before. On a warm summer day, it is just as good, when served cold.
This dish, I really love. Dead simple, and extremely tasty. MPW says there's no such thing as a perfect dish — there are always things that can be done to it. Not that there has to be anything wrong with the dish per se, but tastes and traditions do change. I agree with that. I just can't think of anything to improve this one.
Avial is a bit of a strange dish. As with almost all Indian foods, there's no set recipe, but it basically contains as many different vegetables as you can lay your hands on. This is stir-fried, before a peanut butter curry sauce is added. Very simple, and quite tasty — although I used far too much sauce in this case. And a little too much peanut butter in the sauce itself. Definitely something I'd do again, but I think I'll tweak the recipe next time around.
And for some protein, I heated up some frozen Dal Makhani — an excellent black lentil stew.
This was rich beyond belief — I used too much butter in this dough, but dagnabbit, it was tasty. Not as good as the pear and blue cheese galette, but in my not-so humble opinion, you just can't beat that one.
Maybe that's why cooking is so much fun... A lot of the time, I find myself frustrated because my efforts don't reach my expectations — but then again, there are occasions when I exceed them, in the most unexpected way. This was one of those occasions. I've gotta try make more of these galette suckers. They's good eatin'.
I've been struggling with naan for quite a while now, and I kinda think I've gotten good at it. So I figured an unleavened bread like roti should be a breeze. It wasn't. These things ended up being almost bone hard, and tasting of nothing. This surprised me — but nowhere near as much as what happened to the pan I used to cook these bastards...
A friend of mine has a strange cooking pot that is specifically designed for chipati/roti bread making. I thought this sounded like a pretty dumb idea — I mean, a really good quality stainless steel pan can withstand almost any amount of abuse, yet clean up easily.
I mean, who needs non-stick pans? Amateurs. Silly people who don't understand how to cook, that's whom. And that, apparently, includes me. It took me a helluva lot of effort to clean that pan up. I'll definitely have another go at this roti thing, but I think I'll try a non-stick pan the next time around.
Great stuff — a very hot and flavorful, and very simple fish curry. In a blender, mix almost an entire bulb's worth of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, hot chili peppers to your taste, 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp AP flour (or besan, if you've got it) and just enough coconut milk to mix it up properly. Blend until smooth, and add the rest of the coconut milk. The flour thickens the stew, but it also prevents the coconut milk from curdling (clever — I didn't know about that trick).
Pop 1 tsp mustard seeds in a mid-high wok and add one chopped, purple onion. Stir fry until browned, and add one finely diced tomato, the coconut mixture and some karhi leaves. Simmer until properly mixed, bring to a boil and add fish. Serve over rice, garnished with cilantro. The lime wasn't necessary though; I just added them because I had a few laying around.
This was very good — I really nailed the buns this time, but I overcooked the burgers. D'oh.
I've become so familiar with the "high heat/high coal griddle"-method of cooking, that my abilities at judging things, when grilling in the regular, Weber kettle grill-manner, have become diminished. And daggdabbit (pardon me while I procure my tinfoil hat), I think those Weber people are in cahoots with the charcoal manufacturers, because those devices seem to be custom-made with the intent to make you use a helluva lot more coals than you actually need.
These buns were almost perfect. They took on a very dark color, that I didn't anticipate. Although now, looking at the pictures I took, I think perhaps that they actually look good. Ethereally light, structurally sound, and with a crust and crumb that'd make baby Jebus cry. I'm very happy with this. Burger buns do not get the recognition they deserve — err, hang on — they do. They get none. Because they deserve none.
But that ain't the case with my burger buns.
