Curry Paste

Tonight is “Indian Night” for the Saunders Crew so I made up some fresh pastes. On the left is my Vindaloo (Lisa’s Favorite) and the right is my Rogan Josh. I will be making the Rogan Josh for the first time so I off course did some research into what it should be like. Apparently the name is derived from “Oil” and “Heat” but I know that cannot be the only stipulation for the dish. Rogan Josh’s red colour comes from a mix of paprika, smoked paprika and roasted red pepper and also includedes cloves and cumin in the paste. The dish was introduced by the Muslims in Kashmir and it makes use of a very Muslim ingredient, lamb. Unfortunately here in NB lamb is expensive and not popular enough to have steaks of lamb at the local supermarket, so I opted for beef. Vindaloo derives from the Portuguese dish “Carne de Vinha d’ Alhos”, a dish of meat, usually lamb, with wine and garlic (in the 15th and 16th centuries Portugal established a colonial and commercial empire that included India). The name Vindaloo derives from “Wine Vinegar” and “Garlic”. My paste was predominantly coriander, turmeric, fennel and chiles. I will be making it with pork, the traditional Goan way.

Our Neighbors will be making a butter chicken, rice and some sort of beverage. Our good friend will be bringing naan and dessert.

Also Wikipedia has a pretty good table of Indian Dishes by Region

Pressure Cooking, Popovers and Pizza

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently bought a pressure cooker and I got the chance to try it out a couple of days ago. I started out by frying come onions and garlic in the bottom of the pot with some butter. I put in my chuck roast and seared all sides. I added some mushrooms and then about 3 cups of beef broth and seasonings. I took a while for my pressure to seal so I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right but after about 10 minutes the device sealed.

I threw on some potatoes to mash later and started some popovers the Ruhlman way. I threw 8oz of milk with 4oz of flour, two eggs and a couple pinches of salt. I let this batter sit for about for about half an hour so the flour could absorb the milk totally. I poured it into some popover pans (you could use muffin tins) about half way and put them in the oven at 450 for ten minutes and then 375 for 20 minutes.

About fifteen minutes into baking my beef had been pressurized for 45 minutes so I took it of the heat. After depressurizing I opened it to reveal my beautifully tender roast. I then put the pot back on the heat without the roast to reduce into a nice jus. I mashed my potatoes and everything was done! It was probably an unhealthy meal as I didn’t make a green vegetable but it was tasty!

Then tonight I still had some beef left so I made a quick bread dough and stretched it out with some olive oil for a couple of pizzas. I tossed the leftover beef with some bbq sauce and then fried up some red onion with porcini mushrooms and topped it all with some Monterrey Jack.
For a second pizza I made a quick sauce with garlic, fresh basil and some yellow tomatoes I had. Topped that with some dry cured pepperoni and pearls of bocconcini. YUM!

-Before hitting the oven