cooking - commando curry

So, as I mentioned yesterday, while out looking for lamb for a curry, we found a 4￠chicken. We never did find any decent lamb. We still had curry, but changes needed to be made. Lamb Pasanda would have to wait.

This is where the commando moniker comes in. Improvising and adapting. We found chicken, and we got some pork. I know. Pork is unheard of in curry. Well, I have no religious, cultural, nor culinary restrictions or hangups. I often combine the "unheard of" together. It often leads to fantastic meals.

So, the dinner that was decided on was pork with Goan Pineapple sauce (a Patak's sauce). Hey, pork and pineapple, kind of unavoidable, like a Hawaiian curry. An all vegetable Aloo Gobi (using Delhi Dum Aloo Sauce from Kitchens of India), and a chicken and chili curry with a butter chicken sauce as the base (from KFI, pretty bland, but I fixed that).

So, I seasoned the pork and chicken with a Mr. Goudas curry powder and let it sit for a while. It was actually the Jamaican curry powder. I have three other Goudas curry powders: Madras curry, Trinidad curry, and just plain curry. I also have a Sharwood's curry powder I quite like. I took a sniff of each in turn until the aroma that seemed appropriate hit me. You can only sniff through the powders twice, maybe three times, before they all smell alike. Just sensory overload.

Everything cut up and the meat doused in seasoning. Time to put the rice on. Once the rice was going (to which I added some canola oil and sea salt to the water; it really makes for better rice, regardless of type), I heated up three pans with some canola oil in the bottom. Once hot enough a bunch of coarsely chopped onion thrown in each pan. Simmer that for ten or so minutes.

Then the chicken and pork went in to their respective pans. In the Aloo, in went potatoes with the water they were soaking in. Unlike a traditional Aloo Gobi, I cut the potatoes in to smallish chunks as opposed to quarters or eighths. 

I let those simmer for fifteen-twenty minutes. Knowing the butter chicken sauce was bland I added some Patak's curry paste (Madras in this case, because it was what I had) and mixed it in. Then the respective sauces went in to each pan and was mixed up. A little tip here: you never get all the sauce out of the jar. I put in a little bit of water, close the jar, swish it and pour it in. I usually do this two or three times to get all the goodness out, and more sauce.

Another ten minutes or so and tasting. I found the KFI butter chicken was still bland so a healthy dose of crushed chilies and some more curry powder. I added some curry powder to the Goan Pineapple as well, I found it not very curry-like, but it had very good flavour otherwise. To all three I also added some cayenne and granulated garlic (sometimes I chop up fresh garlic in to slivers and add it, but not today).

Then time for vegetables. Cauliflower in to the Aloo, broccoli in to the KFI, and broccoli and cauliflower stems in to the Goan. I found there was not enough in the Goan, so I added a can of pineapple tidbits, sans the juice (will save that for something else). Simmer, more curry powder and garlic in the two meat ones and some garlic in the veggie dish.

I decided to simmer for a while longer. I then added a combination of Skotidakis yogurt tzatziki and and regular everyday sour cream to all the dishes. It helps add body to the sauce, and it gives you more sauce. We like very saucy curry. Simmer and tweak, simmer and tweak.

Final stretch, I added cherry bomb peppers to the KFI and regular bell pepper to the Aloo Gobi. Simmer for about another fifteen minutes, and tweaking. By this time, the rice was done and off. It usually is off for twenty to thirty minutes before cooking in done, it is okay for it to sit for a bit. It was longer this time as I simmered for the flavours to meld and get in to everything. Oh yeah, about ten minutes before the peppers were added, I added a couple of small handfuls of golden raisins to the KFI chicken dish (I prefer green raisins, but could not find them; I stay away from sultanas - too sweet and gooey) and a couple of small handfuls of slivered, blanched almonds to the Goan pork.

All done. We decided to have it with small rolls that we got on discount at Farm Boy instead of naan bread this time. It worked out okay. It was so good that I savoured it long enough to not jam seconds in to me and regret it. I wonder what the next commando cooking mission will be like? blbbl