recipe: african stew

Last night, while I should have been revising my novel and cretiquing my partners' work, we took time off to make dinner with friends and play some mahjong with the set H brought back from China for us. I can only say that this is one of the most delicious soups I have ever had, and we have firm plans to make it again with different vegetables and different meats to see how it goes. We're thinking orange veggies, like butternut squash, pumpkin, sweet potato, things like that would be good as a blended soup. We're thinking potatoes and carrots. We're thinking beef stew meat, left to cook for several hours, maybe in a crock pot.

We served this in handmade bread bowls (handmade by Publix, but still handmade), and it was perfect.

Ingredients

4 cups water
3 each chicken bouillon cubes
1/3 cup curry paste (or can be dry curry)
2 Tablespoons ground coriander, toasted
2 Tablespoons granulated garlic
4 cups coconut milk
¼ cup sugar
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 pounds beef/pork/chicken, large diced
2 cups mixed red and green peppers, diced
2 cups onions, diced
½ cup whole kernel corn, frozen
1 bay leaf
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 Tablespoons cornstarch (make slurry)

Method:

1. In kettle, heat water, chicken bouillon cubes, curry paste, ground coriander, and granulated garlic. Let boil and add in sugar and coconut milk.

2. Add in the soy sauce and the diced meat. Let simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Add vegetables, spices, and cook until tender.

4. Bring to a boil and add cornstarch slurry slowly to the mixture and whisk until thickened.

From the Animal Kingdom Lodge at Disney.

wishlist: country captain

I've had curry in styles from India, Japan, England, China, Vietnam, Canada, and probably more, but I had no idea that the south, only a few hours from here, has a version of curry, too. Apparently, Savannah was a major stop on the spice trade, and people stationed in India brought the recipe back with them, and it's since mutated into southern cooking to become Country Captain. I'm so very curious about this.

Country Captain
adapted from The Lee Brothers

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more for seasoning
1/4 pound slab bacon or fatty country ham, chopped
12 chicken thighs, skin on, trimmed of excess skin and fat
1 large flavorful dried chile, such as guajillo or pasilla, split, seeds removed
2 1/3 cups peeled and sliced carrots (1/4-inch thick rounds), about 1 1/4 pound bunch weighed with tops
2 cups diced yellow bell peppers, about 2 peppers
2 cups diced yellow onions, about 2 medium onions
3 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, with juice
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
4 cups cooked white rice
2/3 cup slivered toasted almonds, chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Pour the broth into a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Put the currants in a small bowl and pour enough broth over them to cover. Set aside. In another small bowl, combine the curry powder, garam masala, salt, and black pepper and reserve.

3. Scatter the bacon in a 4 to 6 quart enameled cast-iron pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Stir the pieces around occasionally until the bacon is firm and just golden brown, about 5 minutes. With the slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a small bowl and reserve.

4. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the pot, reserving the excess fat in a small bowl. Brown the chicken thighs in batches over medium-high heat, taking care not to crowd them in the pot, until they are golden brown, about 5 minutes per side. Add the reserved bacon fat, 1 teaspoon at a time, if the pot becomes too dry. Remove the chicken and reserve in a medium bowl.

5. Add 2 teaspoons reserved bacon fat to the pot (if there is none left, use 2 teaspoons canola or vegetable oil). Add the chile and toast the chile in the fat, about 30 seconds per side, until very fragrant.

6. Add the carrots, bell peppers, onions, and garlic and cook until slightly softened, about 6 minutes. Add the tomatoes, spice mixture, ginger, and the currants and their broth. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the tomatoes have cooked down to a puree and the sauce has thickened around the vegetables, about 8 minutes.

7. Nest the chicken thighs gently in the vegetable sauce so that the skin side faces up and is above the surface of the gravy. Tent the pot loosely with foil and transfer to the middle rack of the oven. Bake until the country captain resembles a roiling stew around the chicken thighs, about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until the sauce has thickened further and the chicken skin is just beginning to crisp, about 15 minutes more.

8. Remove from the oven, skim any excess fat from the surface, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Discard the chile. With tongs, transfer 3 thighs to each of 4 wide, deep bowls filled with 1 cup hot white rice. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and the rice and garnish with the reserved bacon, almonds, and parsley.

FROM: Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy.

Review: Blue Dragon Royal Thai Green Curry

This is one of those heat and eat sauces-- this one picked up at the Scratch n Dent Grocery, so who knows which store it originally came from. The instructions say to add chicken or shrimp raw, and let them cook in the sauce to get the best flavor. I added chicken, as well as onions, green peppers and a last left-over potato to make it stretch further, and simmered it until everything was done through. Served it on a heaping pile of lovely Basmati rice.

It's a tasty, sweet-hot sort of curry, with that distinctly Thai smell and flavor-- lemongrass, keffir lime, coconut milk, ginger-- and it's pretty close to the way it tastes at restaurants, though perhaps a bit mellower and uniform of flavor. The heat is there in the first bite, but never got too much (and I'm kind of a sissy when it comes to heat, so that's good, though my room mate who likes heat said it was spicy enough for him, so I guess it's some sort of magic chili that can be mild and spicy at once. or it's the coconut milk and rice.), and went really well with both the veggies and the meat.

I think, until I can figure out how to make my own Thai curry, and when I can't afford to go to a restaurant, this is a good one. Though next time, I'll get two packs to serve five, as it's really only meant for two to three.

Leftover Curry

Because of our local British Pub, we like our thicker curries with mashed potatoes instead of rice, so last night I made a vegetable-chicken curry with mashed redskin potatoes.

Start with chunked chicken and onions, and cook them together until the chicken is cooked through and the onions are sweated. Add chopped carrots sometime at this stage. Once it's all cooked, add the other veggies-- in this case, broccoli and corn. The curry base I use for this is Golden's-- a sweet, mild Japanese curry that comes in blocks like baker's chocolate. For a batch big enough to serve everyone, I used four cubes and a coffee-cup of water, and continued cooking until it was thickened up. The mashed potatoes are just plain-- butter, milk, salt and pepper.

This curry base is easy and rich, not too salty, and thick like gravy-- in fact, over potatoes, it kind of tastes like gravy, too, but with more interest then just a regular brown. It's not a light curry like a thai one; it's closer to a British pub curry, especailly if you shred the chicken. I've used it by itself, and it's a bit salty for that, but it's fantastic with veggies and chicken, and pretty good with mini meatballs.

ps: I apologise for the crappiness of my pictures-- the viewscreen on my camara broke, and these are all taken blind.