It's like being five years old again

Two snowstorms within seven days left us with a lot of snow and not a lot of places to put the tonnes of frozen flakes. The weather forecasters, newsreaders and traffic reporters spent days warning us about how bad things would be...and they were right.

Sunday night I got a call from My Dear Little Mummy, who'd gotten wind of the storm...all the way in India. She tracked the storm via BBC News, and watched the destruction on the Atlantic and Ohio...as she said "It was all white and then I saw a little head peeping out (from behind the snow drifts)." Which she thought was funny...then I told her the snow banks were taller than her...she didn't think that was funny. Really, it was like being in kindergarten, not being able to see over the drifts and banks.

Unfortunately, the air pressure turned migraine inducing...I have little memory of Friday, or most of Sunday for that matter, except for a couple of handfuls of pain pills, blankets and almost total darkness.

Saturday, I was one of the insane people who went out grocery shopping. The MidsizedMildlyAnnoyingMegamart is pretty much across the street from me, but I took my life into my own hands, given the slippy roads, notsogreat visibility and the ice that kept forming on my wiper blades. I was well enough to do some baking, but Beelzebub lived up to his name and turned my poor little blueberry buttermilk muffins into charcoal-stumped cakelettes. They are so sad, I couldn't bare taking pictures...really...bad things should not happen to good blueberries.

Sunday, before the vice grip-like hold on my head rendered me useless, I dug out George (my car)...with the help of my two wonderful neighbours. I also took some pictures, so my parents could appreciate what they skipped out on...



L: The view from my front door...that smear of grey is George. Yes I have a garage, but there's a desk in there which is keeping me from parking in it...

M: My parent's walk...

R: See that splotch of red? That's my Dad's car. Apart from the lumpy snow in front, it's all drift.



L: My parents' front garden...that loopy thing is a wire trellissy thing that theoretically protects the plants from the former neighbours' kids...and vermin...

M: My condo again...see that big snow pile under the tree--it's more than twice the height of a car.

R: My neighour's front garden, seen from the shared driveway.

Sorry, no food pictures or food post. If you're interested in a dessert that uses snow, take a look at Jenny's post.


cheers!
jasmine

Cookbook Giveaway: Eat, Shrink and Be Merry

The Cookery Book Fairy paid me a visit this week, leaving a small pile of books in my cubicle. Yes, apparently when I spend too much time at the office, she comes looking for me in the most obvious of places.

You see, she's in the midst of an office move and found several extra copies of Janet and Greta Podleski's Eat, Shrink and Be Merry (the cookbook that accompanies the TV show of the same name). Why did she have extra copies? Her manager bought a whackload to give to staff or to be used as prizes or something, and four remained, taking up valuable real estate. The accompanied message was "You'll know what to do with them."

My...that was ominous...

If you aren't familiar with the sisters, this is their third cookbook, following Crazy Plates and Looney Spoons. They specialise in healthier, lower fat cooking. They also have their own frozen foods and a very colourful line of kitchen utensils.

I've owned a copy of ES&BM for a little while and have cooked from it a few times-- the recipes are easy and don't taste like diet food. Each recipe contains nutritional information and the book itself has many, many tips to healthy eating. It's also filled with puns. Some are good, others aren't worth mentioning (there, you've been warned). It's this combination that made the sisters successful foodish authors. The book and its authors are popular--you know when an AVP stops dead in his tracks to tell you how much he likes the recipes and how often he and his family cook from it, simply because you have four copies on your desk, there's something slightly different about this tome..

So, back to my given task...

Contest time!
Instead of doing a first-come, first-served thing--which never seems fair to those in different timezones--or coming up with an event--which I don't have time to organise,and I know others may not have the time to cook for --I wanted something that fell between the two...

As I mentioned, the book is filled with puns: The Choke's on You (a hot, baked artichoke dip), Melancauli Baby (cauliflower soup), Shroom with Ado (marinated mushroom fajitas), Turk du Soleil (turkey burgers), Britney's Spears (asparagus)...so that's what I'm looking for. An original punny recipe title, with a brief description of the food or drink.

If you would like your name to be entered into a draw for a copy of the book, please email me at cardamomaddict at gmail dot com (you know what goes where) before 23:59 GMT 31 March 2008 with:

• your name (real or your online pseudonym, your choice)
• an original punny recipe title with brief description of the food or drink--since you are not sending me a recipe, you don't have to worry about it "working" or even tasting good. All it needs to be is try to be funny...notice it doesn't have to be successfully funny...

Other bits:

• I'll draw four names at random and email the winners for their snailmail addresses. I'll post the winner's names and their punny entries on my blog shortly thereafter.
• If you leave your entry as a comment, you still have to email me so I have your email address and can contact you if you win. If I cannot contact you, I cannot send you a book...
• You can enter as many different titles as you wish, but you can only win one copy of the book. So if you enter two titles, your name is entered twice. At draw time, if your name is pulled after you've already won a copy of the book, that draw will not get you another copy, and I will select another entry.
• Now, obviously, I can't verify if your title is original as I do not have a copy of each and every recipe known to humankind, and there's the possibility that two people could come up with the same or similar titles, so let's just agree to play nice...
• This giveaway is open to anyone, regardless of where they live (well, okay, you have to be on Planet Earth with a valid snailmail address). Would love to see entries from far and wide...

Email me with any questions...

In the meanwhile...I pulled my copy from my rickety shelves and kindasorta followed their recipe for Kickin' Chicken. Kindasorta because I didn't use the light peanut sauce and I kept the bone and skin on the thighs...I'd used peanut sauce on chicken and pork before, but hadn't combined it with any tomato-based sauces. Easy, flavourful and adaptable, I'll probably come back to this, but do a whole, jointed chicken..or pork back ribs with this sauce.

Kindasorta Kickin' Chicken
adapted from Eat Shrink and Be Merry
Serves six

12 (approx 1kg) chicken thighs, left in tact
180ml peanut sauce
125ml salsa
20g fresh basil, chopped

Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Line a baking tray with tin foil (for easy clean up) and lightly oil.

Combine the peanut sauce, salsa and basil, and reserved some sauce for serving. Pour the rest into a bowl and add the chicken. Coat well and remove to the prepared baking tray. Spoon the the chickeny sauce over the meat and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until cooked. Serve with reserved sauce.

cheers!
jasmine

Hatful of butter chicken

Inspiration arrives in various and unexpected forms. But I must admit, I scratched my head at it's latest chariot.

It's no secret, music can fling me to my kitchen, and urge me to come up with something new or different from my norm. Jann Arden's Cinnamon Buns is such a dish, but in that case, she talked about pastries during the concert.

In no way would or could I call myself a hardcore fan, but every time I hear The Smiths on the radio, the volume mysteriously increases and immediately transports me to a happy place (yes, I am proudly an Alternative fan). But I have no idea why, this time, How Soon Is Now? sent me head first into butter chicken during one of Morrissey's "I am human and I need to be loved/just like everybody else does" ..but it did.

And no, I'm not going to enter into a discourse about shallower and deeper meanings held by its lyrics, though I do think those 14 words ring true to most people at one point or another. I just think it's fairly safe to say it has nothing to to with chicken, curry or chicken curry.

So...I've got a hankering for butter chicken (or murgh makhani)...but I don't know what it's "supposed to" taste like, so I really can't go with taste memory (only what I don't want it to taste like). My Dear Little Mummy doesn't cook it. My forays into trying it have left me unsatisfied: a frozen dinner, and a dump and heat sauce. I could tell what the instafood manufacturers were unsuccessfully trying to do when they created cheap, fast and inoffensive foodstuffs, but when the instructions are to heat the meat and the sauce separately before tossing everything together just before serving, you know you've got something that may as well be Chicken McNuggets dumped in Bollywouldn't sauce.

I called my parents (fyi: jackfruits keep falling on Mum's head, which I'm sure will be her excuse for shrinking in height just that much more) and asked Mum about butter chicken. After a not-so-quick conversation, which centred on her intense dislike of many things dairy I think I began to figure things out.

The first is the yoghurt. Several recipes called for it to marinate the meat, but Western plain yoghurt is creamy and just slightly sweet in comparison to my mother's yoghurt, which is just as thick, but a bit more sour. The taste is closer to fresher buttermilk, crossed with old (but not yet expired) sour cream.

Most recipes I've seen use tandoori chicken and then put it into a sauce, or use a doctored garam masala for the chicken. Well...I know if I have tandoori chicken, I'll probably eat it as is and only have scraps left for the butter chicken...which might as well be called "butter scraps." Garam masala is fine if you can't get the individual spices to come up with your own flavouring...but, the best Indian dishes I've had centre around specially-made masala..and let's face it, I'm feeling creative.

I'm not after "perfectly authentic" because, apart from not having a decent reference point, I don't think there is a right way to make butter chicken. I just wanted something that was slightly sweet, on this side of tangy, and flavourfully spicy. I also wanted to make it something my Mum would eat (she balked at the cream I mentioned, so I've given up the decorative pour). I came up with this dish and I think it's a keeper.

Murgh Makahni (Butter Chicken)
Serves 6

Ingredients
2 Tbsp masala, untoasted and ground finely, made from:

• 2 Tbsp coriander seed
• 1 Dspn (two teaspoons) fenugreek
• 1 tsp black peppercorn
• 1 ¾ tsp chili pepper flakes
• ¼ tsp turmeric
• 2 cloves
• seeds from 1 fat cardamom pod

1kg chicken thighs, skinned and bones removed, cut into bite-sized pieces
250ml sour cream mixed with buttermilk
4Tbsp garlic and ginger paste, divided (see note)
juice of half a lemon
1 globe onion, chopped
unsalted butter and oil, for frying onions
156ml can of tomato paste, mixed with enough water to make one cup
1Tbsp muscavado sugar
a thumb of minced ginger
a handful of chopped coriander leaf

In a zippy bag, mix together the sour cream, half the ground masala, half the ginger and garlic paste, and lemon juice, adding as much salt as you wish. Give it a good squoosh to thoroughly mix the marinade, before adding the chicken. Seal the bag and squoosh again, this time to thoroughly coat the meat. Let marinate for about an hour--but don’t go too much longer otherwise you risk woolly chicken.

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F and bake the chicken for about 20 minutes, then turn off the oven and let the chicken sit in the oven for 10 minutes…which is approximately how long you’ll need to fry the onions. The meat will be partially cooked, which is okay, because you will finish cooking it on the hob.

Over a medium flame, heat the butter and the oil together and fry the onions for about eight or nine minutes, or until the onions are soft and caramelised. Add the remaining garlic and ginger paste and fry for another minute. Tip in the partially cooked meat and any yoghurty liquid that has collected in the pan, followed by the tomato paste and water. Cover and simmer for about five minutes. Stir in the sugar and let blurble away, partially covered until the gravy thickens – about 15 minutes. You aren’t looking for islands of meat in a sea of thickened tomatoey soup but instead chicken that’s swathed in a thick burnished sauce. Adjust seasoning to taste.

While it’s thickening, toast the remaining masala in a dry pan until the essential oils release.

When the chicken is ready, take it off the heat and add the toasted spices, coriander leaf and minced ginger.

Notes:

• Left over masala can be stored for a few months in an airtight jar.
• If you cannot grind your own spices for this, then substitute 1½ Tbsp garam masala mixed with ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• Garlic and ginger paste: grate and mix together equal parts garlic and ginger. This can be made in quantity and then frozen in an ice cube tray and kept in the fridge for future use.
  

cheers!
jasmine