What new dishes have you made recently, and how did it go?

Mussaman Curry Paste

1 cup of dried red chilies, soaked
3 tablespoons of coriander seed
1 tablespoon of cumin seed
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of cloves
1 tablespoon of star anise
1 tablespoon of cardamom
1 tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper
10 tablespoons of shallots, chopped
10 tablespoons of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of lemon grass, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon of galangal grated
3 tablespoons of bai makroot (lime leaves, or lime zest)
3 tablespoons of kapi
a small amount of salt (pinch)
a small amount of turmeric (just a pinch as a colourant).

Method:
Toast the seeds, and blend everything in a food processor to a fine paste.


It freezes well, by the way.

Hey cav this is great, lets have a date

Thanks Cav and Algis.

Good to hear it freezes well, that sounds like a lot of work!

Cool about the pumpkin soup.

Does anyone like Eva Gartener (name may be mispelled/slaughtered) my mother has been obsessed with her recipes lately and they seem to all be pretty easy to follow & turn out well.

Wow, Cav, I envy your access to such exotic ingredients. Lemon grass and
galangal, bai makroot, and kapi are hard to come by in rural Missisippi. Of course, there's the internet, but that gets expensive. Still, I love to read such recipes and imagine.

I'm concentrating right now on making old Southern favorites healthier, I tried a recipe last night, modified from a Food Network show, for oven-fried chicken using melba toast crumbs. I used the whole grain type, which yielded a slightly wheatier taste than I'm used to, but it was definitely crunchier than the other types of oven-fried chicken I've tried. I'll brine the chicken next time to aid moistness and probably consider mixing regular melba with the whole grain.

I know in Mississippi there is wild Chicory (coffe-flavored), queen anne's lace roots (carrot -ish. Don't confuse with hemlock which looks just like queen anne's lace but without the black dot... or was it with the black dot? ) There's also dandelion leaves and pokeweed leaves which, when young, make tasty salad greens. You can eat clover flowers and they are dry and a bit sweet, and there's sassafrass which in large amounts can cause cancer but a little bit is just fine. You can make an asparagus-like thing out of the innards of cat-o-nine tails and use their pollen for seasoning. If you boil acorns for a hell of a long time repeatedly you can get the poison out of them (consult a recipe for that).... You have real maple syrup. And of course, there's good fishing and game - rabbits, deer, politicians*, etc.

I wonder if you could make an "exotic" meal using local flavors?

*joke

Portal Star, you're right: there are many exotic ingredients right under our feet. I have a plethora of pokeweed on my property, but despite the popularity of poke salad among some people, I don't eat it. . . it can have verrrrry undesirable gastric effects. I also have abundant sassafrass, but though I've tasted sassafrass tea, I don't bother with it. Just as well if too much can cause cancer! Tons of acorns here too, but I think I'll leave them alone too.

Ah, but the magnificent chanterelle mushrooms. . . yummmmm.

I could eat bucketloads of chanterelles. While I live in an ethnically diverse urban center with access to a lot of exotic ingredients, I can't just walk out my door and pick chanterelles. For that, I envy you.

today I made a salad out of:

1/2 a honeycrisp apple, sliced
small cubes of brie
1 strip bacon, crumbled
a handful butter lettuce
two handfuls romaine lettuce
a couple fresh (I cracked them) brazil nuts - pieced

with a dressing of:
olive oil
red wine vinegar
dark honey
sugar

And I drank some fresh apple cider with it.

It tasted really good!

We had lamb chops today
with Gorgonzola on top.
As side dish, Fennel,
cooked in water with a little butter

As for the salad, we had
Spinach with Persimmons cut in cubes,
and roasted Pecans.
The dressing:
I mixed together Olive oil,
Rice Vinegar,
1 Tsp. bitter Orange Marmelade,
salt and pepper.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, good.

Hey! I made my Cuban plate the other night.
Everyone gets:

two eggs, sunny side up with salsa on top

rice with black beans and finely chopped Vidalia onion on top.

and a fried banana

It was good ossobuco

panzade, what are Vidalia onions and what kind of
salsa?

Vidalia's are the sweetest tastiest onions in the universe. No tears and no heartburn. I eat 'em like apples.

I just use store bought salsa...with a squirt of lime.

The different textures and tastes make it an interesting dish. And it's oh so inexpensive.

Hm, I have to look for Vidalias then. I don't think I ever
tried sweet onions.

Thanks panzade.

If you ever drive near Lyons Georgia, that's where they be...in the ground.

Calamity Jane? Never tried Walla Walla sweets? <signs of shock>

I can't quite imagine eating them like apples, however... and I have had Vidalias. They are good. V. good.

Vidalias are marvellous. They caramelize beautifully.
More sugar in them than apples.
I can recall going through the airport in Atlanta and seeing bags of Vidalias hanging there. Odd, buying onions in an airport.

Years ago, in Myrtle Beach, we managed to get some of the Vidalias as spring onions - paradise <swoon>

I've added a bunch of new "everyday" recipes recently and been very pleased by the results. One was a casserole with tater tots (yes, really) on the bottom layer then a mixture of hamburger/sausage, shredded cheese, corn and cream of mushroom soup, topped with fried onions. Another good one is a breakfast casserole with cubed bread, sausage, cheese, eggs and mushrooms. It all bakes together into something resembling a souffle, but it's much easier to make.

Both recipes are straight out of the fifties, I know. Neither is fine cuisine, but there's room in our lives for some good old-fashioned comfort food too.

how much does a platypus weigh nowadays?

(from last page) I've never heard of fennel as a side dish.

And yes, I used to eat vidalias like onions as well.

Buyer beware! The name vialia onion was sold and is now used as a label on less sweet onions grown elsewhere. So make sure your vidalias say that they are from Georgia.