Archive for category food
Srees Style Curried Tomato Chicken
Pittsburgh is just no longer the place that it used to be without Sree’s presence. His cheery presence was always a great mood booster during some of those dreary overcast Pittsburgh days. Everyone who stopped by the truck for some delicious inexpensive Indian food was always greeted warmly, and quickly became a regular. Sree never forgot a face, and would constantly bestow free food even to folks who left Pittsburgh and haven’t been back in years. In remembrance of many a wonderful meal(regardless of they were from the truck, the Squirrel Hill location, or a rehearsal dinner for some friends who were great fans), I cooked myself some Srees style curry. Recipe below:
Sree-Style Curried Tomato Chicken This recipe is provided under the Live Sree Or Die License. If you do not accept the terms of this license, Muffin does not give you permission to use his recipe, putting you in questionable legal and moral standing.
Contributed by: Muffin
Ingredients:
- 1.5 lbs. chicken (see note 1)
- 1/2 c oil (I’ve used safflower and olive)
- 2 tsp cayenne pepper or 4 serrano peppers (for about an 8 on a 1-10 scale of Indian Food Spiciness; scales linearly)
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp dried mint leaf flakes (spearmint, not peppermint)
- 2 tsp turmeric
- 2 tsp ginger powder
- 2 tsp cumin powder
- 3 tsp coriander seed powder
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- 28oz can crushed tomatoes
- 2 c. hot water
Instructions:
- Thaw, de-bone, chop, otherwise prepare chicken so that it’s bite-sized.
- Heat oil over medium-high heat until it’s really hot. Like, the bottom of the pan should crackle a bit.
- Add all spices (but not garlic), and let them cook for about 20-30 seconds, still over medium-high. You should have what seems to be angry, muddy oil. If the oil and spices start to smoke, you are not using enough oil! Add more, quickly! If they smell burnt, they are! Start over on lower heat!
- Add garlic, cook 30 seconds more.
- Add tomato stuff, return to simmer.
- Add .5 c. hot water and chicken pieces, return to boil.
- Turn down to medium, boil chicken pieces 10 minutes.
- Add remaining water, boil 30 more minutes total. Check sauce after about 20 minutes. It should be the consistency of slightly-runny gravy. If sauce is too thin, mix equal parts rice flour and water (no more than 1 tbsp. rice flour), and mix into the pot. Check consistency again after 5 minutes, and add yet more if necessary. If sauce is too thick, add water and return to a boil.
- Cool, serve.
- Serve with (or on top of) basmati rice. Makes enough for 3 people, Sree-style, which means chicken and two vegetable sides, equal volumes of each. Suggested vegetable sides include Chickpeas and potatoes and Spinach and Black-Eyed Peas.
Sous Vide Hanger Steak
In my previous post, I discussed some of the merits of sous vide cooking, using a medium rare steak as the most demonstrative example of the properties of this method. The proof is, of course, in the pictures and I think this picture of a hanger steak cooked medium rare(55C/130F) shows off sous vide cooking well:
Sous Vide Fennel Garlic Pork Tenderloin
Now that my kitchen is unpacked, cooking seems like the natural next step(as opposed to unpacking the rest of my belongings). Living in an apartment means that I do have some limitations with regards to how many random, expensive, but ultimately useless kitchen gadgets I should possess. Luckily I one of the main “gadgets” that I do own is a SousVide Supreme.
What is sous vide cooking? My friends may ask. Muffin(being full of bullshit) might try to convince you that the french means “under armpit” which hardly sounds like a delicious way to cook. In reality it means “under vacuum”, which is a bit of a misnomer. While vacuum sealing the food is part of cooking sous vide, the most important part of cooking sous vide is the temperature controlled water bath.
Just a teaser, here’s a picture of a pork tenderloin that I cooked sous vide recently:
More restaurants
And just like every other blog of mine, I’ve fallen into my typical habits of not posting for months. But here’s the latest in my long string of restaurants for the past month. Total puts me up to 97 since I’ve moved to Seattle. Not too shabby for 58 days.
My pacing should hopefully slow down as I unpack my kitchen and actually start to cook meals rather than eating out every day.
Completing the Housing Circle
To finish up my 3rd week in Seattle, I’ve finally put down a deposit for an apartment in Capitol Hill that seems to have a nice view. Originally I really wanted a loft, but the ones that I’ve seen in Seattle seemed fairly half-assed. Also managed to sign the lease to rent out my townhome too, so there’s a nice completion of the circle there.
But what people really care about is all the restaurants that I’ve hit this week:
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365 Dining
Not only have I been slacking on posting to this blog about my journey to Seattle, I’ve just been slacking about posting to this blog in general. Being in a new city is fun for exploration, and food is always the way that I tend to connect with new places, whether it be while traveling or living. Since my friends seem to enjoy doing 365 games, my current goal is to visit 365 different restaurants by the time that I’ve been in Seattle for a year(plus this will give me a reason to post about them more often). And being part of the twitter generation, I’ll do mini-reviews with each restaurant which hopefully clock in under 160 characters.
Food storage model
Stove/Oven = Register
Countertip = L1 cache
Pantry/Refrigerator = L2 cache
Wegmans = Virtual memory