Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Well, my pedantic friend, maybe I should have said a replacement. Not that it tasted like coconut, but it married well with the Thai flavors and added a mild sweetness, much like coconut milk.

Mary

Mary,

Good to know. I know I could stand to limit the saturated fat in my diet. Too bad my sweetie dislikes pineapple juice as much as she does coconut milk.

So, two or three seasons ago I won a copy of Atul Kochhar's Fish Indian Style in an online contest. And since then, I've hardly touched it. One of the issues is that, since Atul's family is from Southern India, he relies on fresh coconut as an ingredient in something like 60% of his recipes. Even though I can get it, it's really annoying to prepare if all you need is 3 Tbs of it.

Anyway, my sweetie wasn't home, and I was feeling inspired by "Christopher Eccelston, Indian Chef"*, so I decided to make something out of the cookbook. But it had to be something quick & easy, since I was working today, and cooking just for myself.

What I ended up making was "Easy Fish Masala with Warm Tomato and Onion Salad" (p.127).



By "salad", Atul actually means "quick-cooked veggies". The onions and tomato are cooked, just not for very long. It made for a fairly different dish than the curries I'm used to, which are generally slow-cooking; this had a very bright, intense flavor (the ginger in the recipe isn't cooked at all). I added some of Dave's Kashmiri peppers, so the dish was hotter than the recipe called for, but I think I could make a weeknight version my sweetie would be willing to eat. Especially since the whole thing goes together in less than 25 minutes, a rarity with Indian food.


(*I'm referring to chef Shaan Kahn Rajput, whose offbeat Indian cooking combined with his thick Yorkshire accent makes for a delightfully incongruous cooking show viewing experience. Try it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/user/IndianChef ... eos?view=0 Sadly, Shaan was sent to British prison for smuggling immigrants 3 years ago, so those videos are all you get: http://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/ne ... -1-2672053

Oh, well, there's always the other series which stars washed-up metal and punk bands doing Indian cooking. Yes, really, as soon as I find a link, I'll post it.)

That looks very good, Josh. I can get frozen coconut at my Indian store and use that when fresh is called for (I am so not cracking open coconuts).

How does Chris feel about mango nectar, that might work too.

I was away for the weekend so am doing my second recipe (TBA) from Moosewood next week.

Mary

I've only cracked open a coconut once, to make the infamous CI coconut cream pie. Then I spent the afternoon skipping around the house clonking the coconut halves together and making whinny noises, while asking housemates if they knew the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow.

African or European?

Given your enchantment with them, may I assume then that you have a nice pair of coconuts...

@ Darcie: Was there alcohol involved?

In my effort to derail Mary's thread here entirely, I found this truly delightful review of Shaan Khan's restaurant in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... ant-review

I don't know....aaaaaahhhhhhhrrrrrrrgggggg....

phoenix, actually, that's how silly I am sober. It gets even worse when alcohol is involved.

Wino...what I am supposed to do with you?! (Don't answer that)

Mary, hijack over...I finally (after only about 5 years) made a recipe out of Flatbreads and Flavors. I made the pocket pita recipe to go with falafel (I know, all those recipes to choose from and I pick pita). It's basically pizza dough that you bake on a stone. Instead of making a sponge and then letting the dough rise for a standard amount of time (1.5 hours), I just mixed it all in the morning and threw it in the fridge so I could bake them as soon as I got home from work. It still took too long, and only about half of them puffed up like they are supposed to. I suppose I should consider that a success since none of them could have puffed.

The pita is strangely better the next day. I definitely won't waste my money on the dry-as-dust grocery store pita breads again, and I won't worry about trying to make them just before eating, either.