Category: Dinner

Confession — I don’t like chicken breast. Oh, it’s fine in a chicken salad, or in a sandwich with plenty of mayo, but on its own, for dinner? I would much rather have flavorful, moist thighs.

But sometimes my husband buys it, so what’s a girl to do? Poach them — at least poaching helps keep chicken breast as moist and flavorful as possible. Here’s a fusion approach with Sri Lankan spicing, adding in butter and wine.

I kept this dish mild; it felt appropriate for the gentle poaching process, and also meant my kids were happy to eat it. (But if you wanted to add a few chopped green chilies, that would also be fine.)

1/2 c. sultanas (golden raisins)

1. In a large pan (one with a lid), sauté onions in oil or ghee on medium-high, adding in ginger, garlic, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and curry leaves. Stir as needed, until onions are golden-translucent.

2. Add chicken breasts, saffron, white wine, and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn down heat to a simmer; cook 15 minutes, until breasts are cooked through.

3. Remove chicken to a plate and keep warm. Turn heat back up to high, add sultanas, and and boil liquid until reduced to a thick sauce, about a quarter of its previous volume. Stir in butter and lime juice, then taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

4. Return chicken to the pan and reheat with the sauce. Serve hot with rice or bread.

Interesting — the Montreal Gazette had previously ran a piece on Feast, but they’ve also now pulled out the deviled shrimp recipe for a separate piece.

Six O’Clock Solution: Shrimp a devilish if costly delight

Serves 6 to 8 3 tablespoons (45 mL) vegetable oil 3 to 5 medium onions, diced 1 teaspoon (5 mL) black mustard seed 1 teaspoon (5 mL) cumin seed 1 to 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 mL) cayenne, to taste 2 pounds (1 kg) shrimp, peeled, deveined 2/3 cup (150

Can you tell I’m cleaning out my phone? An uppuma photo from last week that I forgot to post. Now I want uppuma again. It was pretty funny listening to the latest episode of Home Cooking, and hearing Samin Nosrat learn about uppuma. I think of her as such a professional, I figure she knows basically everything about food, but she’d never heard of uppuma, and I just felt so sad for her.

This is very very basic uppuma, the kind I make when I’m in a rush — five minutes from start to finish, and just water, cream o’ wheat (semolina), butter and salt for ingredients. I lived on this stuff in grad school, generally with mackerel and egg curry. Very cheap, incredibly delicious.

If you have a few extra minutes to make it more fancy / nutritious, you’d start with melting the butter (or ghee, or just using oil), sautéing some cashews and peas and mustard seeds in there, maybe some curry leaves and chopped green chili, etc. and so on — but honestly, I love it just like this.

Welcome to day 4 of Tuesday. It looks like an end is in sight, perhaps, but I am resolutely not counting any chickens yet; I’m not even looking at the chickens, there ain’t any chickens around here, we are on a strictly vegan diet until the AP News and the NY Times and maybe 3-4 other places tell us it’s time to look at chickens — this metaphor is getting away from me.

Plan for today is to keep my head down and work for as long as I can make myself do so, while the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. I have a recipe to post, masks to sew, student work to review, some optional assignments to assign (at this point in the semester, during a pandemic and a national election, a whole bunch of work that is normally required is turning optional, and I am very fine with that decision), a sci-fi podcast Kickstarter to launch, and Patreon treat boxes to announce.

Those are the important things that have to get done today. Beyond that, a Wild Cards story to work on, garden clean-up tasks, house clean-up tasks, laundry, maybe an exercise walk with a friend, etc. and so on.

All fueled by a nice fusion breakfast this morning — I toasted up some sausage rolls from our local Irish store (they bake them themselves), and had them with fresh-made brinjal moju (eggplant pickle). The spicy sweet tang of the moju cuts beautifully through the richness of the flaky sausage roll. Yum. Brinjal moju recipe coming very shortly!

I think we have a pumpkin curry tea towel design. Pumpkin, leaf and vines by Kavya, recipe by me.

I’ll need to order a proof before it’s available for sale, but I’m going to order that ASAP, so it should be available soon. In time for Thanksgiving orders, perhaps?

This will also be available as part of the one of the Patreon treat boxes — more on those tomorrow, I think.

1/2 – 1 t. additional salt, to taste

Optional garnishes: coconut milk, marigold petals, Sri Lankan-style roasted pumpkin seeds (recipe here: http://serendibkitchen.com/2020/11/01/roasted-pumpkin-seeds-sri-lankan-style/)

1. Make pumpkin curry in a large pot. (I recommend peeling the pumpkin if you plan to use it for soup.)

2. Add stock and cinnamon stick, bring to a boil, turn down and simmer for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

3. Remove cinnamon stick and purée until smooth. Optional, but makes it pretty and gives the soup a velvety texture — an immersion blender makes this job much easier than trying to transfer hot soup into a blender safely.

4. Stir in lime juice, taste, add salt if needed.