Category: Dinner

This isn’t so much a recipe, but a what-do-you-do-with-veggies-that-you-need-to-use-up approach to cooking. My default is to turn it into a Sri Lankan varai, a lightly cooked vegetable dish.

In this case, I had leeks, cabbage, and carrot that I needed to use.

• Chop leeks (remember to rinse them, or you may end up eating grit)

• Sauté in a bit of oil until golden-translucent, with mustard seed and cumin seed.
• Add chopped cabbage. Add carrots, cut up small. (This method also works with thawed frozen mixed veg; drain the excess water).

• Stir on medium-high for 5-10 minutes, until partially cooked and a little browned. If you want it spicier, add chopped green chilies (or crushed red pepper, or cayenne).

• Stir in desiccated (not sweetened!) coconut, salt (1 t.), and a little turmeric

  

• Cover and turn to medium low for 5-10 minutes, so veggies can cook through (depending on what veggies you’re using, you may be able to skip the covering stage — peas don’t need it, for example)

  

• Remove lid and cook a few minutes more, stirring, until water has evaporated. Serve hot with rice and curries.

  

NOTE: Day after, this is easy to reheat with a little oil and leftover rice, scrambling a few eggs in, to make a healthy and filling vegetarian meal. You could also sauté some ground beef, and stir this in with rice similarly; we’ll be doing that for dinner tonight.

So, if you remember, I made some badly-overcooked cod. I can’t stand throwing out food, but I also hate eating bad food. I was hoping I could figure out a way to make it vaguely palatable, so I went looking, and it seemed like the uses for overcooked cod mostly fell into one of these three options:

– mashing them up with potatoes, maybe rolling in bread crumbs, and frying them into a cutlet / patty kind of thing
– chopping them up with mayo, etc. for a fish salad kind of thing
– making kedgeree

Well, kedgeree was way more attractive to me than the first two, so I was obviously going to go with that.

“According to “Larousse Gastronomique”, what we call kedgeree originated from a concoction of spiced lentils, rice, fried onions and ginger known as khichiri dating back to the 14th century and eaten across India. The early colonists developed a taste for it, as it reminded them of nursery food. Both khichiri and fish became mainstays of the Raj breakfast table and, in time, their Indian cooks integrated the two. Eggs, believed to have been introduced to the Indian kitchen repertoire by conquering Mughals centuries earlier, were later added as a garnish. When the dish travelled back to Edwardian country homes, via letters and regiments, the lentils were usually left out and flaked smoked haddock added in (the Scots take credit for this). Florence Nightingale and Queen Victoria were especially partial to kedgeree.” – 1843 Magazine

I had another problem, though — I’d made a lot of marinade for the fish, and I didn’t want to waste it. All that good onion-ginger-garlic-spiced goodness! So I wanted to turn it into a sauce. Now, remember, you had raw fish sitting in that marinade, so if you do this, be sure to bring it up to a boil for at least five minutes at some time in the process.

But what I did was start with heating oil in a pan, adding the marinade, and trying to sort of sauté it, because the raw onion-ginger-garlic was very intense. That sort of worked? Even after ten minutes or so of sautéing, it was still fairly intense. But then I added some chopped cherry tomatoes, some ketchup, some coconut milk, checked the seasonings, and simmered it all for a while, and eventually, it turned into a reasonable curry sauce.

Then it was just a matter of flaking the fish (it looks nice, doesn’t it? You can’t tell it’s rubbery by looking), adding some frozen peas, simmering that together for a bit, and then stirring in rice and hard-boiled eggs. Kedgeree!

Now, would I serve this to anybody else? No. Because the fish is still chewy and sad. But it’s in tiny shreds and at least sufficiently disguised by everything else that I’m now willing to eat it, and this rest of it is delicious, so we’re going to call this a win.

*****

https://www.1843magazine.com/…/the-…/the-origins-of-kedgeree

So, this was kind of a disaster, trying to make Sri Lankan marinated cod, baked in banana leaves, because the fish itself did not cook well. But the overall *process* was okay, I think, so I’m documenting.

I started with some onions, ginger, garlic, finger hot chilies, pureed them in the food processor, added lime juice to make a marinade. Also seasonings. So far, so good, right?

The tricky part was adding the cod to the marinade. I’m not so familiar with this process, but I googled, and instructions said marinate at least 30 minutes, but longer is fine. And I was busy that day, so I ended up marinating for 4 hours or so. Which I think was bad, because I think it essentially half-cooked the cod, like ceviche.

Another problem was that the cod has been previously frozen, and I’ve done a lot of cooking fish from frozen before, like tilapia, but apparently it is trickier to cook cod from frozen? At least when I googled afterwards, I found a lot of people complaining about it.

The sadness here is that the end result had good flavor, but the texture of the fish was terrible. It looks fine, but that’s a lie — even the nice, flaky-looking fish is actually rubbery-sad.

I might try this again sometime, but if I do, I’m going to try it with fresh cod, and only marinate for 30 minutes (before baking for 15-20), and see whether that takes care of it.

I was so excited. Sigh.

I don’t really have a recipe for this, more of a process? This is a pretty standard thing I make for the family almost every week, and as people are getting a little bored with their pandemic cooking, thought this might be useful.

*****

Chicken with Veggies and Rotini, maybe in a Cream Sauce, if you feel like it, and you could also add a little Sausage or Shrimp (yeah, I don’t know what to title this one!)

1. Set some water boiling for pasta. Dice 1-2 onions, maybe some garlic if you’re feeling ambitious.

2. Heat a little olive oil in a big sauté pan, sauté onions / garlic for 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. If you have the heat on medium-low, you can do the next step while this is going.

3. Cut up some chicken thighs (much more flavorful and moist than breast). Turn the heat back up to high, stirring so the onions don’t burn, and add the chicken (and about a teaspoon of salt, plus some black pepper). Brown it a little bit, stirring, then turn heat back down to medium, and cook a few minutes longer, until chicken is cooked through. (If you want, you can also add some cut up Italian sausage at this point. Mmm….)

While that’s going, stirring occasionally, you can cut up veggies. I used bell pepper and pea pods for this, but you could do broccoli, carrots, whatever veggies you want, really. Frozen peas or mixed veg would also work fine.

4. Somewhere around here, the pasta water has probably come to a boil. Dump in a box of pasta and a bit of salt. Set a timer — for rotini, I think this was 7 minutes.)

5. If you want more of a sauce, at this point, you can sort of scooch chicken and onions over in the pan, making enough room that you can add a T of flour to the oil (add a little more oil if needed) and brown the flour for a minute. Then mix that all together, and add a little milk or cream, stirring to make a sauce. A little butter at this point wouldn’t hurt anything either. If you’re feeling super-fancy, simmer in a little white wine or sherry.

You can also skip this step; the result will be a little more dry, that’s all. If it’s too dry, add a little olive oil, at least.

6. Add the veggies, and at this point, you really don’t want it to cook for much longer, so the veggies don’t get mushy. My kids hate mushy veggies, and would generally prefer to just eat them raw, but I’m trying to get them to like cooked veg. too, so this dish is helping with that.

7. By now, the pasta timer is probably going off. Drain in, and then dump the pasta in with the chicken and veggies. Stir it around, and you’re basically done.

8. If you’re feeling ambitious, try grating some fresh Parmesan in at this point. Don’t try to use the cheese from the shaker — it has additives that make it not blend well into a sauce.

9. And if you’re like me, the only person in your family who likes shrimp, maybe you have some grilled shrimp in the fridge. Portion out some of the dish for your family, and then add the shrimp to what’s left, for you to enjoy. 

Sri Lankan Curried Cod

(25 minutes, serves 4)

This is a simple curry rich with coconut milk and green chili, appropriate for any whitefish. Cod is lovely in this, but you could also use tilapia, bass, grouper, haddock, catfish, snapper — mildly flavored, quick-cooking fish that usually aren’t too expensive.

A great weeknight meal, and feel free to double the recipe for leftovers in the next few days; this will also freeze well for a rainy day; rice freezes well too, in a Ziplock with the air pressed out, so you could portion this out into meals and freeze. Add a little moisture to rice when reheating in the microwave.

INGREDIENTS:

2 lbs cod or other whitefish

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2-3 onions, chopped

1-2 T fresh ginger, chopped

5 cloves garlic, chopped

2 finger hot green chilies, chopped (adjust up or down as desired for heat)

1 TBL mustard seed

1 TBL cumin seed

1 tsp fenugreek / methi seed

Pinch of saffron threads

6-12 curry leaves, optional

1 tsp salt

2 cups coconut milk

Juice of one lime

NOTE: If making rice, start it first; it’ll be ready by the time you finish the curry.

1. Wash fish and dry on paper towels. Cut into roughly 1 inch pieces.

2. Sauté onions, ginger, and garlic on medium-high with spices, curry leaves, and salt until golden-translucent, stirring as needed.

3. Add coconut milk. Simmer for about 5-10 minutes, until well blended. Add lime juice, stirring so it doesn’t curdle.

4. Add fish and simmer an additional 5-10 minutes, until fish is cooked through, stirring occasionally. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. Serve with rice; also nice with string hoppers, dosai or roti, or in a bowl with kale sambol.

About two months ago, I was at Target, and they had all this serveware on clearance. Now that I have a food-related business, even though I really have enough serveware, it’s impressive how easily I can convince myself that South Asian-ish serveware is a legitimate business expense and I could really use a little more.

I do love it, though. The taupe ceramics mix beautifully with the pewter candlesticks, the white and off-white dishes I already had, the gold patterned linens and glassware.

The Target stuff has actually been sitting in my car for two months, because I bought it just before all this pandemic stuff went down, and then with all the book launch events cancelled, I suddenly had much less need for serveware. Honestly, it’s been depressing me every time I got in the car, a reminder of what happened to my poor cookbook.

But yesterday was Kevin’s and my 28th anniversary. We’d actually gotten into a small fight earlier in the day (pandemic-related, as we were arguing about differing opinions on risk behavior), and I had a moment of not wanting to celebrate at all.

But we talked (or rather, messaged each other because we were both busy with teaching work all afternoon for the last day of classes and set up a time to talk later), and I had faith that we’d sort it out. So I decided we should do something properly celebratory for our anniversary. The days are such a haze right now; whatever we can do to give them structure and mark the passage of time helps, I think.

I brought all bags in from the car and unwrapped them, which was actually very cheering, like getting presents from my former pre-pandemic self. And then I cleared all the sewing stuff off the dining table, which felt a little surreal, since it’s been living there for more than a month.

I set the table, and ordered a rather ridiculous amount of food from La Notte, a local Italian restaurant that I’d like to see stay in business. I ordered four appetizers, four entrees, and four desserts, which is at least two or three meals for us, but that’s fine — this weekend, I’m busy baking cookies for Mother’s Day treat boxes that ship out Tuesday, so it’s just as well if we aren’t trying to do much in the kitchen otherwise.

After ordering and arranging, I went back to teaching, trusting that Kev and I would sort things out before dinner, and then we’d all have a lovely meal. And the serveware will be used for Serendib Kitchen someday too. We’ll re-launch the cookbook, and lots of people will enjoy it. I have faith.

I didn’t sleep well last night (stayed up ’til 2 for no good reason), so I’m afraid I was in a crabby and exhausted mood most of the day, and at 4:30, I gave up and went to go lie down in bed for a while. Thankfully, Kevin was able to get Easter dinner on the table, and I managed to climb out of bed long enough to join them for it.

It’s hard for me to be cranky when eating roast lamb with a vinegary mint sauce (one of my favorite dishes, and somehow I only have it once or twice a year), fluffy roasted new potatoes, asparagus with lemon and garlic. Also when the kids have decided my spring-y napkin rings of faux Queen Anne’s lace are really hair accessories. 

I went right back to bed afterwards, and eventually the kids and Kev joined me for the night’s Dr. Who episode, and by the end of it (the Shakespeare episode, which is really very fun), I was finally feeling like myself again.

Hopefully I sleep better tonight, but I made it through the day, so let’s count it a victory, shall we?