experiments in cooking
Last night was a visit to a new (to us) Indian restaurant. Quite tasty! I even managed to get past my cilantro thing and find a truly Yum! dish. I find that I'm not a huge fan of minced lamb as the Indians prepare it - don't hate it, just not a huge fan. On the other hand, I can eat vegetarian quite cheerfully. I'm a *huge* fan of the 'cottage' cheese.
In and of itself, it was good food, but not the point. The point: I'd been planning to make curried shrimp this weekend since Tuesday. Fortunately neither of us had curry last night, and flechyr swears he can eat curry every night anyway, so I still went for it. Could not for the life of me find the recipe I used for chicken once upon a time, so a trip to the intertubes and I cobbled together something I liked the looks of. Essentially, it had to only use stuff I had in the house -- good job we remembered to pick up curry powder while food shopping yesterday! ;D
3 tablespoons butter
1 Tbs curry ( I doctored mine to be about 2.5 tsp curry, .5 tsp cumin, and .25 tsp cayenne. Just 'cuz)
half an onion
1 teaspoon + minced fresh ginger
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken broth (or in my case, 1 cup water with half a bouillon cube)
1 cup milk
3/4 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
about 16 oz frozen shrimp
1 green pepper
some amount of snap pea pods, or 1 cup peas
Saute the curry, ginger and onion in the butter until onions just start to soften. mix in the flour. Add the sugar and liquids, bring to a boil. Add the remaining veggies and shrimp, cover and simmer until shrimp are just cooked.
Easy-peasy, so long as you're not fretting over how to make up for the chicken broth most of the recipes call for. If I hadn't had the bouillon cube, I probably would've just used water and extra salt, or pulled a flavor packet out of a ramen noodle package. The recipe could probably be improved with a touch of coconut milk, but the touch of sugar and the naturally sweet peas with the milk helped. I thought the sauce was a little thin, but it set up fairly well eventually, especially once it's over rice. The word from flechyr was, I'm not allowed to not make this again, so I guess I better keep track of what I did! I did slightly overcook the shrimp, and the pepper, but that was just not paying quite enough attention at the end.
I have a strange urge to see how the curry will work with squash, but I'm not sure if that will work at all. I have an acorn squash that needs to be dealt with some time in the next week or two. I was in a mood when I veggie shopped :D But for all I don't really like cooking, sometimes it's good to realize that I actually *can*, with appropriate research opportunities. I do need to dig through my personal recipe collection; I know there's a couple chicken or salmon recipes that I want to revisit, especially the chicken and apple ones. They're very good fall recipes without being all turnip pottage and stew stuff.
In and of itself, it was good food, but not the point. The point: I'd been planning to make curried shrimp this weekend since Tuesday. Fortunately neither of us had curry last night, and flechyr swears he can eat curry every night anyway, so I still went for it. Could not for the life of me find the recipe I used for chicken once upon a time, so a trip to the intertubes and I cobbled together something I liked the looks of. Essentially, it had to only use stuff I had in the house -- good job we remembered to pick up curry powder while food shopping yesterday! ;D
3 tablespoons butter
1 Tbs curry ( I doctored mine to be about 2.5 tsp curry, .5 tsp cumin, and .25 tsp cayenne. Just 'cuz)
half an onion
1 teaspoon + minced fresh ginger
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken broth (or in my case, 1 cup water with half a bouillon cube)
1 cup milk
3/4 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
about 16 oz frozen shrimp
1 green pepper
some amount of snap pea pods, or 1 cup peas
Saute the curry, ginger and onion in the butter until onions just start to soften. mix in the flour. Add the sugar and liquids, bring to a boil. Add the remaining veggies and shrimp, cover and simmer until shrimp are just cooked.
Easy-peasy, so long as you're not fretting over how to make up for the chicken broth most of the recipes call for. If I hadn't had the bouillon cube, I probably would've just used water and extra salt, or pulled a flavor packet out of a ramen noodle package. The recipe could probably be improved with a touch of coconut milk, but the touch of sugar and the naturally sweet peas with the milk helped. I thought the sauce was a little thin, but it set up fairly well eventually, especially once it's over rice. The word from flechyr was, I'm not allowed to not make this again, so I guess I better keep track of what I did! I did slightly overcook the shrimp, and the pepper, but that was just not paying quite enough attention at the end.
I have a strange urge to see how the curry will work with squash, but I'm not sure if that will work at all. I have an acorn squash that needs to be dealt with some time in the next week or two. I was in a mood when I veggie shopped :D But for all I don't really like cooking, sometimes it's good to realize that I actually *can*, with appropriate research opportunities. I do need to dig through my personal recipe collection; I know there's a couple chicken or salmon recipes that I want to revisit, especially the chicken and apple ones. They're very good fall recipes without being all turnip pottage and stew stuff.