Fifty Weeks, Fifty Curries: Week Ten: Elaichi Gosht
When I came home today, I was really excited to try this week's curry because the entire apartment smelled wonderful. 50 Great Curries of India translates the name as "Meat Cooked with Cardamom," which is apparently what elaichi mean. Cardamom is pretty close to cumin in the litany of spices that I absolutely love, so I walked into the kitchen and saw the bubbling curry in the huge pot, smelling of delicious spices, and I was really excited to eat it. To add to that, softlykarou decided to make chapatis to go along with the curry, which was suggested in the recipe, so the buttery smell of the frying bread mixed with the smell of the curry and made everything smell amazing.
No ingredient photo this week because it was mostly spices, so here's a photo of the spice mix.
And then I took the first bite and...there was barely any flavor.
It's not like it was tasteless mush or anything that disastrous, but I could taste the beef, some faint spice tastes, and that was it. After the incredibly complex and delicious smell that filled my nostrils when I walked in the door after a somewhat stressful day at work, lifting the first bite to my mouth and having it be so bland was a big anticlimax. And unfortunately, that means that I don't have that much to say about it. There's only so much I can write about the lack of flavor, and I can't talk about the ingredients because there weren't many. Just a few spices, tomatos, yogurt, and the beef.
Insert your own "The spice must flow" joke here.
Words from the ChefThis was by far the shortest ingredient list. I must have checked it 3 or 4 times to make sure that this didn't have onions. Given the amount of cardamom in it, I expected that flavor to come through more. But it was mostly black pepper, which was a bit disappointing. It smelled incredible and was ridiculously easy to make, but it didn't live up to it's promise. I was very happy with the bread though! Once again, very easy recipe but this came off very well. I kneaded the ghee in and the flavor really came through. However, my flat bread rolling skills leave much to be desired. So while they weren't restaurant lovely, they did taste good. Given how easy they were to make, I foresee them becoming a curry night staple.
Like I said, frying bread. This was the best part.
Like my wife said, the bread was the main focus of the meal after the disappointment of the curry. I don't eat much bread--by calories, my diet is fat-based; by volume, it's vegetable-based--but the chapatis had a kind of soft, subtlely-buttery taste that was great after the generic low-grade spicy blandness of the curry. They did actually combine pretty well, to the point where I went back and got some more elaichi gosht because I had a bit of chapati left over and liked the mixture enough that I didn't want to eat it by itself. It's too bad that the curry needed the chapati to make it interesting, especially after how tasty last week ws.
It looks so good, but looks can be deceiving.
That's about it. Pretty sad all around.
Would I Eat It Again?: No. There wasn't much "it" to eat.
Do I Prefer It to the Usual Thai Curry?: Not at all.
What Would I Change?: I'm not sure exactly what was wrong, so I don't know how to fix it without altering it beyond recognition. Maybe the fix it "serve chapatis with palak gosht instead."
No ingredient photo this week because it was mostly spices, so here's a photo of the spice mix.
And then I took the first bite and...there was barely any flavor.
It's not like it was tasteless mush or anything that disastrous, but I could taste the beef, some faint spice tastes, and that was it. After the incredibly complex and delicious smell that filled my nostrils when I walked in the door after a somewhat stressful day at work, lifting the first bite to my mouth and having it be so bland was a big anticlimax. And unfortunately, that means that I don't have that much to say about it. There's only so much I can write about the lack of flavor, and I can't talk about the ingredients because there weren't many. Just a few spices, tomatos, yogurt, and the beef.
Insert your own "The spice must flow" joke here.
Words from the ChefThis was by far the shortest ingredient list. I must have checked it 3 or 4 times to make sure that this didn't have onions. Given the amount of cardamom in it, I expected that flavor to come through more. But it was mostly black pepper, which was a bit disappointing. It smelled incredible and was ridiculously easy to make, but it didn't live up to it's promise. I was very happy with the bread though! Once again, very easy recipe but this came off very well. I kneaded the ghee in and the flavor really came through. However, my flat bread rolling skills leave much to be desired. So while they weren't restaurant lovely, they did taste good. Given how easy they were to make, I foresee them becoming a curry night staple.
Like I said, frying bread. This was the best part.
Like my wife said, the bread was the main focus of the meal after the disappointment of the curry. I don't eat much bread--by calories, my diet is fat-based; by volume, it's vegetable-based--but the chapatis had a kind of soft, subtlely-buttery taste that was great after the generic low-grade spicy blandness of the curry. They did actually combine pretty well, to the point where I went back and got some more elaichi gosht because I had a bit of chapati left over and liked the mixture enough that I didn't want to eat it by itself. It's too bad that the curry needed the chapati to make it interesting, especially after how tasty last week ws.
It looks so good, but looks can be deceiving.
That's about it. Pretty sad all around.
Would I Eat It Again?: No. There wasn't much "it" to eat.
Do I Prefer It to the Usual Thai Curry?: Not at all.
What Would I Change?: I'm not sure exactly what was wrong, so I don't know how to fix it without altering it beyond recognition. Maybe the fix it "serve chapatis with palak gosht instead."