Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Swedish Meat Balls

..Or that's what they were intended to be at any rate. But they were a disaster on so many levels that it's only now that I can bring myself to write about it, precisely a month and a half later.

Let's start with the equipment.

My "meat ballers" are in fact not "meat ballers" at all. I don't even know what they are any more. They sit pretty in my kitchen, looking like a pair of quaint scissors, but they do nothing.
I could use them for ice cream scoop I suppose, but I don't want to jinx my ice cream. Why they aren't meat ballers? Because they don't ball nothing! And it ain’t my fault neither. I had learnt from my
Cajun Patties experience and put in plenty of bread crumbs in the ground meat and cream too, which altogether is a different story. But, the ballers wouldn't do their thing and no use blaming the bread crumbs or lack thereof, 'coz here's proof I could do it by hand just fine!

(I put them in the freezer just in case, to be absolutely sure)

This brings me to the next part of my disaster tale. The moment I put my perfect, rather,” perfect looking” meat balls into the wok they just came apart! Agreed they didn't turn to powder, but they lost all form! To this date I can't say why, but nasty shock that. Nothing I have seen in my 9 and 20 summers had prepared me for it.

Putting a brave face on it and moving on we tried to do what we could about the curry. Can't say, "moving on" really, we were just in a state of denial. So, then, cream forms an essential part of the curry in Sweden and also part of the ground meat for that matter. We were wondering if the Swedish like things over sweet, when we realised, the recipe said "sour cream". We had in fact put in whipping cream! Trying to fire fight the situation, I poured in some curd. Curd is after all sour. So, logically speaking it should have offset the effects of the whip in the cream.
Well -

Sushi put a stoic face on it. But I did catch him stealing bread slices from the fridge late in the night. I ate away valiantly, but had to accept defeat at the hands of leftovers at breakfast next morning.

And now, really, I have to go fortify myself with some strong black coffee and hope to put this behind me!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Popeye Chicken

So, here goes the story.

It was a week night. Monday at that. Beginning of the work week. We are pretty subdued on Mondays. By Wednesday, we start to perk up. By Thursday, we are rubbing our hands in anticipation. And Friday nights?! Those are the best of all. We celebrate, go out, cook, eat, squabble, argue, etc. In short, Friday nights are what we live for.

Anyway, like I was saying, it was still Monday night and subdued we were. In accordance with the mood , a mellow mushroom in spinach was on the menu. I had sorted through the spinach bundle and discarded those leaves that weren't quite up to standard - roughly 49%. I had then painstakingly washed each individual leaf that did come up to scratch - say 51%. About three quarters of an hour's worth of labour and the leaves were all squeaky clean. They were then put in a pressure cooker, to soften them under , u know, pressure.

That's when Sushi marched into the kitchen. He demanded to know what was under pressure.
Me: "Spinach"
Him: Hmm

He then peeks into the freezer and espies chicken.
Him: Out out out
Me: Me?

Alrite, I put the mushrooms back into the fridge and rush to get my camera. Sushi is meanwhile vigorously attacking chicken.



He then seasons it and puts it under pressure too. That's put both of our pressure cookers into the fray. Out comes the liquidizer. The spinach is very soon but a smooth paste.

A biggish blob of butter in the kadahi, and the chicken is all fried. In goes the spinach paste. A pinch of salt, a quick turn of the black pepper mill, woah.. did Friday night come sooner than usual?!

Monday, July 13, 2009

From the Frying Pan into the Fire!


Except it won't. Because I got this ---->

The balancing act, with a wooden spoon and another wooden spoon to fish out frying objects from the wok, that used to be my frying experience exists no more.
Bring on the pakodas, fish and pooris.. I can now deep fry right there with the pros and dish it out in one swift scoop !
(The kadahi has made its appearance plenty of times on this blog. It's the chanota that I'm introducing this time around)