Indian Curry Through Foreign Eyes #2: Mary Randolph

Posted on May 2, 2013 by lauramk

Mary Randolph

Next up on our exploration of curries is Mary Randolph’s Curry from her book, The Virginia Housewife, first published in the United Sates in 1824. Although she was well born, Mary and her husband’s fortunes fell in middle age and The Virginia Housewife was written to help lift her family out of poverty. The Virginia Housewife underwent multiple revisions and no less than 19 editions were published prior to the Civil War. It also continued in circulation and regular use into the late 19th Century. Unfortunately, Mary died in 1828 and didn’t live to see most of those revisions and understand the true impact of her work.

Although not the first published cookbook of US origin, it was the first highly successful one. This may be in part because of the wide range of recipes offered in the book, from Virginian specialties to English, French, and Spanish dishes, to Eastern and Western Indian curries.

The Virginia Housewife, 1824

There are two East Indian curry recipes in Mary Randolph’s book: one for catfish and one for chicken. There are also accessory recipes for curry powder and rice dishes to go along with the curry dishes. For the sake of comparison with Hannah Glasse’s chicken curry, I chose to work with Randolph’s chicken recipe. My husband made the catfish curry for us, however, and it was spectacular!

Separated by 50 years from Hannah Glasse’s recipe, Randolph’s recipe is much more sophisticated and complex. It has a much broader compliment of spices in the seasoning and the addition of garlic along with onions helps deepen the savory aspects of the dish.

So, what does it taste like? First off, it is very different from the Hannah Glasse curry. Nutmeg and mace are the dominant flavors, with turmeric and coriander following. The onions especially pick up the turmeric flavor, which allows you to taste it as a distinct flavor. Surprisingly, perhaps, this curry also packs a bit of a wallop in terms of heat with all that Cayenne pepper in the mix. I would rate it a 4-5 on a scale of modern hot dishes, so don’t be afraid of it. However, it is a great deal hotter than most early 19th Century food I’ve tasted. So, enough words. . . on to the recipes.

_____

Crucial to recreation of the dish is the use of Mary’s recipe for curry powder. As you can see, this mixture of spices is much richer and more complex than the one used in the earlier Hannah Glasse recipe. That recipe had only turmeric, ginger and black pepper for seasoning. Mary’s recipe reads:

CURRY POWDER
One ounce turmeric, one do. coriander seed, one do. cumin seed, one do. white ginger, one of nutmeg, one of mace , and one of Cayenne pepper; pound all together, and pass them through a fine sieve; bottle and cork it well – one tea-spoonful is sufficient to season any dish.

Listed in modern form, this recipe reads:

Mary Randolph’s Curry Powder

Ingredients
1 ounce turmeric
1 ounce coriander seed
1 ounce cumin seed
1 ounce powdered ginger
1 ounce nutmeg
1 ounce of mace
1 ounce of Cayenne pepper

Method
Grate nutmeg and turmeric and measure out one ounce of each spice. Combine with other dried and powdered ingredients and mix. Grind coriander and cumin seeds separately until fine and combine with other ingredients. If desired, grind all ingredients together for a few more second to get a more integrated mix.

Now, onto the construction of the curry itself. Mary’s recipe reads:

TO MAKE A DISH OF CURRY AFTER THE EAST INDIAN MANNER
Cut two chickens as for fricassee, wash them clean, and put them in a stew pan with as much water as will cover them; sprinkle them with a large spoonful of salt, and let them boil till tender, covered close all the time, and skim them well. When boiled enough, take up the chickens, and put the liquor of them into a pan, then put half a pound of fresh butter in the pan, and brown it a little; put in two cloves of garlic, and a large onion sliced, and let these all fry till brown, often shaking the pan; then put in the chickens, and sprinkle over them two or three spoonsful of curry powder; then cover the pan close, and let the chicken do till brown, often shaking the pan; then put in the liquor the chickens were boiled in, and let all stew till tender; if acid is agreeable, squeeze the juice of a lemon or orange in it.

My interpretation of the recipe follows:

Mary Randolph’s Butter Chicken (1824)

Ingredients
1 pound chicken breast meat, cut into bitesize pieces
1 stick unsalted butter
1-2 teaspoons garlic, minced
1 large or two medium yellow onions, peeled, sliced and separated
3 heaping teaspoons curry powder (prepared from the recipe above)
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 cups low-salt or homemade chicken stock
¼ -1/3 cup fresh lemon or orange juice

Method
Melt butter in a saucepan and when warm add the chicken and sauté until the meat is opaque and starting to color. Remove chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the garlic and stir well. Then add the onions and sauté for 5-8 minutes, stirring frequently until they start to soften.

Add the curry powder and salt and if dry, add a small amount of the stock to moisten the pan and spices. Sauté for 2-3 minutes to allow flavors to blend. Then add the chicken and any accumulated juices back into the pan and stir well. Add stock to almost cover the meat and stir again. Cook to warm over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

When warm, cover and reduce heat to so covered chicken cooks steadily at a medium simmer for 20-30 minutes or until chicken softens. Stir occasionally while chicken cooks.

When the chicken is tender, uncover and if necessary let sauce reduce a bit. When nearly done, reduce heat to lowest and add the lemon or orange juice and stir in well. Cook to heat and serve with rice or bread.

Mary Randolph’s Chicken Curry

_____

As you can see, I just couldn’t bring myself to use two sticks of butter for this dish. It worked very well with one stick and your cardiovascular system with thank me for the reduction. Unlike the Hannah Glasse recipe, there is no cream added. Perhaps the large quantity of butter was supposed to offset the absence of cream, but one stick (which is about 3 times the amount of butter I use in modern butter-based curries) works nicely, and serves to blanket and unite the flavor of the spices in the curry powder.

The quantity of nutmeg and mace is interesting to me. Firstly, it makes it probable that this dish is an adaptation of a Mughali recipe which would have been relatively close to but still different from the Parsi roots of Butter Chicken.

Secondly, at Mary Randolph’s time, this recipe would have been very expensive to make because of the price of nutmeg and mace at that time. Granted, the trees that produce these spices were introduced by the French into the New World (French Guyana) in the mid-1770s, and pirated by the British to their Grenadian colonies a few years after that. However, nutmeg trees grow very slowly (I know, I have one) and I don’t think that there would have been enough Grenadian nutmeg on the colonial market by the 1820s to make those spices affordable. I may be miscalculating, but I still think that it would be at least a couple of decades after Mary Randolph that the prices of those spices would have fallen. So, if that line of reasoning is correct, this would be a special dish, perhaps for a celebration, for a special meal, or for demonstration of conspicuous consumption.

On another note, we tried it with both lemon and orange juice and like it both ways. Although, most modern Indian dishes tend to use lemon juice, the orange juice lends a gentler, more “Persian” flavor, which harken back to the roots of the dish.

This is the last historical curry recipe I’m going to post before my trip (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia), but I will continue this exploration at some point after my return. I have an early-to-mid 18th Century Dutch-American recipe for Butter Chicken from Anna de Peyster’s manuscripts held by the Van Cortland trust, and a Facebook colleague has pointed out some very early recipes in manuscripts from the 17th Century that I simply have to try. So stay tuned for more on Indian Curries Through Foreign Eyes.

(Words and interpretation of recipes by Laura Kelley. Photo of The Virginia Housewife from the Virginia Historical Society; Photo of Mary Randolph’s Butter Chicken by Kumikomurakamicampos @ Dreamstime.com; other images in the public domain)

Thackeray’s Ode to Curry

Posted on April 18, 2013 by lauramk

Poem to Curry

- William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 -1863)

Three pounds of veal my darling girl prepares,
And chops it nicely into little squares;
Five onions next procures the little minx
(The biggest are the best, her Samiwel thinks),
And Epping butter nearly half a pound,
And stews them in a pan until they’re brown’d.

What’s next my dexterous little girl will do?
She pops the meat into the savoury stew,
With curry-powder table-spoonfuls three,
And milk a pint (the richest that may be),
And, when the dish has stewed for half an hour,
A lemon’s ready juice she’ll o’er it pour.

Then, bless her! Then she gives the luscious pot
A very gentle boil – and serves quite hot.
PS – Beef, mutton, rabbit, if you wish,
Lobsters, or prawns, or any kind fish,
Are fit to make a CURRY. ‘Tis, when done,
A dish for Emperors to feed upon.

Sound like the lady could be making Hannah Glasse’s curry – only with veal, no? A delightful example of 19th Century food porn poetry with big onions, little minxes, savory stews and hot pots. As an Englishman born and initially raised in Kolkata by parents both with ties to the East India Company, Thackeray wrote about something he knew well – curry. Something to amuse you as we continue on our journey examining curry through foreign eyes.

For more on the proper (traditional) definition of food porn, see my post on The Lotus Eaters from 2010. (Words except cited verse by Laura Kelley.)

Indian Curry Through Foreign Eyes #1: Hannah Glasse

Posted on April 14, 2013 by lauramk

I have long been fascinated by concepts of “I and other”, or the many ways we separate what is familiar (self) from what is not familiar (non-self). By defining what is not self, we are in fact defining self. One can hear small children do this when misclassified by gender; most adamantly declare that they are not members of the opposite sex. “I and other” are also evident in beautiful symbolic ways when considering the movement of ideas and beliefs through societies. The newly introduced idea is at first foreign, complete with unfamiliar trappings. As the idea flows through society and is adopted, the foreign elements are shed and replaced by the familiar.

Depictions of Buddha: Caucasian and Asian

One place to see this is operation is at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which houses an expansive collection of Asian art. As Buddhism moves out of India and across Asia, first to the west and then the east, early iconography clearly depicts Buddha as Caucasian (Gandahara style), even if the work is from the Himalayas, Burma or Western China. As time passes, and Buddhist ideas are adopted across the east, however, religious iconography begins to depict a wide variety of races and ethnicities. Noses become smaller, epicanthic lids are added as the face changes from Caucasian to Asian. Expressions usually remain contemplative and serene, but the varying shapes of the faces are evidence of the triumph of the ideas across space and time.

The “I and other” concept is also of interest in historical cookery, especially when one group is attempting to recreate the cuisine of another. I’ve been looking at early recipes for Indian curry written by non-Indians. So far, I have a small collection of English and American recipes from the 18th and 19th centuries that show curry powders and recipes developing from recipes that merely reminiscent as Indian in the eighteenth century to those that are nearly indistinguishable from modern recipes broken out by geographical region by the end of the nineteenth. The earliest amongst them (so far), is a recipe from Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747.

The Art of Cookery, 1774 edition

Glasse’s book was an important book for its time and was a major reference for home cooks in England and its colonies for more than 50 years after its publication. If you think of it as an early Joy of Cooking, you are just about spot on. It was revised several times during her lifetime, but to avoid bankruptcy she had to sell the copyright and didn’t profit off of most of the sales. The recipe for the chicken curry that I made below was added in a later edition of the book published in 1774.

The 1774 recipe reads:

To make a currey the Indian way.
TAKE two small chickens, skin them and cut them as for a fricassee, wash them
clean, and stew them in about a quart of water for about five minutes, then strain
off the liquor and put the chickens in a clean dish; take three large onions, chop
them small, and fry them in about two ounces of butter, then put in the chickens and
fry them in about two ounces of butter, then put in the chickens and fry them together
till they are brown, take a quarter of an ounce of turmerick, and a large spoonful of
ginger and beaten pepper together, and a little salt to your palate and strew all these
ingredients over the chickens whilst it is frying, then pour in the liquor, and let it
stew about half an hour, then put in a quarter of a pint of cream and the juice of two
lemons, and serve it up. The ginger, pepper, and turmerick must be beat very fine.

My interpretation of the recipe follows:

Hannah Glasse’s Butter Chicken (1774)

Ingredients
1 pound chicken breast meat, cut into bite-size pieces
3-4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large or two medium onions, peeled, sliced and separated
2-3 heaping teaspoons turmeric (the fresher the better)
2 heaping tablespoons ginger, grated or finely minced
2-3 teaspoons black pepper, freshly ground
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 cups low-salt or homemade chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream
¼ -1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

Method
Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter and when warm, add the chicken and sauté until the meat is opaque and starting to color. Remove chicken and set aside. If desired, add the remainder of the butter and then sauté the onions for 5-8 minutes, stirring frequently until they start to soften.

Add the ginger and if dry, add a small amount of the stock to moisten the pan. Sauté for 2-3 minutes and then add the pepper, turmeric, and salt and stir well. Cook for 5 minutes to allow flavors to blend, and then add the chicken and any accumulated juices back into the pan and stir well. Add stock to almost cover the meat and stir again. Cook to warm over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When warm, cover and reduce heat to so covered chicken cooks steadily at a medium simmer for 20-30 minutes or until chicken softens. Stir occasionally while chicken cooks.

When the chicken is tender, uncover and if necessary let sauce reduce a bit. When nearly done, reduce heat to lowest and add the cream and lemon juice and stir in well. Cook to heat and serve with rice or bread.
_____

I used breast meat, because my family doesn’t like to deal with bones unless necessary. Feel free to use chicken on the bone if you prefer, just adapt the cooking time so that the joints move easily and the meat is tender. I’ve also deliberately used a range of ingredients to allow people to adapt the recipe to their desired taste and consistency – that is a wetter or drier curry. Also, to get the most juice out of lemons, roll them well before cutting to break down the internal substance of the fruit before squeezing.
_____

Hannah Glasse Curry, 1774

The dish is very good, but not quite a modern curry. As you can see from the title of my interpreted recipe, the modern dish most like it is an eastern (Kolkata) butter chicken. However, the Hannah Glasse curry recipe lacks a full complement of spices and the varying amounts of tomato sauce now so often used in the dish. The turmeric and lemon juice are the dominant flavors, with the “heat” coming from the large amount of black pepper used. The heavy cream lends a nice touch that blankets the stronger flavors and tones them down a bit. I served the dish over a plain basmati spiced with a bit of black pepper and cardamom. All in all a delicious meal – and one of historical significance – good for both the body and the mind.

Other early recipes I’ve been working with include Mary Randolph’s 1824 recipes for a nutmeg and mace laden curry powder and her recipes for catfish and chicken curries. Another curry powder we’ve been sampling has been Mrs. Beeton’s 1861 recipe with cinnamon, fenugreek and mustard, which is more like a panchforan than a curry powder. I’ll be writing about these dishes in future posts, so stay tuned. Also, thanks to friend of the Silk Road Gourmet, the beautiful and talented Deana Sidney of Lost Past Remembered, I now have some early Dutch and Portuguese references to plow through looking for early curry recipes.

I will also be scouring earlier books for recipes that claim to be early Indian curries. If you know of any non-Indian recipes earlier than the mid-18th Century, please drop me a line or leave a comment with the reference.

Lastly, I will be on the road in May and may find it difficult to update the site, but please stay tuned for more curries and tales from Central and Western Asia when I return. (Words and adapted recipe by Laura Kelley; Photo of Hannah Glasse Curry, 1774 by Laura Kelley; other images in the public domain).

No Cuisine is an Island #1: An Indian Shellfish Curry

Posted on March 20, 2013 by lauramk

Shrimp or Scallops in a Spicy Tomato Sauce

The booksigning at the Smithsonian went well. Actually it went very well – we sold and signed all but two of the books purchased for the event. I also really enjoyed meeting people and discussing the book with them. I was pleased to see that people were most interested in the book’s message that cuisines are interconnected, and how dishes we think of as cornerstones of national cuisines actually contain ingredients from all over the world.

To that end, I thought that a demonstration of how globally-sourced ingredients were combined for one of my favorite subcontinental dishes was in order. The recipe is for a delicious sweet, spicy, hot and sour shellfish that will amaze you. The recipe and description are followed by an analysis of ingredients and their origins. What seems like and Indian or subcontinental dish has connections to five continents and many more nations. It is truly global, and should be savored by all.

Shrimp or Scallops in a Spicy Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
1 pound shrimp, peeled, rinsed and deveined, or
1 pound sea or bay scallops
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon mustard or other seed oil
2 tablespoons peanut or light sesame oil
2-3 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
4-5 hot, dried, red chili peppers, torn or chopped
1 large onion peeled, sliced, and separated into crescents
3-4 teaspoons garlic, peeled and chopped
¼ cup of water to moisten (more if needed)
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1 ½ teaspoons ground coriander
1 ½ cups tomato sauce
1 teaspoon tamarind paste dissolved into 2–3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup plain yogurt
1 medium bunch fresh cilantro leaves, chopped (20–30 sprigs)
¼ teaspoon Indian Garam Masala

Method
1. Shuck and devein shrimp or prepare scallops and place into a bowl with the cayenne pepper, turmeric, and a pinch of salt. Stir well, cover, and set aside for at least 1 hour.
2. Heat oil in a sauté pan over medium heat and when hot, sauté the fennel seeds for a minute or two. Remove from heat and let sit while shrimp or scallops marinate in the spices.
3. When almost ready to cook, reheat oil and add the mustard seeds and chili peppers and sauté for a minute. The mustard seeds may pop as the warm up, so you may wish to cover the pan, and shake to move contents. When done, remove from heat and let sit for five minutes.
4. Warm the sauté pan with the fennel and mustard seeds up again and add the onions and garlic. Stir and fry until the onions turn translucent and start to turn golden.
5. Add water to moisten. When water is warm, put in the cumin, coriander, and tomato and mix well. Cook 3–5 minutes to fully warm the spices.
6. Add tomato sauce, tamarind, lemon juice mixture, and salt. Cook to warm and add yogurt and cilantro leaves. Cover and gently cook for 15 minutes. Add garam masala and mix well. (The recipe can be paused here to allow other dishes to finish.)
7. If paused, reheat curry base and add shrimp and cook for 3–5 minutes or until shrimp are fully cooked. Serve immediately with rice or bread.

Now, here comes the fun part. The map below depicts where the ingredients from this dish hail from. Lines terminate only in rough geographic areas, not on specific places:

Origin of Ingredients for Indian Curry

The only ingredients that originate in India are black pepper, cardamom and cinnamon, and they are all in the garam masala used to finish the dish. Important certainly, but in this dish, almost an afterthought. Turmeric may also originate on the subcontinent, but no one is sure whether that is the case, or whether it arose in Southeast Asia and was adopted in antiquity by the Indians.

From South America there are chili peppers, and peanuts in the peanut oil, and from North America there is the tomato, and possibly the cayenne pepper. From North Africa (Southern Mediterranean) there is black mustard seed in the mustard oil, and from East Africa there is the lovely, sour tamarind pod. From Southern Europe there is fennel and yellow mustard seed and from Asia minor there is coriander or cilantro. Onions and garlic probably hail from Central Asia (Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan) because that is where most of the genetic diversity in Allium species is found, and cumin is Western Asia’s gem, which has been flavoring dishes from ancient Mesopotamia to today.

Cloves and nutmeg used to round out the garam masala of course come from Indonesia’s Moluccas, and the dish is usually served on rice which comes from China’s Pearl River valley, but it can also be enjoyed with bread, or potatoes from the New World.

All of these ingredients made their way to India through movement of people and ideas or through trade and conquest. Some ingredients arrived deep in prehistory, and some are relative newcomers which only arrived in the middle or late centuries in the last millennium. The Silk Road was an important part of the spread of these ingredients and in the forging of links between cuisines and cultures.

To some degree, we tend to think of the world’s borders and biodiversity much as we find them today, but a simple exercise like this shows us that this is not really the case at all, and it hasn’t been the case throughout much of human history. With apologies to locally-sourced aficionados, eating-locally is a relatively modern concept when compared to the global nature of most dishes.

Cultures combine ingredients differently, but most cuisines include ingredients from places beyond their national borders. Each bite connects us with the past and with the people who often travelled great distances to bring variety home. Diversity is a wonderful concept, appreciate it the next time you enjoy a delicious curry or stew or koresh or bhaji or braise or . . . (Words and ingredient analysis by Laura Kelley; Photo of Shrimp or Scallops with Spicy Tomato Sauce by Celeste Heiter; Map of Ingredients drawn by Laura Kelley).

Yak Snack Attack

Posted on February 23, 2013 by lauramk

Wild Tibetan Yak

I love yaks. I have many times admired their hulking, hairy majesty on the plains and hills of Western China, Tibet, and Nepal. Yaks are survivors – free-range animals manage to survive on some of the poorest pasture the world has to offer. Yaks are beautiful – from their natural flowing-haired glory of the wild to their domesticated cousins adorned by their humans with colorful blankets, saddles, or bells and ribbons on their tails or horns. Yaks command respect – you try staring down a line of cars on the Karakorum highway and see if they simply wait until you decide to move off the road. Not counting the successful modern Russian effort to domesticate foxes (as companion animals), yaks are also the last mammal to be domesticated by humans. This was accomplished about 4500 years ago by the Qiang on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Brave people, those Qiang.

Yak of Tartary – Stubbs

Yaks were ‘discovered’ in a big way by westerners in the late 18th Century when British Captain, Samuel Turner admired them in Bhutan and sent a pair back to his cousin Warren Hastings in England. One of the bulls died, but the other survived to sire several calves with Hasting’s cows and was dubbed, The Yak of Tartary before he was painted by George Stubbs in 1791. Almost 100 years later, the first yak arrived in North America for exhibition at New York’s Central Park Zoo, and by the turn of the twentieth Century, the National Zoo in Washington DC had several healthy yak on display. In the next couple of decades, yaks moved from the curiosity and educational circuit to the agricultural chain and small herds were established in the American and Canadian west. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s farmers and researchers experimented with yak breeding and meat quality, until several thriving ranches in the US and Canada now sell yak meat to consumers who enjoy their sweet, flavorful meat.

Tibetan Drinking Yak-Butter Tea

In Asia, I have enjoyed yak meat in stir fries, stews, curries and kebabs and found it a delicious, lean and sweet meat. Depending on the cut and the age of the meat, yak can be tough and tenderizing or marinating is a must. One of my favorite recipes is a stew I had again last year in Tashkorgan in which Yak meat is paired with bell peppers, onions, lots of garlic and chilies, and cooked in a ginger and star-anise rich sauce. Served on a bed of rice, the dish is pretty because of the strips of multicolor peppers, savory, a bit hot, and delicately sweet all at the same time.

In contrast to the sweetness of the yak meat, yak dairy lends a sour blast to beverages and dishes that produces a delicious pucker. Yak butter or cream in tea is a survival standard throughout the Himalayas and Pamirs, and the cheese, sometimes made as a wind-blown-in bleu, lends a unique tanginess to meat, vegetable and even fruit dishes throughout the region. I have a mind-blowingly delicious recipe from Bhutan combining tomatillos or tamarillos (or any ‘tree tomato”) with yak cheese for a salad with a real zing – but I digress.

Yak Jerky Package

My favorite way to enjoy yak on the fly is with yak jerky. Available fresh at markets and bazaars and processed and packaged every Chinese airport shop I’ve ever been in, yak jerky comes in three general varieties, sweet, sweet and hot with lots of chilies, and sweet and tangy with Szechuan pepper. There are a lot of variations in between, usually found in markets, but these three are the ones I’ve encountered most frequently.

The beautiful, multilingual packaging has a handle for easy portability, a description of the contents, and a picture of a few Yaks in the pasture. Inside, there are smaller, identical packages filled with the most delicious sweet and hot jerky you’ve ever had. I know there are lots of jerky afficianados out there, so I am aware of the gravity of my pronouncement that this yak jerky is the best, but I stand by it.

I have spent countless hours trying to reconstruct the recipe for both sweet, and sweet and hot yak jerky and think I finally have gotten it right. I hope you think so too.

Sweet and Hot Yak Jerky

Ingredients
1, 2-3 lb top or bottom round roast
4 cups unsweetened pomegranate juice
2 cups shaoxing wine
1 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 yellow (not sweet) onions, peeled and minced
6 cloves of garlic thinly sliced
¼ cup jaggery or cane sugar
2 tablespoons sea salt
2 tablespoons black peppercorns, lightly crushed
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, roughly ground
1 tablespoon roasted peanuts, crushed
10 finger-hot chilies, crushed
Peel and juice of 1 orange, (dice peel)

Method
Slice the meat crosswise in 1/8 – 1/4 inch slices. An excellent way to do this is to partially freeze the roast to make it firm and easy to cut. Trim the fat from the slices and pound lightly with the handle of the knife to thin out the meat. When slices are mildly translucent, slice again into strips for jerky and set aside.

In a non-reactive vessel, such as a plastic, glass, or ceramic bowl large enough to hold both marinade and meat, combine marinade ingredients. Place meat into marinade and make sure it is completely submerged. Cover bowl and let sit for at least 24 -48 hours in a cool or cold spot (not freezing). Check on the marinade and stir occasionally to make sure that the meat is evenly coated.

When meat is finished marinating, remove from the marinade and arrange on baking racks set into baking sheets with some space between the slices. If using a conventional oven to dehydrate the meat, line the bottom of the oven with aluminum foil and preheat to 150 – 160 degrees Fahrenheit. If you run out of baking sheets, the meat strips can be placed directly on the racks in the oven.

Place cookie sheets with meat strips in the oven and keep the oven door ajar with a wooden spoon or crushed can and cook for 2 hours. Flip strips and cook for another 2-3 hours or until done. The amount of cooking that it takes to dehydrate the meat will depend on the thickness of the slices, the amount of time marinated and the the innate moistness of the meat. To determine whether the jerky is done, take a piece or two out and let cool for 5-10 minutes then test the pliancy of the jerky. It should bend without snapping and not appear too red or raw on the inside. When the jerky is done, remove from oven and let cool – then enjoy! Store in a paper bag. Keeps for several months.

Sweet and Hot Yak Jerky

Yak is available online from a variety of ranches which will send the meat FedEx like Hoopers. There are other ranches that sell to farmer’s markets, but will do special orders for yak-by-mail like Grunniens. In case you can’t get yak to try the recipe, it works well with boar, beef or horse as well. (But the sweetness and unique flavor of yak is worth the trouble.) If you already own a dehydrater or a convection oven, please by all means use it to dry the meat. You’ll have to adapt the drying times accordingly. The marinade can also be used to flavor meat for stir fries and other dishes with delicious results!

I hope you enjoy trying yak meat, and think on their wonderful attributes while dining. Yaks are Kings of the Karakorum, Lords of Ladakh, and in Latin they are Bos mutus (wild yaks) or Bos grunniens (domesticated yaks). However you choose to name them, I just call them, “Boss”.

(Words and recipe reconstruction by Laura Kelley. Photo of Wild Tibetan yak by Kptan@Dreamstime; Photo of the Yak of Tartary by Stubbs from Google Images; Photo of Tibetan Drinking Yak Butter Tea by Rai-Mai@Flickr; Photo of Yak Jerky Package by Laura Kelley; Photo of Yak Jerky from Google images.)

Making 1000 Year Eggs

Posted on January 28, 2013 by lauramk

So, as promised, I spent several hours yesterday making 1000 Year Eggs. That is, I coated a dozen and a half duck eggs with caustic mud, rolled and pressed them in rice chaff, and set them aside to dry. Later I placed them in a soil-lined ceramic crock and will let them sit for three to three-and-a-half months, before checking to see if I did it right. I’m sure if they start to rot instead of chemically change, we will be aware of it.

To start off, the eggs in the mud looked like this:

Duck Eggs Caustic Mud

Then one thoroughly (and evenly) coats them with the mud:

Coating the Eggs

And lastly, after they are covered with rice chaff, they look like this:

Eggs Coated with Mud and Chaff

And now we wait. . . three whole months for the chemical conversions to take place inside the egg. After the ingredients to make pidan are mixed, the following chemical reactions take place:

CaO + H2O -> Ca(OH)2
Ca(OH)2 + Na2CO3 -> 2NaOH + CaCO3
Na2O3 + H2O -> 2NaOH + O2
K2O + H2O -> 2KOH

*The Na2O3 and K2O are from the plant ash

Because of the porosity of the egg shell, NaOH is first adsorbed to the surface, and, owing to a change in the osmotic pressure, NaOH enters the egg through the pores and subsequently penetrates the semi-permeable membrane, coming into contact with the egg protein, causing it to become denaturized and hydrolysed into polypeptides and finally into amino acids.

The result is that 1000 Year Eggs are much higher in protein and much lower in carbohydrates than unpreserved duck eggs. Other nutritional elements such as amino acids and fatty acids are about equal between the two egg forms, although the preserved egg generally has a bit less of everything in it.

The recipe follows:

1000 Year Eggs

Ingredients
3 – 4 cups black tea brewed very strong + strained tea leaves
2/3 cup sea salt
3 cups wood ash
3 cups charcoal ash
1 ¾ cups quicklime

18 fresh duck eggs
2-3 pounds rice chaff
Latex gloves

I procured all of the ingredients from internet retailers except the wood and charcoal ash which our neighbors were generous enough to donate to the project in exchange for a chance to taste the bounty of the experiment. We also had the sea salt and tea on hand.

Method

Brew the tea. I used at least a cup of loose tea leaves for 8 cups of water (I did say strongly brewed, right?) Let the tea sit for at least an hour to get really strong. In the meantime, find a large, non-reactive vessel (like a plastic painter’s bucket or other very large and deep bowl) and put the salt, ashed and quicklime into the bowl. When the tea is done, add about 3 cups and stir well. Then strain the tea, preserving both the liquid and the solids and add the spent tea leaves to the mud mixture. If necessary, add more brewed tea until the mud is a thick, but not watery solution.

Put on latex or other protective gloves. The mud is caustic and will cause skin discomfort.

Place the first batch of eggs into the mud and coat them well. I let mine sit for about 15 minutes before moving on to the next step. Find a large, deep bowl and fill it with rice chaff. After the eggs have rested in the mud, take them up one at a time and make sure they are completely coated. I found that the mud was a bit sticky and almost serous and didn’t want to adhere to the surface of the shell. When the coating is more or less uniform, place the egg in the chaff. Wipe excess mud off of your gloves by scraping on the edge of the vessel holding the mud. Then take handfulls of chaff and cover the egg with it completely. Pick up the egg and put chaff on the reverse side if needed. Then lightly compress the egg in your hand to try to get the chaff to bond with the mud. Remember the egg is raw and don’t squeeze too hard. When the chaff fully coats the egg (add more chaff if necessary), set it on a plate and move onto the next egg.

When all of the intended eggs are coated with mud and chaff, clean up. I let my eggs sit overnight before burying them in soil and lime. I used soil from outside (not potting soil) to fill the crock to get some natural microorganisms in the mix. Set crock in an out-of-the-way place and wait a few months. I placed mine in the garage where it will be protected from local animals, and be a bit warmer than it would be outside.

The reaction that causes the preservation proceeds more rapidly in warmer weather than in colder weather, so I will be waiting the full 100 days before checking on the eggs. Then you can look forward to posts exploring the flavor of these, wonderful ancient delicacies. (Words and recipe by Laura Kelley; All Photos by Laura Kelley)

What Am I Making? #1: 1000 Year Eggs

Posted on January 25, 2013 by lauramk

The correct answer is indeed 1000 Year eggs! (Contest closed: January 26, 2013)

Ingredients for Dish

The ingredients listed from left to right are: Duck eggs, rice chaff (for coating the eggs), black tea, lime and ashes (a combination of wood ash and charcoal ash.)

1000-year Old Eggs

For those of you not in the know, 1000 Year Eggs, or Century eggs are a Chinese delicacy, eaten all over the country, except perhaps in the western, Turkic parts of the country. (As least I have never encountered them in the west). They are made by coating the eggs with a mud-like mixture of the ingredients above, along with a large amount of salt and burying them or aging them in a crock with soil for several months. The coating with caustic mixture and sodium and aging makes the firm ‘white’ of the egg turn amber and gelatinous and the yolk a dark, sea-mud green as shown in the photograph.

An egg processed thus tastes nothing like an egg. It has a sharp, almost cheesy flavor and a strong almost ammonia-like odor. Despite the description they are quite tasty and are enjoyed en seul, or with a variety of vinegar-based dipping sauces, drizzled with sesame oil, served with pickled ginger and tofu, served with a stir-fry of pork and spring onions (along with tofu and other ingredients). 1000 Year eggs can also be cut up and added to almsot any dish. They are commonly added to savory congees and tofu dishes.

As soon as it warms up enough to spend an extended period outside, I’ll be putting up a batch. I’ve got all the ingredients, its just a matter of letting the snow melt some. Of course, I’ll photograph the production and the harvesting of the eggs – sort of like how I recorded the making of garum the traditional way.

Great answers, everyone! Thanks for guessing!

I will giveaway two books – why not, right? Ellen and Mike, please send me your postal addresses and I’ll get your books in the mail ASAP!

Ancient Roman Pork with Apples

Posted on January 23, 2013 by lauramk

Our trip to Moonfire Orchard left us with a wonderful selection of heirloom apples that I have been experimenting with. One of the recipes that I’ve been developing that is a real keeper is one for Ancient Roman Pork and Apples. It is an ancient recipe that balances sweet, sour, salty and bitter. And yes, it uses garum or liquamen so the umami factor for this one is through the roof! The recipe is from Apicius (4.3.4) and called Minutal Matianum in the original Latin.

One of the interesting things about the recipe is that the pork is twice cooked. Yes, this is one of the way that Romans prepared pork leftovers – by cooking them with leeks and apples with herbs, spices, garum, honey, vinegar and the grape syrup known as defruitum. The way I’ve been making it, it has a sweet and sour flavor that is reminiscent of an Alsatian Sauerkraut with Apples that is an old family favorite. But like most ancient recipes, the ingredients have no amounts associated with them, so a large amount of variation in flavor is possible. if you want it sweeter than I’ve written it – make it so! The original recipe and a simple translation follows. After that are my notes and my adaptation of the recipe.

ADICIES IN CACCABUM OLEUM, LIQUAMEN, COCTURAM, CONCIDES PORRUM, CORIANDRUM, ESICIA MINUTA. SPATULAM PORCINAM COCTAM TESSELLATIM CONCIDES CUM SUA SIBI TERGILLA. FACIES UT SIMUL COQUANTUR. MEDIA COCTURA MALA MATIANA PURGATA INTRINSECS CONCISA TESSELLATIM MITTES. DUM COQUITUR, TERES PIPER, CUMINUM, CORIANDRUM VIRIDEM VEL SEMEM, MENTAM, LASERIS RADICEM, SUFFUNDES ACETUM, MEL, LIQUAMEN, DEFRITUM MODICE ET IUS DE SUO SIBI, ACETO MODICO TEMPERABIS. FACIES UT FERVEAT. CUM FERBUERIT, TRACTAM CONFRINGES ET EX EA OBLIGAS, PIPER ASPARGES ET INFERES.

Put in a sauce pan oil, broth finely chopped leeks, coriander, small tid-bits, cooked pork shoulder, cut into long strips including the skin, have everything equally half done. Add Matian apples cleaned, the core removed, slice lengthwise and cook them together: meanwhile crush pepper, cumin, green coriander, or seeds, mint, laser root, moistened with vinegar, honey and garum and a little reduced must, add to this the broth of the above morsels, vinegar to taste, boil, skim, bind strain over the morsels sprinkle with pepper and serve.

Ancient Roman Pork with Apples

One thing to keep in mind is that unless you cook Ancient Roman recipes frequently and have defruitum on hand, you will have to make it in advance. This simply requires boiling down grape juice until it becomes a syrup. Making defruitum is simple to do, but time consuming. Depending how much you are making, it can take a while and has to be done on low heat to avoid burning the syrup. I recently made a batch and boiled down 64 oz of juice to about 16-20 oz of defruitum. Although most recipes for defruitum say that it is boiled down by half, this is based on crushing fresh grapes and letting them sit in skins for a day or two before straining and reducing. I think that the crushing and sitting may change the consistency a bit when compared to the bottled 100% grape juice that I used. I went by the consistency which is lightly thickened and robustly flavored NOT a true syrup like sapa. I suggest making the defruitum a few days in advance of trying the Ancient Roman Pork with Apples recipe.

Also, as it is a, ‘what to do with leftovers’ dish, the pork has to be cooked in advance. If you don’t have a pound of pork leftover from your last feast, you can boil the meat in enough water to cover in the morning, let it cool and make this recipe at night. I’ve taken to adding some crushed peppercorns to the water to flavor the meat and it is a delicious touch.

For this recipe I used very large Gold Rush apples which have a powerful, complex flavor. It also keeps its shape during cooking, so the apples do not break down into applesauce. So, flavor is important when choosing apples, but form and ability to withstand cooking is also important.

This recipe also calls for garum or liquamen the fish sauce of the ancients. If you have a vat on hand (as I do) harvest some and use. If not, use some Asian fish sauce as an alternative.

Lastly, asafoetida has been substituted for laser root (silphion). Silphion is thought to be a now extinct member of the Ferula genus. Asafoetida, although offering a more crude onion-garlic flavor, is a the best substitute.

Ancient Roman Pork With Apples

Ingredients

1 pound pork shoulder or tenderloin, roasted or boiled and sliced lengthwise into strips
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
1/8 pound ground pork or beef
1½ tablespoons garum or fish sauce
3 leeks, cleaned and sliced in long thin strips, separated into white and green parts
3 teaspoons cumin seed, partially crushed
3 teaspoons coriander seed, partially crushed
4-5 long-pepper catkins, crushed
Handful of fresh mint leaves
1 small bunch, cilantro minced
½ cup beef or chicken broth or liquid from par-boiling the pork
1/3 – ½ cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
2 large pinches of asafoetida
2 large firm apples, peeled and sliced lengthwise
¼ cup defruitum (reduced grape juice)
1 teaspoon cracked pepper for garnish

Preparation

Make defruitum. For this recipe use a white grape juice variety.
Harvest garum or buy fish sauce
If necessary cook and cool pork. If you do not have sufficient leftovers from a large pork roast, boil the meat in enough water to cover for 5-7 minutes and then cool in its juice. If boiling the meat, throw some additional crushed peppercorns into the water to season.

Method

Place butter or oil in a large sauce pan and warm over medium or medium-low heat. Add ground meat and sauté – breaking up the meat into tiny tidbits as you stir. Add about 1 tablespoon of the garum, stir and warm. Add the white parts of the leeks and cover and cook for a few minutes until the vegetables start to wilt.

Add cumin, coriander seed and long pepper all lightly crushed and stir. Add the mint, cilantro and stir again. Add broth or water from parboiling the pork to moisten the contents of the pan. Then add the vinegar and stir well while the liquid warms. Add the honey, remaining garum, and asafoetida and stir again.

Add the pork and green part of the leeks, stir and cover to warm. When the pork has warmed, add the apples, stir and cover. After about five minutes add the defruitum and stir again. Cook another five minutes – or until the apples are just done – and remove from the heat. With this amount of liquid, I felt no need to bind the sauce with a roux or corn starch as suggested in th original recipe. If you wish to make a thick sauce, remove the solids from the pot and make a sauce. Otherwise, garnish with cracked pepper and serve. Excellent with barley or millet, or all by itself.

One of the things I like most about this dish is how it changes as you eat it. The combination of vinegar and the sugars from the honey and defruitum fill the room during proparation. When you first eat it (as written) the bitter turns to sweet, then there is that incredible savory of the garum followed by the sharp crack of all tthat pepper to form a perfect symphony of a dish.

Its a bit of work if you don’t have the defruitum on hand, but I hope you give this one a try – its a path back to an ancient Roman meal along the Silk Road. (Words and adaptation of Apician recipe by Laura Kelley. Photo of Ancient Roman Pork with Apples by Laura Kelley).

Bhutanese Red Rice Pilaf

Posted on January 11, 2013 by lauramk

One of the wonderful things to make with the Fish and Mandarin Orange Curry in the last post is a delicious, authentic pilaf of Bhutanese Red Rice. Red Rice is crunchy, nutty and one of the few rices that will grow in Bhutanese highlands and is thus commonly eaten. Other rices are also imported from the southern low countries, but red rice is Bhutan’s own rice – and the mother of many other red rice varieties.

Bhutanese Red Rice Pilaf

One of the things that is bothersome about enjoying red rice is that the recipes on the packages usually don’t yield an edible product. I have found that this is because the prescribed amount of water is too low and the cooking time is also underestimated. I think that this is because the common Aisan cultural practice of soaking rice before and after cleaning it reduces the amount of cooking and water listed on the package by hydrating the rice during soaking.

That bit of analysis aside, this red rice pilaf is authentic. Mandarin oranges are grown in Bhutan, especially at lower altitudes. The fruits, juice and skins are used in foods to impart a light citrus flavor. In this pilaf, the zest balances all the allium (leeks, onions and garlic) to produce a crunchy, delicious rice. There is no thyme or oregano or other western abominations to alter the original recipe.

Red Rice Pilaf

1 cup uncooked Bhutanese red rice
2 tablespoons butter
1 small-medium onion, minced
3-4 finger-hot chilies, minced
1 tablespoon ginger, grated or minced
2 teaspoons garlic, peeled and diced
Zest of 1 mandarin orange (if unavailable, substitute other orange zest)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns, roasted and ground
1 teaspoon perilla seeds, roasted and ground
2¼ cup water

Melt the butter in a medium sauté pan. Add onion and sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Add chilies, ginger, garlic, orange zest, salt, pepper and perilla, and stir well. If necessary add a tablespoon or two of water or orange juice to moisten.

Add water and rice and stir well. Heat to a boil and then reduce heat to a high simmer and cook covered for about 30-40 minutes until rice is tender and water is absorbed. Check the rice occasionally, but don’t stir too much. When rice is done let sit covered off the heat for at least 10 minutes before serving while preparing the other ingredients.

The Bhutanese love to vary dishes. Sometimes 5-6 different variations in ingredients or preparation methods are accepted as the same dish in Bhutan when these would be divided into different dishes in the west. If you’d like to try a variation on this pilaf, try a fine dice or sliver of nuts or add some crushed black mustard seeds for additional flavor. (Words by Laura Kelley; Photo of Bhutanese Red Rice Pilaf by Laura Kelley.)

A Curry of Fish and Oranges

Posted on January 6, 2013 by lauramk

The Holidays have several brought crates of fruit into the house: apples from our friends at Moonfire Orchard, a large box of Korean Pears and a large box of mixed oranges and tangerines from an Auntie in Massachusetts. With the apples, I’m working on an ancient Roman recipe for Pork and Apples from Apicius which is sort of like a “twice-cooked pork” of antiquity. I’ve got a tagine in mind for the Korean Pears (as well as some Korean recipes), and with the mandarin oranges in the citrus box, I have been developing a delicious Bhutanese dish of Fish and Mandarin Orange Curry that I simply have to share with you.

Now, fish with fruit frightens some people, but many cultures have great recipes and combinations for these seemingly disparate ingredients. For example, the Iranians and Azeris have a fish with sour cherries that is nothing short of amazing, and the South Asians have some lovely fish and mango dishes. So there are precedents. Fish with orange recipes abound in the Himalayas and SE Asia, but my favorite so far is the Bhutanese recipe which has just the right balance of sweet, spicy, sour and hot for me.

Fish and Mandarin Orange Curry

Bhutan is a paradise for fishermen with the rivers and streams abundant with fish – especially trout – and shellfish. The fishing is so good that several tour companies run specialty tours for fly-fishermen who want to try out their skills on some of the fish in these pristine waters. People who are good fishers or who can afford to, also eat a lot of fish as well – especially so for a high-altitude, land-locked country such as Bhutan.

But what to do with all that fish? Below is one recipe for Fish and Mandarin Orange Curry that I recommend. It is authentic Bhutanese, so it is spicy. If you have a heat-sensitive palate, you may reduce the number of chili peppers to suit your taste. In Bhutan, the fish would be fresh water, but I used 2 pounds of Norwegian mackerel I had on hand and it was delicious. I served it over a Red Rice Pilaf and together they made a great meal.

Fish and Mandarin Orange Curry

2 pounds of fish, gutted and heads removed
4 tablespoons sweet butter
1 large or 2 medium yellow onions, peeled, thinly sliced and separated into crescents
6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 large thumb-size piece of ginger, peeled and grated or minced (2.5 in. x 1 x 1)
8-9 Finger-hot chili peppers, minced, but with seeds and placenta intact
1 large tomato, cut into a large dice
1/2 cup water or orange juice
1 cup fish stock*
1-2 mandarin oranges, peeled and separated, and seeds removed**
1 teaspoon sea salt (or to taste)
1 teaspoon ground Szechuan pepper
1 teaspoon perilla seeds, lightly roasted and ground
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro leaves for garnish (optional)

Melt butter in a large saute pan over medium heat and add the onion slices when butter is warm. Stir and separate the onions as they warm and after a few minutes, reduce heat to low, cover and let the onions rest as if you were caramelizing them. Let the onions cook quietly for 15 or 20 minutes and then resume cooking over medium heat by adding garlic and ginger and stirring liberally. Cook for 5-8 minutes, or until the garlic starts to swell. Then add the chili peppers and the tomato, stir and cover again and cook for a 3-5 minutes.

Add the water or the orange juice (this can be done earlier if the contents of the pan are too dry) and stir well. When the water is warmed, add the fish stock stir and cooked until the contents of the pan are warmed. Now add the oranges and cover to cook. After about 3-5 minutes uncover and stir again, pressing down on the orange and tomato segments to let them release their flavors into the sauce. Then add the salt, Szechuan pepper and perilla seeds and stir well.

Chop the fish into serving pieces. I cut mine homestyle, which means having to battle bones at the table, but we don’t mind this. Over the many years we have been eating fish this way, we have become skilled at eating the top layer of fish and just lifting the bones out before tucking in to the top layer. If you use a different cut of fish, you will have to change (reduce) the cooking time to suit the cut.

Using the homestyle cut I just lay the fish pieces into the sauce and ladle the sauce over the fish. When all the slices are in the pan, cover and let cook for 5 minutes or so. Then uncover and spoon some more sauce over the fish and repeat for about 10-12 minutes to ensure the slices are fully cooked. Do not flip or turn the slices unless you are confident that you can do so gently without breaking the slices apart. When done, uncover, remove from the heat and plate as desired. Adding a bit of chopped cilantro as a garnish pretties it up just before bringing it to the table.

* Fish stock is easy to make from stored bones or shells with remainder meat from other meals. If you don’t store shells and bones for stock-making, dissolve some Hon-Dashi Japanese fish stock in a cup of water and use that instead. There is no substitute for fresh stock, but reconstituted stock works in a pinch.

** If you are making the Red Rice Pilaf to serve with the fish, don’t forget to use the zest from one of the oranges.

The flavor of the dish is phenomenal, hot chilis and sweet oranges over a bass-line of tomato and onion with a grace-note of Szechuan pepper makes this dish a keeper in our home. Hopefully, you will think the same thing. (Words and Photo of Fish and Mandarin Orange Curry by Laura Kelley).