A Manly Recipe if ever I saw one!!
Jun 15 '03 (Updated Jun 19 '03)
The Bottom Line A nice hot curry for ya!!
In my experience, there are only a limited number of pursuits in a relationship where a man can make a mess, get loads of pleasure, and not get yelled at.
As Epinions is not that kind of website, my contribution to the Manly Write Off (held to celebrate three years (count ‘em!) of Epinions reviews from Joubert and HawgWyld) will concentrate on the art of male cooking.
Male cooking has to be special. Not for me the routine evening process of chucking some chicken nuggets in the oven, and boiling a pan of potatoes and peas, manly cooking is all about cooking something different, something special, and about all something very very messy that uses up almost every kitchen utensil in the process.
My favourite recipe achieves all these things – you even have to dig out the blender from the top cupboard shelf! As we men at Epinions are New Men (yep, even you Chuck!) and enjoy a healthy debate, I will also sprinkle in some opportunity for beer breaks together with political correctness and commentary as we go along. If this heady, strong and spicy mix doesn’t appeal then you like you can just go straight to the end of the review and rate accordingly!
Of course, my favourite recipe has also to be manly, it’s a dish that comes out of the pan to leap at you, and a dish that in the morning is itching to escape (I often think of Alien).
Cr01 introduces the humble “Thai Red Chicken Curry”. Being an anally retentive Brit, I’m afraid my recipe measurements should come formal and proper rather than using sloppy “Cups”, however, this being a manly recipe I will try to break with tradition.
To start – the really messy and complicated job; making the Red Curry Paste (appropriately enough, for the manly write off, Thais call this paste “Nam Prik Kaeng Dang”)!
Ingredients
7 hot red chillies
2 inches of Ginger (or if you hate chopping and mashing fresh Ginger you can cheat like I sometimes do, and slop about two heaped teaspoons of Ginger paste from a jar)
2 Kaffir Lime leaves (we can only get these dried)
1 stick of Lemon Grass (again if you want to cheat, two heaped teaspoons of mashed Lemon Grass from a jar)
5 cloves of Garlic (fresh is unbeatable)
5 chopped Coriander roots (again fresh is best)
6 Shallots (or half a red Onion)
2 teaspoons of Anchovy paste (I have used a few chopped salted anchovies when I haven’t had paste, which works OK)
2 teaspoons of ground Paprika
Half teaspoon of ground Coriander seeds
Half teaspoon of ground Cumin
Quarter teaspoon ground Turmeric
Sprinkling of Cinnamon
A few ground Cardamom seeds (again freshly ground is best)
Chopped sweet red pepper (capsicum)
Lemon Juice and a little Nam Pla (Thai Fish Sauce).
OK, chuck all the ingredients in a blender (first roughly chopping up the Coriander, the chillies (deseed them if you are wimpy about the heat in your food), the shallots or onion, and the sweet red pepper). Make sure you have used your pestle and mortar for grinding down the spices (another kitchen implement used!)
Before you use the blender, pour perhaps a tablespoon of Lemon Juice and a tablespoon of Nam Pla, to help the ingredients blend and give the blender a whiz until you have a smooth paste.
The paste should make enough spice mix for two separate meals for four people (it freezes well for a few weeks before starting to lose its taste).
Congratulations, you already have a work surface full of peelings, jars and packets, as well as an awkward blender to clean. You are well on the way to Manly Cooking!
Beer Break 1
Nam Pla is an interesting substance as it is made from fermented Anchovies and a lot of salt! Sounds disgusting, but it actually makes much of that distinctive Thai food taste.
A few years ago, we did a lot of travelling in Thailand, mainly in the south of the country. We did the majority of our travelling around taking “share taxis” around the place – these are taxis where the taxi driver waits an hour or so to fill up his taxi with as many people as possible, before setting off on his journey at breakneck speed.
My most vivid memories of Thailand are around taking a 120-mile trip in about an hour and a half in a 30-year-old Ford with six other people. I was sat by the broken door behind the driver (I had to hold onto the door to keep the catch shut), with no seatbelts, and my beloved sharing the front passenger seat with a tiny Thai woman, who kept on getting in the way of the driver, on the rare occasions that he troubled to change gear. As well as watching my life flash before me while trying to ignore the ear shattering shriek of the car engine, it was the smell of Nam Pla fermenting (festering?) that gave our first signs that we were coming to a village or towns long before the rubber plantations gave way to housing!
I am very lucky that original Thai Nam Pla is fairly easy to find in the area I live – the brand I use is very common in Thailand; I am reliably informed by a Thai speaker, that my brand is called “Squid”!
Beer Break 2 – C’mon keep up!
I also have little difficulty in finding the other ingredients for “Nam Prik Kaeng Dang”, as the area where I live in the UK has a fairly high ethnic minority population (around 12% compared to a national average of about 2.5%). Most of these families are originally from Asia – mainly Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and came to Britain in the 1950’s. At the time cheap labour was in short supply, and our politicians called out to the Commonwealth (or Empire as it was then), to take opportunity in the mother country. Of course, few predicted the racism that would result – the attitude was “you can clean our streets, drive our busses, do our badly paid textile work but don’t take our best jobs!” Also very few enterprising UK firms catered for the Asian market, particularly in terms of food, and so Asian food stores and other businesses started appearing, catering mainly for the Asian market.
As the opportunities of the 50’s turned into the recessions and unemployment of the 60’s and 70’s many more Asian families turned to self employment as a way of making their future, and large families took on the corner shops from white families, working long hours, and stocking both western and eastern foodstuffs.
Today, I benefit from living in a lively multi racial community – I love hearing a snippet of Bhangra music or a Calypso beat blast out of cars, the Muslim call to prayer each day contrasting with the ring of the traditional church bells on the other side of town. Perhaps most of all I enjoy the choice of Caribbean and Asian foodstuffs that I can buy!
Although the racism has reduced in this particular area (although sadly this is not the story in more deprived areas of the North of England), the enterprising methods of these immigrant families continue – two of the fastest growing and successful UK companies are based in this area, built up by Asian families, whose parents arrived here forty years ago.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, in the kitchen with a worktop full of mess. Onwards and upwards before I drink too much…
Red Chicken Curry or Kaeng Pet Kai as the Thai’s prefer.
Ingredients
400ml can of coconut milk (a full big can)
Enough chopped up Chicken for four people (I’m a Breast Man myself, but you could use cheaper cuts) – chop the meat into bite sized cubes.
Enough Potatoes for four people (I bet you like these manly technical measurements!)
Some mushrooms - Oyster or shitake mushrooms are good!
2 tablespoons of Vegetable Oil
Half the Red Curry Paste Mix
2 tablespoons of Nam Pla Fish Sauce
Teaspoon of dark brown sugar
2 dried Kaffir Lime Leaves, and a tablespoon of Lemon juice
2 tablespoons of fresh chopped Coriander leaves
Alrighty, on the downhill run… pre-boil the potatoes in water for 25 minutes or so until cooked. Chop them into bite-sized pieces (they will not cook very well in the curry sauce, believe me… I have tried).
Pop the oil in a pan, and fry the Chicken until about cooked through. Add the chopped up mushrooms.
Add the paste and fry it for a minute or so – you may need to add a little more oil at this point.
Just at the point the paste is starting to look a little distressed and sticking to the bottom of the pan, add the other ingredients starting with the tin of coconut milk, to get liquid into the pan first.
You should not need to add salt; the Nam Pla is very salty indeed.
Let all the ingredients warm through for a few minutes and there you go, phase two completed. Don’t forget to spill a little of the sugar onto the floor – it will leave a great reminder of your hard efforts in the days to come.
Your dish should be fairly liquid with lots of spicy sauce.
Beer Break 3
You can add seafood rather than chicken if you wish. I try not to buy seafood because of the unsustainable way that it is fished, although my palate sometimes wins that particular battle. Unusually for my leftist opinions, I think that the answer may be to privatise fishing rights with heavy government regulation – allow one firm control of it.
It would not make economic sense for this company to over fish the stocks to the point of collapse, but to sustain stocks for future business. Now, with fishing rights being the preserve of all comers, there are no coherent plans for sustainability. Again, during our visit to Thailand, the steady stream of fishing boats racing up along the coast made for depressing watching. Apparently, in the south of the island, 6-7 shady executives who also have businesses illegally logging trees etc exploit most of the fishing business. They have no interest or incentive in preserving stocks. Already Thai King Prawns are a thing of the past, they import them from the shady Junta in Burma.
We stayed on a nature reserve island for a few days, where the fishing boats should not come within a mile of the waters. They do however go as close into shore as is possible; when the wildlife wardens tried to complain, they were confronted with machete and gun toting fishermen, telling them in no uncertain terms to turn a blind eye to the fishing.
With Chicken, with the disgraceful conditions of factory farming, yes, I buy free range and I buy organic.
Beer Break 4
Be warned about the coconut milk. If you are on weight watchers, your meal will go through the weight watchers points’ roof. The coconut milk has a wodge of saturated fat within it.
Coupled with the high level of salt, this is not an everyday meal if you want to live a long and healthy life! Us manly folk have to think about our cholesterol, our blood pressure and the hardening of our manly arteries (as well as our prodigious beer drinking).
Rice
Now, I hope that you have read all of this recipe before starting out – if not you now have a steaming bowl of Red Chicken Curry, but you haven’t started cooking the rice yet! This is a final opportunity to get those last pots and pans dirty.
2 Tablespoons of Vegetable Oil
One large Onion
Tablespoon of chopped Coriander
Teaspoon of Cumin
Half Teaspoon of Turmeric
A few ground seeds of Cardamom
Two red chillies chopped
Chopped sweet red pepper (Capsicum)
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
Salt to taste
Two largish cups of Basmati Rice (OK, I do “cups” for Rice)
Enough peas for four people
OK, final hurdle, fry the Onion and sweet red pepper ‘til cooked, and add the spices, and let it fry a while. Take off the heat.
Cook the Basmati for around 12 minutes – the Basmati grains are small, and cook quite quickly. Check to see that the grains are soft before you stop cooking. If you are really manly proud in the kitchen then you will have mastered the absorbsion method of cooking rice – my buddy who comes round for meals is always envious that I get the right amount of water in my rice every time. Ha – a rare sense of male pride!
If you can’t master the absorbsion method just drain the rice, and poor into the pan with the onion & red sweet pepper mix. Heat gently, adding the frozen peas into the mix. When it’s warmed through its ready, and looks good on a big serving platter (yet another dish used!). Have a couple of nice beers ready, and go Thai with a couple of ice cubes if you so wish!
OK – there you have it, a hot spicy meal manly enough for the biggest and butchest, and with enough washing up and mess to keep the recipients of the meal tidying up for hours.
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The recipes are based on a couple that I have found in books over the years, but altered to meet my own tastes – they are fairly authentic, although the Red Sweet Pepper is there more for colouring than for traditional reasons!
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I would like to wish both Joubert and HawgWyld many congratulations on reaching the three year mark – quite some achievement! Also huge thanks to the Web Master of this Write Off Char.Mike for getting the web page together, and for inviting little ole me to contribute to the celebratory write off.
For other fantastic contributions in the Manly write off, go and (s)curry to the following page:
http://www.angelfire.com/mb2/mypageontheweb/page9.html
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cr01 asserts his rights to be associated as the author of this review – 2003 -
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cr01
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Member: Chris
Location: Yorkshire, England
Reviews written: 430
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About Me:
Back from 3 weeks in wonderful Madagascar. Catching up and re-adjusting slowly...
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