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January 15, 2007
getting adventurous in the kitchen
And I'm not talking about getting down with the root vegetables. Because, when you think about it, getting down with root vegetables is actually pretty vanilla.
I'm not here to tell you about the stuff on the plate, although it's quite yummy. I want to talk about what's in the bowl, the stuff that looks like chunky baby poo. Because I'm not embarrassed to admit that if baby poo tasted like this stuff, I'd eat diapers.
A few nights ago I made a fine supper of vegetable tawa (that's the leftovers there on the plate) and tamarind rice, all from mixes (Peter's departmental secretary, who is of South Asian descent, turned us on to Parampara brand mixes, and they are really good, so good that I may never bother making Indian dishes from scratch ever again).
Somehow, even though rice was probably the first thing I ever learned how to cook and there have been periods in my life where every single meal I ate (even breakfast) was served on top of rice, I put in too much water this time and it was mushy. Still tasty underneath the tawa, but when I reheated some of the leftovers at the studio the next day it wasn't so appealing.
I've never been the sort of cook who will add food to leftovers or cook something new out of them rather than eating them as-is, partly because I have a (perhaps unreasonable) fear that it will all end up tasting like the bland tomato-and-ground-beef based diet that some of my friends growing up in the 70s ate, and that my house will end up smelling like the house of one particular neighbour kid, whose mom I swear only cooked things you could make with hamburger meat and Campbell's tomato soup. And also, I'm afraid that I'll forget how old the original food is and end up eating something past its sell-by date. So, too-mushy rice is the sort of thing I'll usually leave in the fridge until it's too old to eat and then throw it out. But, being on a tight budget right now, I don't want to waste food.
I was staring at the big solid clump of leftover rice when a memory tugged at me, of a recipe for a sweet congee that I tore out of the Globe and Mail oh, eleventy or so years ago, made once and hated. All I could remember was that congee was made by cooking rice with way too much water and then adding stuff. So I broke apart the slab of rice and tossed it in a pot and started adding stuff, just anything I could think of that might be yummy and not gross. Plain soy milk. Two tablespoons of brown sugar. A splash of vanilla extract, only because I found it there while digging for the sugar and didn't even realize I had any. A bit of nutmeg, a bigger bit of cardamom. And two dollops of tamarind chutney. I cooked it all down, tasted it and saw that it was good. Very, very good: not too sweet (I'm much more of a savoury girl, and don't usually go in for dessert unless it's fresh fruit), a little tangy, a little spicy.
Turns out rice congee is usually a savoury dish, so perhaps next time I'll make some on purpose, rather than just using it to fix a mistake, and try vegetables, and miso (miso is my current food crush). Still, this is going to make a pretty nice breakfast for the next few days. I wonder if it would be good with yogurt?
So. If you want to make my tamarind-cardamom sweet congee, you could probably skip the puliogare powder and just do this:
1 cup rice (I used basmati)
5 to 7 cups water
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cardamom powder
2 tbsp tamarind chutney
Boil the rice in the water until it's mushy and fallen apart, then add all of the other stuff and cook it until it's the consistency you want. From what I've discovered about "real" congees, they're usually made with more like ten times the water to rice so they're a ricey soup, but according to Wikipedia the Japanese usually make it a lot thicker, with five to seven water to rice. This is more like what I did and it came out the consistency of rice pudding. You might need to use larger amounts of spices or chutney to offset the extra flavour that was in my rice when I started.
Posted by jodi at January 15, 2007 06:51 PM | categories: food
Comments
So if something is unsavoury, does that mean it's sweet? And no fair stealing my recipe idea!
Posted by: peter at January 15, 2007 08:48 PM
Wow.. I had no idea that those dinners existed! I love Indian food and am definitely going to have to get my hands on some of those mixes - thanks for the tip! The rice congee sounds absolutely amazing as well. I could probably eat rice every day and never get sick of it - especially jasmine rice.
Posted by: Mouse at January 15, 2007 09:26 PM
By the way.. it must be something in the water lately because one of my favorite Indian food blogs (Mahanandi)just posted a similar recipe for a rice pudding type dish. http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/2007/01/15/sankranthi-prasadam-bellam-paramannam-jaggery-rice/
Posted by: Mouse at January 15, 2007 09:29 PM
Oh, hell, yes. Now that I have reignited my love affair with all things rice, I will be all over this. Thank you, thank you,thank you.
Posted by: Bakerina at January 15, 2007 09:39 PM
Oh thank you for the link! I always have a craving for Indian food, but the sheer number of spices required is a bit daunting. This will be simplicity!
Posted by: Gina at January 15, 2007 11:03 PM
Despite what you say about root vegetables, gettng down with parsnips in my world is a little crazy.
In any case, the rice dish sounds wonderful. I know they sell tamarind paste at many of the Latin grocery stores near me, hopefully that can stand in for the chutney - perhaps in a different amount.
Posted by: Jenna at January 15, 2007 11:20 PM
If you like congee, you should try jook - a similar porridge that's more often savory. The original recipe I have uses chicken broth and flavors the dish with a chunk of salt pork, but you could use vegetable broth and tamari, I'm sure - it's an excellent breakfast (or anytime, I guess) topped with chopped scallions, peanuts and soy sauce. Mmmm.
Posted by: Donna at January 16, 2007 09:42 AM
I saw the poo comment and thus read Parampara as Pampara. Eck, the power of suggestion ~
Posted by: lynn at January 16, 2007 03:42 PM
There must be something in the air about adventure cooking. I did a lot of it on Sunday. Today I finally got around to writing out a recipe as best I could remember it as I was sailing through some of the leftovers for lunch today. I named it "Damn Tasty Soup" because, dayum, that was some tasty soup. But now I recollect I forgot to include curry powder on the list ... mutter, mutter.
This looks delish, a good thing to add to my recipe box, full of those homemade handmedown dishes. :-)
Posted by: Merouda at January 16, 2007 09:19 PM
I think I've finally decided what to do with my new yarn. I am going to knit your Mariah. Any tips or suggestions?
Your stuff is great! Thanks!
Posted by: Mrs MJW at January 22, 2007 10:05 AM