Lately I've realized I have a slight obsession with all things food related. Whether it is my job (prepping and cooking), making food at home for me and the wife, or watching other people make food on "tv" (tv is in quotes because we don't have cable so all of the tv shows we watch are on the computer. Yay technology!). I've really grown fond of this show on Bravo called Top Chef. It is your basic reality game show that puts some excellent chefs in direct competition with one another. There is a similar show on Fox called Hell's Kitchen but Top Chef is so much more about the food and less about the personalities of the contestants or the host (Chef Gordon Ramsey, the angry brit with a trucker's vocabulary, is the host of Hell's Kitchen). Watching these people who are so passionate about food has really made me take pride in the work I do and has made me a little more adventurous in my own kitchen. Last week I attempted pate a choux for creme puffs and eclairs and this week I plan to try a vegetarian curry. Both dishes are way outside of my comfort zone in the kitchen and the pate a choux was a real challenge because of the cooking techniques involved.
To make a basic pate a choux you need water, butter, sugar, salt, flour and eggs. You boil the water, butter, sugar and salt and then add the flour. You then cook the flour mixture until all of the excess moisture has cooked off and you have a nice dough ball in the pan. Then you transfer the dough to a mixing bowl and add the eggs to make a nice thick paste. Pipe this paste onto parchment and bake until puffed up and golden. The trick is making sure all of the excess water is cooked off in the first stage and making sure your pastries are fulling baked before pulling them out of the oven. I made the second mistake and ended up with mini flatbreads. They were still very tasty but nearly impossible to fill with delicious vanilla cream.
The curry is something I've tasted on many different occasions and I've always loved the dish. After doing a little internet research I realized that it is basically an Indian (slurpee, not casino) chili. Both are tomato based and can include a hodge-podge of veggies and proteins. The difference is in the spice. A curry uses a mixture of classic Indian spices, called garam masala, that were traditionally unique to the curry maker. Each family in india had their own family recipe for the garam masala that made up their curry. American chili uses chili powder which is also a concoction of spices blended to create a unique flavor. It also turns out that the curry powder you find at the store is just a bastardized version of a garam masala.
So my plan for this curry is to create my own blend of spices for my garam masala and add some basic veggies and beans to the mix. Carrots, broccoli, bell pepper, zucchini, potatoes, and possibly some eggplant along with some garbanzo beans. With a can of diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, and my secret spice blend I think this will be a kick ass meal and one that could be extremely cheap to make. If all goes to plan I will post the resulting recipe here along with some ideas to jazz it up a bit. I'll also do my best to include how much the recipe makes and how much it cost to make. I could see this turning into a weekly article - The Economic Crisis Gourmet. Tune in thursday night for the conclusion of this dish.
Cheers!
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