Pork, Plantain, and Mixed Bean Stew

(heavily adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

I seem to have once again added pork to a vegetarian dish...but I swear this would've been just as good without it. Hey, I added plantains, too - that's definitively not meat. So there you go.

Both were good additions, actually, depending on what you're going for. In my case, Joef issued the challenge of making something with Plantains, Pork, and Peppers. I found a recipe for "Mixed Beans with Many Spices and Lovage" in Plenty that seemed flexible, and came up with this dish. It's hearty, flavorful, and delicious.

A note on fava beans, another reason I wanted to try this recipe. They're yummy and pretty, and they are a pain to prepare. There's a whole double-shelling, parboiling process (see link below). That being said, it's worth giving it a try.

For four:
3 tbsp olive oil
2 boneless pork cutlets, cubed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
Pinch of ground cloves
1 manzano pepper, sliced thin
A few Thai green chiles, chopped
Salt and ground pepper, to taste
1 14-oz can chopped tomatoes and juices
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups sugar snap peas, halved at an angle
1 cup green beans, sliced at an angle
Shelled fava beans, as many as you can stand to shell...
2-3 plantains, sliced into thick rounds
2 tbsp chopped lovage, or cilantro, or tarragon
Rice

Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan, and brown the pork on all sides. Add the onion, manzano pepper, and Thai chiles. Sauté on medium heat and stir around a from time to time until they start to soften, then add the garlic and cook for another minute. Next, add the tomato paste, all the spices, and some salt and pepper, and stir and cook for another minute or so.

Next, add the tomatoes, sugar, and all the peas and beans. Stir to mix, then bring to a boil. Lower heat and cover (or partially cover, depending on how thick you want it) for 15-20 minutes, until the sugar snap peas are cooked through, and still crunchy. About halfway through cooking, add the plantains - you want them to soften and take on flavor, but not turn to mush. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the lovage-or cilantro-or tarragon just before serving. Serve over rice.

Thai Chicken Curry

(adapted from Williams-Sonoma's Food Made Fast: Weeknight)

This is a pretty neat cookbook. Joef got it for me a few years back for my birthday, and it's perfect for my style of cooking - fast, and not too many ingredients. If something takes more than 1/2 an hour to make, it had better be a special occasion, or something I can just leave on the stove for a couple hours while I go about my business.

Pasta is my favorite "fast" food (and favorite food in general, really...and pretty much my whole diet), but when it comes to weeknight cooking, I default to pasta, perhaps, too often. So I was excited to try this recipe, and it was really yummy, and fun to make.

The cookbook gave this a "30 Minutes Start to Finish" rating. I'm going to have to disagree. There was a lot of prep involved, which took about 20 minutes on its own, and then there was the actual cooking, another 20 minutes or so. Still, not bad for a meal that looks and tastes pretty fancy. I especially liked the crispiness of the green beans.

I'd make a few modifications next time (reflected in the instructions). It called for two limes. It was just too limey. And I couldn't find Thai red curry paste, so I used red curry powder, which was probably not an ideal substitute, although it worked. Finally, I got panicky at the end that it wouldn't be enough sauce, so I added the whole can of coconut milk (as opposed to 1 cup), and then doubled the broth, fish sauce, and curry paste. (Even with that doubling, it was still too limey.) Of course, then it was really brothy.

So, let's see if I can reproduce this:
1 lime
1 package (1-1.5 lbs) boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenders
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp peanut oil (careful, the flash point on this stuff is intense - lots of bubbling and popping)
1/4 lb green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
1.5 tbsp Thai red curry paste (alt. if absolutely necessary, red curry powder)
1-2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2/3 - 1 1/3 cups chicken broth
1-2 tbsp Asian fish sauce
6 green onions, including white and tender parts, sliced
1/4 cup fresh basil (Thai if you can get it, which I couldn't)
Steamed brown rice, for serving (1-2 cups)

Grate 1/4 - 1/2 tsp lime zest and squeeze 1/16 - 1/8 cup juice (like 1/2 a lime, maybe 1 whole lime, depending on what you want). Set aside. Cut the chicken into thin strips or cubes and season with salt and pepper. In a large frying pan or wok over medium-high heat, warm the oil. Add the chicken and cook, turning occasionally, until golden. Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon. Add the green beans to the wok and cook, stirring frequently, until they start to get tender and a little golden/crispy. Transfer to the plate with the chicken.

Stir the curry paste into the pan over medium-high. Stir in the coconut milk, broth, and fish sauce. Bring to a simmer and stir, scraping up any browned bits on the pan. Stir in the lime juice and zest.

Add the chicken and green beans back to the pan and stir to coat with sauce. Simmer until the chicken is opaque throughout. Stir in the green onions and basil, then serve over rice.

Three-Pepper Burmese Chicken Curry

(adapted from Dave DeWitt's 1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes)

Joef turned 29 this year, and to celebrate, we hosted a spicy potluck dinner party. We stocked our fridge with ice cream and whole milk, turned to Dave DeWitt, and used spice with reckless abandon. We even made spicy drinks - bloody Marys and (to be posted soon) habanero pina coladas (surprisingly great). Our friends all brought (delicious) spicy dishes, from peanut noodles to what was described to me as Indian "sloppy Joes". Seriously, our friends can cook - the food was awesome.

I randomly selected this Burmese Chicken Curry. I've been really promoting cookbooks lately, and I'll do it again - DeWitt's book is really, really good. We haven't had a so-so recipe from it yet. This was delicious. I probably wouldn't make it this spicy again (it won spiciest for the night) - Joef, of course, disagrees - and the flavors were awesome. Which is actually pretty lucky, because I accidentally swapped the proportions for the paprika and the turmeric...pretty significant error, which turned out totally OK. So - below is my (accidentally) adapted recipe, with the heat turned WAY up (to turn it down, substitute red pepper flakes for habanero, and regular oil for the Naga-Jolokia infused). Can't wait to make this one again.

(You could pretty easily make this vegetarian - just swap the chicken for cauliflower and/or potato, right?)

(Warning - the fish sauce smells awful. Really awful. I promise it will taste great.)

For eight or more servings:

5 chicken drumsticks, skin removed
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground turmeric
8 tbsp fish sauce
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
8 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
4 tbsp fresh ginger, sliced
1 tsp paprika, plus a little more
2 tsp habanero flakes
1 cup plus 4 tbsp water, divided
1 jalapeno, stems removed, minced
6 tbsp Naga Jolokia-infused peanut oil
2 large/medium tomatoes, chopped
2-3 cups brown rice
1 tbsp rice flour (optional and if needed)

Wash the chicken and pat it dry with a paper towel. Place the chicken in a deep dish. In a separate bowl, mix the salt, paprika, and fish sauce, then pour over the chicken. Marinate the chicken in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

In a food processor or blender, blend the onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, chile flakes, 4 tbsp of the water, and the jalapeno, plus a few shakes of paprika, until it turns into a coarse paste.

In a large, deep frying pan, heat the oil over medium. Add the paste and stir fry for about 2 minutes. Add the chicken and tomatoes, and stir fry for 15 minutes or so. Add the rest of the water, partially (mostly) cover the pan, and cook over medium-low for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is done and the sauce has thickened. (My friend Archana taught me a trick - if it's not thickening the way you want it to, you can take a little bit of the sauce out of the pan, add 1 tbsp or so of rice flour, stir them together until blended, and then return the combination to the pan and stir it in.)

When the chicken is ready, remove the drumsticks from the pan, remove the meat from the bone, and return to the pan. Allow to simmer for a few more minutes, then serve over rice. And wash it down with whole milk.

Coconut Chicken Curry

Well, I said to stay tuned for coconut chicken curry, in the style of the St. Louis Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Grand. They make absolutely the best coconut chicken curry I've ever had, and it's totally different from any other coconut curry I've had, too. It's...coconuttier...um...well, it's creamier. I don't know, it's just delicious.

So when I made the Chile Chicken with Lime and Coconut Milk, I had, for the first time, at least an inkling of how to even go about making a curry like that. (Yeah, this is a pretty close replica of that recipe.) I'm not going to say I totally got there. Maybe I didn't even get close. But it was good, and it was a start.

If anyone has eaten at Pho Grand, and has better ideas on how to do this, I'm wide open! For now:

1.5 cups brown rice
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1/2 white onion, cut in half and sliced
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp madras curry powder
1 can coconut milk
1 tsp salt, or to taste
2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
3-4 dried hot chile peppers, crushed
4 chicken thighs
Tomatoes slices for garnish
Cucumber slices for garnish

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pan, spooning the sauce over the chicken. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the chicken is cooked and tender. The sauce will thicken. Turn off the heat, remove the chicken thighs, and remove the meat from the bones. Return the chicken to the sauce in the pan, stir and heat again for a few minutes or until heated, over medium. Serve over brown rice, with tomatoes and cucumbers for garnish.

Curried Chicken and Banana Stew

(from Dave DeWitt's 1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes)

Oh, I'm excited about this one. For Christmas, my parents got Joef the above cookbook. He was, of course, thrilled. I gave them a "thank you" through (comically) gritted teeth. But sure enough, the first recipe we tried from the book was a total hit all around.

I loved this - it's an East African stew, apparently, with Indian influences (curry and coconut). It was also pretty easy - I'd probably save it for weekends, but it's really easy enough to make during the week, too. DeWitt gives it a heat scale of medium, which I found accurate. I wasn't sure about the banana the first night, but it absorbed the flavor of the stew when we ate it as leftovers, and really, it works with the dish if you're up for something different. Also, peanut oil must have a really low flashpoint, because that stuff bubbles like crazy.

I made the whole recipe, and ate it (gladly) for the next two-three days. You're gonna need a REALLY big pot.

3-4 lb chicken drumsticks
3 tbsp peanut oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 cup onion, chopped
2 cups celery, chopped
2.5 tbsp hot Madras curry powder (I could only find mild, but I compensated by buying extra hot chile - see below)
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp ground red chile (I used extra hot, powdered - see above)
2 cups tomato, chopped
1 cup shredded coconut
6 cups chicken broth
2 slightly under-ripe bananas, peeled and sliced

In a large, heavy pot, brown the chicken in the oil over medium-high heat (watch that oil, it pops!). Do it in batches if needed. Set the chicken aside.

Saute the garlic, onion, and celery in the remaining oil for about a minute, then add the curry powder, salt, black pepper, and red chile and saute for another minute.

Add the chicken back to the pot with the vegetables, along with the tomato, coconut, and chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 40 minutes.

Remove the drumsticks from the pot and remove the meat from the bones. Add the meat back to the pot. Add the bananas and simmer for about 10 minutes. I served it over rice.

Oh, and the Naga Jolokia made a guest appearance. Although I used such a small pinch of it that I think most of it just dispersed into the air. But still!

Golden Curry

Alright, I'm going to admit right up front that I'm cheating on this one. The title should probably read "S&B Golden Curry Sauce Mix"...because that's what it is. But this was a college favorite of ours, and, I mean, we added fresh vegetables and...and...well, just take it as another idea for a very easy, very yummy meal.

The curry sauce mix comes in a box in different levels of heat (we buy hot), and the complete recipe is on the box. You can make it with any meat you want, but we always use chicken (about a pound - lots of leftovers). The veggies you pick are up to you. Tonight, we used shitake mushrooms, sugar snap peas, red and orange bell peppers, and broccoli florets in addition to the onion the recipe on the box calls for. Also, I always add garlic in with the chicken and onion at the beginning. Oh, and as you might've guessed, I threw in some habanero - just a tad with the chicken and onions, then the majority at the end with the sauce. Serve over rice and enjoy the curry goodness!