Aloo Gobhi on its way to the oven for some quick braising. The cauliflower and potatoes have to get soft, but still firm to bite.

Before I continue my long-winded story of how the Chicken Tikka Masala came to fruition, I’d like to discuss the Aloo Gobhi that was also whipped up the same night. Initially I was hesitant to try my hand at not one but TWO unfamiliar recipes on a school night. But what better way to challenge myself than to cook an Indian feast in someone else’s kitchen?

And a challenge it was. Aloo Gobi is one of my favorite things to eat. It’s filling, flavorful, and the bright yellow hue (thanks to the turmeric) is mesmerizing. I’ve had the “pleasure” of getting this yellow hue on my white pants. But no pain, no gain right? Jamie’s recipe for Aloo Gobi looked easy enough; throw some cauliflower and potatoes together with some spices and ginger, and there you have it–a delicious vegetarian-friendly dish. I was especially excited about the lemon that gets juiced over before serving. Nothing like a little acid to complete a dish.

The only thing that threw me off about this dish was the shredded coconut that gets added. From my research online, here and here, coconut doesn’t usually make any appearances in this dish. So with some more sleuthing, I found out that Anglo-Indian cuisine is it’s own culinary category. Apparently, almonds and coconut are often added to Indian food in the UK.

Would this be like dipping my French fries in Ranch dressing?



I felt like the “Take Home Chef”, packing all my spices to go.


Farmer’s market-fresh cauliflower.


Trader Joe’s-fresh potatoes; I decided to throw in a purple one for some color.


Like with most Indian dishes, the spices get cooked until fragrant. In mandarin, this is what is called “Bao Xiang”, or frangrance + explosion.

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Food extraordinaire and lauded cookbook author Jeanne Kelley reads my blog! Check out her website-

Jeanne’s pie recipes are incredible, by the way. Her cooking and eating philosophy is a lot like Jamie’s- garden-fresh, local, and delicious.

Tikka Masala Paste

Here in Los Angeles, what’s considered good Indian food is often a shadow of what it could be. The curries are never rich enough, the tikka masala is always too sweet, the dosa tastes like soda crackers, and the list continues. I’m always picking up on the flimsiness in flavor, texture, and even color. And though I’ve never been to India, I have been to England and my taste buds don’t lie. Indian food in England is top notch. I was especially excited about the Anglo-Indian stuff–roast beef rogan josh with a side of Yorkshire pudding anyone? The best part is, Indian food that I ate frequently in London was astonishingly affordable. A student’s budget and the embarrassing exchange rate interfered with my aspirations to live and eat (and commute) lavishly. But Indian food (along with Sainsbury, fish & chips-joints) saved me from malnutrition.

When my time in England was up, so endeth my Indian food indulgence. Then it was back to LA and all the subpar Indian restaurants. While there are some decent places around town, I’d much rather drive to Artesia or even Berkeley, to satiate my cravings. Yes. I have done that before.

Jamie has published several Indian recipes. I was getting a little tired of the olive oil + red chiles + lemon + mint, so I decided to venture into some cross-cultural experimentation. In Jamie’s Food Revolution, there is a chicken tikka masala recipe that looked doable for a weeknight. There’s also an accompanying recipe for tikka masala paste, which has become part 1 of my Jamie’s Indian installment. Rather than scoop the greasy stuff from a jar of Patak’s, I wanted to control the spice level of my dish. And, I never turn down the opportunity to get a little crazy with the mortar and pestle. I live watching things pulp.

Indian dishes are heavy on spices. I love the flavor bombs in my mouth. I stopped by a local Indian market to pick up a few spices that I needed. The store always overwhelms me into buying spices that “I might need in the future”. SIDENOTE: I prefer buying spices at ethnic food shops or Asian and Latin markets. You get more for your money. Cardamom pods at an Indian market will cost you about $4.99 for a medium-sized bag. Chai or mango lassi for days!!!

The first thing I did was toast the coriander seeds and fennel seeds. What I got was a brilliant savory scent that reminded me of Persian grilled meat. Then I combined the toasted spices with other ground spices, fresh minced garlic, chiles, and ginger together with a dash of tomato paste and oil. My kitchen started to smell like the Indian market did, which was a good sign!

As soon as it looked ready, I packed it up to be used at my friend Stacey’s house, which is a whole other chapter filled will culinary trials and tribulations. Stay tuned!


Indian spices from a local purveyor. Whenever I see this picture, I think, “damn, that’s a lot of Tikka Masala Paste.”


Up-close and personal with coriander seeds and fennel seeds for the visually-impaired


Toasted and ready to be pulverized


Easiest way to peel ginger is with a spoon. No more emergency room visits and bloody chopping boards.


Being organized in the kitchen is gratifying. Ok, who am I kidding, I do it for the photo op.

Tikka Masala Paste
2 cloves garlic
thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons garam masala
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 fresh red chiles
small bunch of fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tablespoons almond flour
Spices for Toasting: 1 tsp cumin seeds and 1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted on dry pan over medium or high heat until golden brown and smelling delicious.

Peel ginger and garlic and mince. Combine with toasted spices, spices, and grind until fine or whiz in a food processor until you have a smooth paste.

Saturday morning, I woke up to June gloom. I love the weird Southern California dreariness right now because it reminds me of Portland/San Francisco/London- weather. And this in turn, inspired me to make a hearty breakfast to kick off my weekend.

My quest to use leftover produce ensued. Loosely inspired by Jamie’s Asparagus Frittata, I decided to make a veggie frittata in my cast iron skillet.

I dug around the fridge and not only did I find asparagus sans tips, but I found zucchini and a ton of herbs and leeks. Nothing like a leeky, herby, vegetable frittata! I contemplated throwing in strips of bacon but luckily for my arteries, I was out. SIDENOTE: My colleagues and I were discussing the top 10 ingredients to save a foul dish with and bacon was one of them–along with red pepper flakes, lemon juice, salt…etc.

I sautéed the leeks with the vegetables in a knob of butter until the leeks began to brown, seasoned the stir-fry with salt and pepper, and poured in the salted, whisked eggs (I used 6). And before I placed everything in the preheated oven, I sprinkled a bunch of parsley and chives on top. The skillet went in the oven and 15 minutes later, breakfast was ready. My roommate and I enjoyed the frittata together and for just a second, I felt like I was somewhere in the Italian countryside.

And then I heard Lil Wayne outside of my window.

After two weeks of nonstop kitchen work, I’ve amassed a produce-cornucopia in my refrigerator. Of course, dealing with leftovers is not something I’m normally very good at. Luckily, Jamie Oliver is. Most of his recipes are simple enough that they could be easily done up or abridged. I kicked off the last few nights of with pre-sliced, pre-washed ingredients from my fridge and a few canned goods I’ve been meaning to clean out of my pantry. With some inspiration from his salad recipes, I decided to make a (mostly) fresh faux tuna nicoise salad.


fresh faux tuna nicoise salad
salad
1 head Romaine, washed
1/3 cup canned white beans, rinsed
1/4 cup diced red onions
1 can tuna in oil
1/3 cup sliced cucumbers
1/3 cup leftover thyme-and-garlic-roasted potatoes
mint
parsley
chives

vinaigrette
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper


Combine all salad ingredients. Add vinaigrette. Toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with a glass of Zin (I’m on a Zinfandel kick right now).

Shrimp and Corn Chowder with Parsley, Bacon, and Red Chilies

As a child, I could never wait until Christmas to open my presents. Likewise, I was always greedily requesting my birthday gifts early in advance. I could never cut my mom a break. She’d find me rummaging through closets and other dark crevasses around the house for that “new Crayola box set” or “one year’s worth of Archie comics”. I think my unrelenting eagerness has been transfused to my diet. I have been impatiently waiting (since last fall) for all the summer fruits and vegetables to appear at the farmer’s markets. I’ve also been salivating over thoughts of watermelon salads, roasted artichokes, and corn chowda. I saw the most beautiful bunch of corn at the Alhambra farmer’s market almost two weeks ago and immediately snatched the remaining 5 cobs. This was pre-Jaime Oliver, mind you. I didn’t exactly have a game plan in mind for these succulent veggies. I just knew I wanted to revisit all the wonderful corn memories of summers past.

After my asparagus soup-incident (blender set on high + hot soup filled to the brim = nightmare), I have been a bit wary of making soups. But with fresh corn loafing around in my fridge, I knew that I wouldn’t have better chowder than one made with good quality kernels. Jamie has a corn and shrimp chowder recipe that sounded tasty. The recipe calls for bacon. That’s the magic word.

I was secretly hoping that I’d have to use the bacon fat somewhere in the soup.

I thoroughly read the recipe and found out that my gut instincts were correct: the recipe calls for rendering bacon fat to cook the potatoes and leeks in. Oh my fug. At that moment, the savory scent of bacon memories infiltrated my mind. Bacon, shrimp, corn, leeks, and potatoes– what could possibly go wrong? And in the end, [SPOILER ALERT] absolutely nothing did.

My best friend Diana stopped by with ½ pound of already cooked shrimp. I was too lazy to de-vein and peel raw shrimp. Jamie never said not to cut corners, anyway. With the shrimp out of the way, the soup-making was incredibly easy actually. It’s about two steps short of salad-making. After cooking everything in my pot, I added the chicken broth and cream and let the flavors come together before whirring everything together, this time with my Hamilton Beach immersion blender. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but it got the job done. Plus, it was nice to have chunks of potatoes and shrimp with each bite of soup.


An intimate experience with leeks.


This is what gives the soup flava.

The potatoes trying to get up in the mix.


Obligatory action shot. Also pictured: Homestyle white bean spread + chopped salad, both loosely based on other Jamie-recipes.


Shrimp and Sweet Corn Chowder
Serves 4-6
1 large leek
1 pound potatoes (I used new potatoes)
1 quart chicken broth, organic
olive oil
6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, free range or organic
12/3 cups frozen corn (I used fresh)
½ pound large shrimp, raw peeled (I used cooked)
11/4 cups heavy cream
sea salt & ground pepper
1 fresh red chile
6 cream or plain crackers
extra virgin olive oil

Cut ends of leek, quarter lengthways, wash under running water, and slice across thinly. Peel potatoes and chop them into 1-inch chunks. Pour chicken broth into saucepan and bring to boil.

Put a large casserole type pan (or pot) on high heat and add a drizzle of olive oil. Slice bacon and add to pan. Cook until golden and really crispy, letting all fat and flavor cook out onto the pan. Using tongs, remove and transfer bacon to plate, leaving fat in pan. Add leek and potatoes to pan and give them a good stir. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes until leek has softened. Add corn and shrimp. Pour hot broth into pan with cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, halve seed and finely chop chile. Roughly break up crackers and place them on the plate next to the bacon. Take soup off heat and use a hand blender to ently whiz it up until you have a smooth but slightly chunky texture. Season more to taste.

Serve with chile, bacon, and crackers. (not mentioned: Parsley, which I added)


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Salmon with Couscous, Asparagus Tips, Matchstick Zucchini

When I’m alone, I usually opt for easy 2-step meals. Despite working at an award-winning, national food magazine, I often come home to unappetizing freezer-burned food and doggy bagged-goods. Yum.

Sometimes, I just skip dinner altogether.

J.O.’s Jamie’s Dinners cookbook has various recipes designed for the single, low-income folk. I shied from that section initially, not wanting to acknowledge my alone-ness. I avoided it the same way I avoid the self-help section in the bookstore, tiptoeing close by enough to see if I can catch some of the titles without getting caught. But then an image of pan-roasted salmon over a bed of couscous caught my attention. Salmon is a fish I rarely cook these days. It used to be a weeknight staple during my George Foreman-years in college. Remember those days? A little salt and pepper over supermarket salmon then tossed on the G.F. grill. Now that I’m embarking on my post-collegiate culinary practices, cooking protein on what is essentially a non-stick panini press just won’t cut it anymore. It’s time I duke it out with a real grill pan and some Atlantic wild caught salmon from Whole Foods.

The recipe called for zucchini sliced into matchstick-sized pieces, asparagus tips, and fresh salmon of course. The fish and veggie combo is served over couscous dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh roughly cut-tomatoes–a true Medi spread. I was excited about adding the finely diced red chili pepper.

Jamie is notorious for seasoning his food with red chili. Luckily, I picked up some red jalapenos at the farmer’s market over the weekend. (I realized later that having some on hand all the time is helpful since a lot of recipes call for red chilies).

Though the whole dish was quite easy to put together but assembling the plate (so that it looked appropriate for the obligatory overhead shot) was difficult. There was an array of colors and textures and precisely what my grandmother would be excited to see on my plate. As she likes to tell me in her Sichuan-Mandarin, “Food should be about balance”. And I think I achieved it with this meal.



Farmer¹s Market/Whole Foods-fresh produce and protein.


I was so close to making sashimi.


Couscous dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, fresh tomatoes, and cilantro.


Almost at the finish lineŠ


Trying a healthy dessert for a change.


COOKED FROM

I got twitted by Jamie Oliver!

my twitter

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omelette w/ farmer’s market baby yukon golds/substituted linguica for chorizo/rosemary/ eggs, parsley salad/shallot/olive oil/lemon/salt/pepper


Strawhat also cooking from Jamie.

A lovely pork chop with bay salt, cracklings, and squashed potatoes. And reconstituted asparagus soup (formerly, very frozen).

After work, I have to compulsively remind myself that this project is meaningful and worth the laborious crafting of 1,000 mental grocery lists. You see, cooking every night kind of blows. Scratch that. Cleaning up after myself in the kitchen blows more. Regardless of the loathsome soaping and scrubbing, jamieallweek has allowed me to mature as a cook. A sprig of mint or squeeze of lemon here and there has become instinctual! I used to avoid mint and lemon because the two are decidedly very intense ingredients. But I’ve learned that a little goes a long way. The two, when combined, really brighten up protein and vegetable dishes. Yes, yes, I am patting myself on the back right now.

This project has livened up my tastebuds. Jamie is adamant about using herbs in his food. I grew up on Sichuan-style cooking, and herbs never appeared in my diet (though I ate plenty of chilies, which my mom swears, stunted my growth). It’s fun experimenting with all the stems of greenstuff growing in my friends’ backyards (or in the produce section of Trader Joes). This is precisely why I decided to cook from Jamie’s best pork chops recipe. The pork chops are seasoned with a ground bay leaf-fennel seed-salt concoction. Served alongside are “squashed” purple potatoes (I only had new) and a hard cider-mustard reduction (I only had apple cider vinegar). It’s not real-life cooking without the monkey wrenches!

The rub was to be prepared in a mortar & pestle. Who knew an antiquated tool that my grandparents used during the Cultural Revolution, would still be relevant. Even in the time of food processors and the “bullet” (infomercial reference), it’s the easiest way to granulate large unmanageable particles. It’s an effortless way to muddle Thai bird chilies without being dangerously close to them (and then rubbing your eyes with the infected fingers, like I did once). Monkey wrench: All of the herbs I used in the “paste” were dried. So, using my common sense, I added a drop of olive oil. Hooray for paste!

Fluke #2: With no hard cider on hand (thanks anyway Ben, I know you scoured the aisles!) and only apple cider vinegar to work with, the acerbic djion and vinegar combination would have pickled the pork. Kristina (guest #2) suggested sweetening up the sauce with some honey. Honey did the trick. The Sauce à la Moutarde-and-um-honey added a sprightly kick to the herby chop. With thyme/porkfat-roasted potatoes and wilted spinach alongside, the impressive pork chop-dinner was a success. And this is what I mean about becoming a better cook: Figuring out how to maneuver through difficult, unfamiliar terrains without completely derailing. Now, how do I incorporate that in other areas of my life?

Sidenote: I’m lucky to have such thoughtful dinner guests. Amy brought cupcakes and bounty from her herb garden. Ben brought his own pork chop and potatoes and the vinegar I used to test my situational adaptability. And Kristina baked delicious filled cookies that she just drummed up the day of.



Fennel seed, bay leaves, and salt working hard at becoming paste.


Roasted new potatoes with pork fat resting atop.


Two average pork chops hanging out with a fancy one. Long story.


Krim’s really delicious homemade blueberry jam- and habanero chocolate-filled cookies.


El fin.

Pizza Fritta x 2 (actually x 6, but other 4 are in bellies now, RIP)


Jamie makes EVERYTHING sound fresh and delicious, even something as boring as wilted spinach. And here’s the kicker: His recipes are easy to follow. He often avoids assigning exact measurements to ingredients; instead, he casually throws around words like “bunch” or “few sprigs” or “several”. The vagueness would make me panic a little bit in any other situation like with prescription drugs. After all, the subjective interpretation of these words can completely alter a dish’s flavor profile. But that’s precisely why Jamie free-floats his way through certain recipes. He wants the reader/home-cook to have a true sensory experience. Cooking shouldn’t be systematic. Cooking is about tasting and smelling and seeing and sometimes a lot of spilling (on yourself).

His Pizza Fritta (fried pizza) recipe is a good wake-up call for these sometimes-dormant senses. There is minimal measuring involved (not surprising), aside from the pizza dough. I’d never made my own pizza dough from scratch and though I was tempted to purchase the pre-made dough at Whole Foods, I decided to embark on a richer experience of mixing and kneading my own. Plus, Jamie says his pizza dough recipe is “fantastic, reliable” and even appropriate for “bread”. You sold me, Jamie.

Aside from working up a sweat kneading, everything in the crust department came together smoothly, pun intended. As unappealing as frying dough in 2 inches of oil sounds, the end result is a light brown, puffy disc that looks a bit like puri that tastes kind of like a donut, or, well, fried dough.

Problems did arise when I was making J’s Simple Tomato Sauce. I have a predilection for sweet, thick tomato sauces, carried over from my childhood obsession with ketchup, and his recipe didn’t speak to my senses. The sauce I ended up with looked more like tomato soup, and my roommate suggested that I add tomato paste to it, which turned out to be a brilliant idea. Sorry Jamie. I probably should have used a shallower pan to cook it in because in my saucepan, it never quite reduced to a concentrated, “Diane Chang”-level sauce.

Topping pizza is pretty intuitive. You top it with whatever you like to eat. I strategically arranged sliced mozzarella, cherry tomato halves, torn basil, oregano, sauce on my donut-crust. Then, I popped everything in the broiler for five minutes to seal the deal.

Since it was pizza night, my friend Amy decided to dub it “Fattiest Meal Ever” by bringing us two giant cupcakes from Delilah’s. And my jeans do not lie. Definitely fatty, but I’d like to just call it “sinfully delicious”.




Post-modern pizza dough turkey.


What I should have done to my asparagus soup.


The reason why my pants aren’t fitting today.


Wait, no, this is the real reason.


See the above caption.


SIDE-NOTE
A translation of Jamie’s pizza dough recipe that’s much easier to understand via Serious Eats.

COOKED FROM

J.O. Twittaz

Twitter pic

I'm not very good at poaching eggs, don't hate.


For the most part, I have a pretty nondiscriminatory palate. I can eat and enjoy most things. But I’m embarrassed to say that I have qualms about soup. Soup has always been a hurdle. I would cringe whenever the school cafeteria decided to serve grilled cheese with a side of tomato soup. During those lunches, I would try to barter for bags of Flaming Hot Cheetos or tamarind candy. Dinners were just as dramatic. My grandmother, who claimed that her daikon soup would “cure” me of my brattiness and simultaneously stimulate my growth spurt, would scold me for rejecting her steaming hot saucepan of Asian vegetable-goulash. And if her blood wasn’t boiling enough, I’d open a can of Coke and call it “soup”. An angry tirade in Sichuanese would ensue.

Soup is always served too hot, or not hot enough; it lacks distinct flavors when the temperature is at either extremes. It’s like living in Manhattan. There are only a few occasions when the temperature is just right. And soup that comes silky smooth, as if it had been run through a sieve 5 or more times, loses its place in the “food” category. It becomes “beverage” or worse, “smoothie”.

My Jamie Oliver soup experience was kind of a fluke. I picked up scraggly-looking asparagus at the farmer’s market and wanted to find an easy recipe that called for asparagus. His Creamy Asparagus Soup with a Poached Egg on Toast came up, a sign that it was time to transform my aversion towards soup into something conducive to my learning.

So zuppa it was! Jamie’s recipe is easy and seemingly healthy. I started by cooking a mirepoix that consisted of leeks (left over from the fish dish), onions, and celery. Of course my house–and hair–smelled wonderful at this point. Every step that followed was straightforward and easy.

The only mishap happened when the blender, filled with hot soup mind you, exploded. I guess I didn’t really pay attention in my Physics class because hot liquid + blender = scary. My kitchen counter looked like lawn mower-vomit.

Though I’m not quite a changed woman, I do think that farm-fresh ingredients and plenty of good quality olive oil can heighten the quality of any soup. Maybe the painstaking process of blitzing the soup in a blender made me appreciate the finished product… I guess it’s kind of like dating. Yes, it's that other painstaking process that I'm still trying to figure out.



Anorexic asparagus mixing it up with the regular-sized crowd.


Mire poix, sautéed until soft.


Post-blitz.

RECIPE HERE Creamy Asparagus Soup with a Poached Egg on Toast


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