I am about to take a two-week break on cooking as P. is using his vacation time to cover part of the girls’ break between summer program and school starting, and has volunteered to be the housewife. Strudel is a year too young for the summer program Franny was in, so it made sense to keep them both out, of course. I still don’t have coverage for early September when his vacation runs out, but I have a couple of leads. I may just end up taking the hit and taking unpaid time off.
Saffron soaking in milk.
I am enjoying my last bit of cooking this weekend. I decided to take a crack at one of my favorite Indian dishes, biryani. In restaurants here it is often referred to as “royal biryani” and has meat, nuts, raisins, veggies, and spices, and is served with raita or something like it.
Masala FAIL.
It called for making a masala in a mortar and pestle and I ran out of patience once the bay leaves were not pulverizing and the cinnamon sticks were taking forever. Eventually I ended up with a rough crumble that I soaked in the stock and strained out as I poured the broth over the rice for baking. It ended up pretty delicious–more like a home meal and less like a restaurant one. I made a simple raita with mint from the backyard to go with it. Cardamom, coriander, ginger, garlic, YUM.
Done.
I will cook something today and then it is all martinis and sexism for the rest of the month. Woo!
Chicken Update
Remember the lady who did not know that chicken maek bock? She brought Saffron back and threw her over the fence while we were out. Saffron was okay. I really hope she educates herself further on chickens, the sooner the better. Lucky for me a blog-acquaintance has offered to buy all three! Problem solved.
Yum, curry. We eat curry quite a lot in fall and winter, but somehow, I do not wish for it in the summer. It is all thai stir fry and applying fire to meat.
mortar and pestle + short attention span= coffee grinder.
I’m just sayin.
Thanks, J.B. Good point!
Poor chicken. What a bitchy stupid woman.
Mmm, curry flavored coffee.
NO! You get two grinders. I read it in a book.
Yeah, restaurants use coffee grinders for spice grinding. You can sometimes find them second hand at thrift stores. This looks yum, like indian fried rice? Hope you are able to find some care options for the kids, it sucks to have to take unpaid time off work. :(
Mmmm… I wish you were my neighbor.
Seconding the coffee grinder suggestion. We have two, one for coffee and a cheap one for spices. Who am I kidding, they are both cheap. One is less attractive though.
I use the same one for both, just wipe it out, fill with cornstarch and grind for a bit, dump, wipe.. clean as a whistle.
hints from JayBelloise