Indonesian-Style Goat Curry

It's official. The goat book is out there and on sale. Early by a couple of weeks. It's available right here. (Bit of a shocking photo, eh?)

If you liked the ham tome, you'll love GOAT: MEAT, MILK, CHEESE. Let me give you the first sentence: "I lied while wearing make-up."

What? It doesn't sound like a cookbook? Oh, but it is: quick guide to butchering, the physics and chemistry of cheese-making, and over 100 of Bruce's killer recipes. Plus some rather salacious stories. One involves a poster of Farah Fawcett Majors. And yes, it's still a cookbook.

To celebrate, I'm going to drop an original recipe here, one Bruce created just for all of us who hang around this blog. This one's not in the book--call it a "blog exclusive": a hot and sour and spicy curry, just a little sweet, modeled less on Thai wet curries than on the savory ones found in Singapore and Indonesia. So let's get to it.

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Curried Chickpea Burgers

Over the past few days, there's been a big storm brewing among food writers in the United States, mostly concerning plagiarism issues. Apparently, a magazine (both print and online) has been taking people's blog posts and previous magazine articles and "repurposing them" under the theory that if it's online, it's available for all takers.

This all brings up an interesting point about this blog. When I started it, I decided to write the recipes in narrative form--as you're about to see with this one, as you have seen with them all. I admit it's a pain--for you because you have to copy out what's in the post and for me because I have to write more.

That said, it puts a step between me and the copycats, between Bruce's recipes and those that would lift them willy-nilly without attributing them to us. I'm sorry if that causes you to do a little more work. But in these days of internet rights and loosey-goosey, Wild West writing practices on the web, I have to be as smart as I can.

Anyway, on to the recipe. A narrative one, of course. It's for a vegetarian burger, made with canned chickpeas and curry. We had these for lunch with a simple salad on the side. But you could easily put them in whole wheat pita pockets with some chopped lettuce and tomatoes, plus some tahini sauce or maybe some chutney--or just mustard. They're so easy--and so great. How about a fried egg on top?

Let's get to it.

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Sali Boti

OK, I promised. I promised to blog the best thing Bruce has ever made.

Maybe I got a little carried away?

Or maybe not. Get this: a double-spice curry, with dried apricots and almonds, a long braise with bone-in cuts for the winter, warm and comforting. Lots of slurping required at the table.

Sold?

As you probably know, next year will debut our next cookbook, the first-ever, all-goat cookbook: meat, milk, and cheese.

As you may also know, goat is the world's most consumed meat.

And goat milk is drunk by more people than any other milk.

And goat milk itself is the universally digested mammal milk, given to babies in the zoo when their mothers refuse to nurse them.

Oh, they'll be much more to say about these things in the months ahead. For now, I'm giving you a sneak look at one of the recipes in it. By the way, the book's already up on amazon here, a lonely placeholder page with nary a photo. But hey, at least people can reserve a copy!

The long and the short of it? Last weekend, we had a rather over-the-top dinner party--and the main course was this fantastic curry, made with goat shoulder chops. I'm going to give it to you so that you can make it with goat or other, more accessible cuts. But if you can get your hands on some goat at a local farmers' market, at a halal butcher shop, or at a high-end market, I would highly recommend you try it. You'll be dumbfounded: so aromatic, so flavorful, so ridiculous.

So let's get to it--a braise with four servings. (Bruce doubled it last weekend for a crowd.)

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Roasted Aloo Matar Edamame

I was going to blog something else today. Um, cocoa brownies. Don't worry--they're on their way. But I got so excited about this recipe, I couldn't let it go.

We had a dinner party last night, an East Indian affair. Bruce charged me with the first course.

I waffled. I asked for advice on twitter. I hinted for help on facebook. It was disgraceful. But he was doing some major braise for the main course--with goat-cheese samosas as the intermediary course. Shoot. How was I going to come up with something for a first course?

I soon thought of aloo matar gobi, the potato-cauliflower-and-pea stew that's something of a staple. Yep, OK, that's a start. But I wanted to push it.

Boy, did I. Here's how. . . .

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Coconut Shellfish Curry

I know: we've already done a coconut curry fish dish on the blog. Listen, don't be a food whore, just in for a series of one-night stands with your recipes. You gotta settle in for some relationships. Because they change over time. And morph. And grow. That's the very essence of life. Cooking, too.

So today's from-the-sea curry is a different take, a twist on the last one on the blog: a different curry paste, shellfish, some green beans. This one's also more aromatic--and more luxurious. It's just the thing as winter morphs into spring.

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Persian Rice Pilaf

I'm always surprised at the whole notion of simplicity. I know it's big. I know it's continually a concern. A best-selling concept.

I also know that simplicity is rarely simple. I guess you don't get to be my advanced age--almost 50 (how the heck did I let THAT happen?)--without knowing that simple things rarely are. Good relationships, good food, the good life--simple, right? Um, hardly. It's not so much studied as constructed. Or nurtured. Which takes time. And effort. And so is not simple.

All of which leads me to this pilaf. It's a little complicated, needs a little nurturing, but is so darn good. Here's how it goes:

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Curried Pumpkin Soup

My world looks like this:

Yes, that's a collie next to one of the snow mounds in front of the garage. A seventy-pound collie. Happy as can be. Fur coat and all.

Me? Not so much. Oh, I'm not too bad. Yet. Winter is what it is. It's like your crazy great aunt, the one with the Wurlitzer. It's a cold day and you can't go out to play so she demands you play a concert while she vacuums. (Perhaps I had an odd childhood.) Anyway, winter won't be denied.

But it can be combatted. You can crank out show tunes on the organ when she wants hymns. Or you can make a curried soup. Your choice really. But a winter vegetarian chaser seems just the thing for these chilly days. And without going over the top, it's a pretty fine meal all around.

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Coconut Fish Curry

We've had a wonderful two weeks in the South Seas, going down the Chilean fjords, around the horn of South America, and now out into the Atlantic to the Falklands, Uruguay, and Argentina. We've been teaching cooking classes aboard Holland America's Veednam all the while, paella and cookies and lasagna, for crowds and for small, private groups. (The photo is of the audience gathering in the cooking theater for one of our demos.)

One of our favorite dishes we do in these cooking classes has always been a simple coconut curried fish. The dish lets us teach the secrets to making a good curry blend, as well as a simple way to make fish more enjoyable come dinnertime.

But you don't have to go on a cruise with us (although it would be nice). Here's the recipe: start by making a simple curry paste. Crush two 2-inch pieces of lemongrass under a heavy pot on a cutting board, then put them in a mini food processor or a spice grinder. Add 1 small seeded jalapeno or serrano chile, 2 halved medium garlic cloves, 4 whole cloves (the dried spice), 2 tablespoons cumin seeds, 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, and 2 teaspoons turmeric. Grind these up until they make a fine, powdery paste, more dry than wet.

It's too much curry paste for this dish, but you can save it back in the fridge for future stews, braises, and other curries. Keep it covered for up to 4 months.

OK, preheat the oven to 400F. Place 1 1/2 pounds thick-fleshed fish like cod or hake in a large sauté pan. Now pour in enough white wine to come about halfway up the fish pieces in the pan. There's no real measurement here--just eyeball it.

Remove the fish and set the pan over high heat. Add 2 chopped medium scallions, about 6 ounces thinly sliced shiitake mushroom caps, and 1 1/2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger. Bring it to a full simmer--then add 2 to 4 teaspoons of the curry paste, depending on how strongly flavored you like the dish. You might start with the lower amount the first time, just until you get the hang of it.

Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and cook at a slow simmer for 5 minutes.

Place the fish back in the pan, cover it, and bring back to a simmer over medium-high heat, usually in just a few seconds. Place the pan in the oven and cook until the fish will flake with gently scraped with a fork, about 7 minutes per each inch of thickness.

Remove the pan from the oven--it's hot!--and transfer the fish to a serving plate. Set the pan back over high heat and bring to a full simmer. Stir in 1/4 cup coconut milk, 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil leaves, and 1 tablespoon soy sauce. Pour this sauce over the fish and serve at once--with rice, of course. A stick white rice like sushi rice is best. But you want to keep up every drop of that sauce.

Shrimp Rogan Josh

Bruce has started teaching knitting classes in Millerton, New York--which means that I now cook dinner on the nights he's gone.

Mind you, such a call to action hasn't rung in a while. After fifteen books, I am officially an observer of cooking. Oh, sure, I bring together the occasional foofy dish for a dinner party, like some froo-froo appetizer. But I'm hardly down in the trenches.

I still don't know if atheists pray in their fox holes, but I can assure you this writer-turned-cook does. What I make should be satisfying and comforting. So I do a lot of handwringing over the stove.

Which also means I've made a promise with myself to cut out words like quick and easy from my culinary lexicon. Both are knee-jerk silliness from food writers. Quick and easy is a take-out menu. Cooking is another thing entirely. (Funny that a guy with so many cookbooks under his belt has come to this revelation. Score one for you, universe.)

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Curried Quinoa And Cabbage Salad

Under a tight book deadline as I am, I don't have that much time to think about what I eat. (Very ironic for a cookbook author, no?)

Mostly, I try to have things around that'll last me several meals. When deadlines get crazy like this around our house, I can't really rely on Bruce for my meals. He's in the kitchen, cranking out recipe after recipe. He's not really interested in food on any sort of schedule, having sampled this and that on spoons and spatulas since early morning. (Nothing like extinction therapy in your own kitchen to cure overeating.)

Anyway, I made this curried quinoa salad earlier this week and have enjoyed it for several meals. It's an easy, summer, vegetarian dish, so I thought I'd post it here, a great make-ahead salad to take to work or have for a light dinner at home. Plus, there's that quinoa, the super grain, chock full of protein.

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