skud

Mirrored from The OEconomist. You can comment there or here.

I’ve been thinking a bit about why I have this blog and what I want from it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really have any pretentions to being a Food Blogger per se. I don’t think most of what I make is very original or special, and the quality of my recipes and my photos is nowhere near many of the food blogs I read. So I guess the reason I have this blog, and post to it, is because I want to keep a record of the food I’m cooking and eating. It’s good for me to have something to refer to when I’m trying to remember what I cooked in the past, or to be able to point people at when they ask me for a recipe for something they ate at my house, or whatever. Plus, having recently moved into a share house, I’ve had a few discussions lately about what sort of food I cook, and it’s nice to be able to point people here and say, “like this.”

Writing about what I’m cooking is also good for my mental health, I think. I’m a bit screwed up around food, sometimes, and sometimes I just… forget how much I actually enjoy cooking and eating good food. So this helps reinforce it for me. I’m really pleased at the moment that I have a great kitchen, in a house that’s close to good markets and not too close to cheap takeaway food, and with housemates that I can cook and eat with. I’m in a pretty good place, food-wise, and I want to make a record of it.

Anyway! My point here — and I do have one — is that since I’m making a record of what I’m eating, rather than trying to be pretentious and perfect, you’re about to get a recipe for what I cooked the other day when I was dying of menstrual cramps and, for some reason, craving curry. There was no curry to be had, but I did have curry powder in the cupboard, and so, this… a sort of curry fried rice thing that’s not quite kedgeree but is closely related to it.

I first cooked kedgeree after reading about it in Connie Willis’s “To Say Nothing of the Dog”. I mean, I’d read about it before that, but the particular scene in that book — where Ned, a time traveller, comes down to breakfast in a Victorian country house and is disgusted by the devilled kidneys and kedgeree on offer — is what prompted me to actually look up a recipe. Kedgeree’s usually made with smoked fish and hard boiled eggs, but I didn’t have any smoked fish on hand and couldn’t be bothered boiling eggs, so here’s what I did instead.

• 1 cup basmati rice
• 1/2 onion, diced (I didn’t have any, so used spring onions, but would have preferred ordinary onion)
• 1 generous tblsp ghee OR half and half oil and butter (oil for high-heat cooking, butter for flavour)
• 1 heaped teaspoon mild, English-style curry powder (Keen’s, or similar)
• 2 eggs, whisked with a little water, fried as a thin omelette, then cut into small pieces
• 1 small can tinned salmon, drained and roughly broken up
• chopped parsley
• salt and pepper

Cook the rice (or you could also use 2 cups leftover, pre-cooked rice). Make the omelette — I did this in the wok I was about to use to fry the rice — then cut it up into small pieces. Saute the onions in the oil and butter until translucent and just starting to brown. Throw in the curry powder and stir until fragrant, then add the rice and toss it until the curry powder is evenly distributed throughout. Add in the eggs, salmon, and chopped parsley and stir it through. Season with salt and pepper.

It was tasty enough, and it hit the spot, but to be honest the tinned salmon was nowhere near as good as the smoked fish this should really be made with. So I strongly recommend you use smoked fish (I’ve done smoked cod and smoked trout in the past), as well as using chopped hard boiled eggs rather than the quick omelette I made. On the other hand, if you don’t want to go to much trouble, this is quick and easy and only messes up the one pan.

I often crave fish and tomatoes, together, when I’m premenstrual, so when I sat down to eat this, I realised that what I really wanted was a big glass of tomato juice on the side. I didn’t have any, but I wound up spooning a big dollop of tomato kasundi into my bowl and mixing it through the not-quite-kedgeree, and it was pretty damn tasty, so if you have anything of that nature kicking around, you might like to try it.

Related rice recipes:

• Fried rice with kale

Mirrored from The OEconomist. You can comment there or here.

Is this weird? It’s what called to me in the kitchen today, when I staggered in there hungry but feeling sick and unhappy from out-of-control seasonal allergies.

1/3 fuji apple, thinly sliced
a few thin slices of red onion
butter
3 eggs
handful grated cheddar
sprig of parsley, minced
a few sage leaves, minced
pepper and salt

I sauted the apple and onions in a little butter until both were soft and the apples were a little brown, and set them aside. Then I mixed up the eggs, sage and parsley, pepper and salt, and a tiny drizzle of water in a bowl. (The water helps the eggs break up better. I don’t know where I learnt this but I’m a firm believer in it.)

When I make an omelette I always fry it in butter, not any other kind of oil. To my mind, the flavour is better, and I like the way it browns the outside of the omelette. Anyway, if you don’t know how to make an omelette, I’m not going to give you particular instructions. I’m not really an expert.

I wasn’t even going to take a photo because my omelettes are always so unphotogenic, but I figured it couldn’t be too bad before I attempted to fold it, right?

Anyway, this was exactly what I needed: a bit salty, a bit sweet, interesting but not too challenging. I don’t care if it’s weird.

Previously, with eggs:

• Potato frittata
• Things I’ve learnt since moving to California