Magazine Monday #60: Curried Pork Burgers

Canadian Living strikes again! When I got the new issue last week, I knew I had to make this recipe. I really like using ground pork for burgers because the burgers are always so nice and juicy, and the mean it a neutral enough flavour that you can do what you want with it seasoning-wise.

I made these last night for my family and they were a huge hit! The grilled red onions were a perfect accompaniment. I will definitely make these again!

The recipe is not up on the site yet, but I'll post it for you here.

Curried Pork Burgers

1lb lean ground pork
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tbsp curry paste (I used Patak's mild curry paste, which I always have on hand)
2 tsp minced gingerroot (I used about 1 tsp dried ground ginger)
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded & minced (which I skipped because I don't like them)
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp each salt & pepper

1 red onion sliced, drizzled in some vegetable oil

buns, lettuce, etc.

Simple instructions: mix all the meat, the feta, and all the seasonings together & form burgers. Grill. Grill onions until nice & soft. Serve on buns. Bob's your uncle.

Delicious!

Family Dinner: Veggie Curry & Chicken Kebabs

You might recall the wonderful gift that my good blog friend and fellow foodie Palidor sent me last month. It contained a packet of Palidor's dad's own homemade curry powder, and I thought it would be great to share this with my own family, who are quite partial to curries. My SIL, Shan, suggested a veggie curry to go with some chicken kebabs she was making, so that's what we did. The results were amazing!

Here's what I did for the veggie curry.

Veggie Curry with Palidor's Dad's Curry Powder

1 onion, sliced
1" piece of ginger, peeled & grated
several cloves of garlic
3 tomatoes, diced
1 zucchini, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 large carrot, sliced
a couple of cups of sliced mushrooms
1 can coconut milk
1 tbsp curry powder
cilantro

1. I sauteed the onion and ginger in some olive oil until the onions were nice & soft & translucent. I then added all the other veggies and sauteed them until they cooked down. I added the curry powder and let this all cook for a bit. The fragrance rocked! Everyone's mouths were watering and we couldn't wait to try the curry!

2. Near serving time, I added the can of coconut milk & the garlic & simmered for a few minutes until we were ready to rock 'n roll. I garnished with cilantro. I had made some nice rice to go along with our meal, too. The end result:
What beautiful colour! And it tasted awesome! Everyone was totally in love with this!

Shan made chicken kebabs by marinating chicken strips in some Greek yogurt, paprika, garlic powder, and lemon. Then she threw them on the BBQ. They were great! It was a fabulous meal all around, and we even had naan to go with it.Thank you so much, Palidor, for sharing a piece of your family with me and my family! This was a great gift!

Butter Chicken

Save-on Foods had Patak's curry pastes on sale when I was there the other week, so I picked up a jar of butter chicken sauce. I love Patak's; I always have a jar of mild curry paste on hand because it's easy to use and very versatile.

I've only had butter chicken a few times in my life, and I've always liked it as long as the spice was kept down. This mild sauce was perfect.

I used the directions on the jar!

This was soooooooooo gooooooooood! Rich and wonderful and just perfect. And it took no time at all! I'll definitely be making this again, and am thinking it would actually be good with shrimp, and even salmon. Hmmmm...

Curried Veggie & Chicken Pasta

A couple of months ago, I had a really tasty curried pasta dish with chicken and veggies at The General Store Restaurant, located in the Hume Hotel in Nelson BC. It was part of a lunch buffet they were putting on while their kitchen was being renovated. The dish was really excellent and I wanted to try to replicate it at home. Here's what I came up with. (It might have had coconut milk in it, but I can't remember exactly...)

Curried Veggie & Chicken Pasta

1 zucchini, diced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced
2 cups penne, cooked according to package directions
about 1 tbsp curry paste (I use Patak's), or to taste
3/4 cup light sour cream
a couple squirts of lime juice
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

While pasta water is coming to boil and while the pasta cooks, saute the chicken in a little oil until done. Remove it to a plate or bowl, and add a little more oil, then add the veggies. Saute them until tender and have released most of their liquid. Return the chicken to the pan. Add the curry paste and stir to combine. Add the sour cream and lime juice. Drain the pasta and add the chicken mixture to the pasta. Add the cilantro and stir to combine everything. Serve.

Well, this wasn't as good as the Hume Hotel's version, but it wasn't bad, either. I like the combination of pasta and curry; I'm so used to curry served with rice and this made a nice change.

Mango Curry Chicken Wrap

Well, this is a little bit hypocritical after my post last week on homemade chicken strips. Lured by laziness and a nice coupon from my latest Canadian Living, I purchased a box of Jane's chicken strips. I feel totally evil for doing this. I rarely buy processed foods and I know how terrible these things are - really! But the coupon was too good to pass up, I'm craving crap, and, as I mentioned, I'm feeling lazy.

Man, these were really, really good!

To assuage my guilt, I purchased, on sale, a mango. I've been craving curry for some odd reason. This equation added up to the inspiration for this dinner.

Mango Curry Chicken Wrap



First, I put the chicken on. Then, I mixed together 1 tbsp light mayo, 1/2 tsp curry paste, and a squirt of lime juice. I peeled, cored, and sliced a mango. I shredded some lettuce and chopped some cilantro. I got out a whole grain tortilla.





I spread on the curry mayo and laid down the mango, cilantro and lettuce, then put the cooked chicken on top.






This is where the "wrap" part turned a little sour. The tortilla was too small to wrap up all the filling, so I wound up with a roll instead. But still, it tasted seriously yummy and it was a really tasty, quick dinner.





I hope I will be forgiven for using purchased chicken strips! Feel free to do this meal with my homemade chicken strip recipe, though!

Chicken & Pineapple Curry - Hold the Flies

I love pineapple - it's one of my favourite fruits. They had pineapple on sale at my local over-priced grocery store this week, so I decided to get one. I'm pretty picky when it comes to my fruit, and since it's sometimes hard to gauge the ripeness of pineapples in the grocery store, I kinda have to go with my gut. I picked on out and went with it. I sat it on my counter as I usually do, partially because I was too lazy to chop it up, partially because I was waiting to see if it would ripen any more.

What a mistake! Less than two days later, I caught a whiff of my pineapple at the opposite end of my kitchen and knew I had to take action. When I cut the peel off, I could see that it was way past ripe and verging on...yucky. I chucked what parts of it seemed inedible and chopped & refrigerated the rest of it. The scraps went into the garbage. This was yesterday.

Today, I have an infestation of fruit flies in my kitchen garbage can. They are feasting on pineapple cores and peels, and seem to be making their way around the house. My roommate has a fruit bowl well away from the garbage and there has been some action there. I have also noticed the buggers fluttering around my office - and there is no food up here.

Garbage day is Wednesday, and it's hot out. We have special bags we have to put our garbage in in this town in order for our garbage to be collected on garbage day. These bags cost $1.50 each, so we can't just replace the bag and put the old bag with the peelings in it somewhere else. We live in bear country, so garbage has to be kept under lock and key until the day of collection.

So, what to you do?

You make curry.

I have no idea what to do about the fruit flies in the garbage, but I do know that pineapple goes well with curry flavours. I happened to have a bottle of Maya organic curry sauce on hand that I got in the bargain bin at my local over-priced grocery store for $1.99. I had an onion. I had some chicken and some rice. I even had some wilty and nearly finished cilantro in my crisper.

I managed to use half of my fresh pineapple in this recipe. And it was a very good dinner, if I do say so myself.

As for the flies, there were no left overs for them, but I doubt they'll be any the wiser.

Chicken & Pineapple Curry (serves 2 or 1 hungry person)

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cups chopped fresh pineapple
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/3 cup (or to taste) curry cooking sauce of your choice (Patak's is my favourite brand, and you could use, instead of a curry cooking sauce, some curry paste, a bit of tomato sauce, and some sour cream or yogur to get a similar result)
basmati rice, to serve

Brown the chicken in a TBSP of olive oil. Add onions & pineapple. Saute for five or so minutes. Add sauce and garlic. Simmer another 5 - 10 minutes. Top with cilantro; serve over rice.

I suppose you could use canned chunks of pineapple if you really must - but there is no comparison between fresh and canned, in my opinion. Canned does have its place, for sure; I just prefer the fresh, and once you know how to peel and core it, it's very easy to just chop it up and put it in your fridge.

Also, pineapple contains an enzyme that helps the digestion of protein, so it's a good idea to have it with meat, actually. I could have made any number of desserts, but for some reason, this idea appealed to me the most tonight. And I have enough left-overs for a second meal tomorrow night.

Enjoy!

Thai Chicken Curry Soup

Chicken Stock
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

I've been feeling super crappy lately. For more details, see my Wandering Coyote blog. I felt like some comfort food, and I had the energy to be creative. I also had on hand some pantry items I wanted to use up. So, I made this soup.

I usually make my own chicken stock. This one was made using a chicken carcass from a while back that I'd frozen. I usually save a leg or two and the wings so there's enough meat in the soup, but in this case, I added two chicken thighs since the people that helped me eat the roasted chicken also consumed both legs and one wing. Well, I would have been a poor hostess to refuse them, wouldn't I?

I used the method outlined in this post, only with a carcass as opposed to actual cuts of meat, you should simmer the stock much longer to get the maximum amount of flavour. In this case, it was 41/2 hours. I used, as aromatics: 2 small leeks, 2 small carrots (unpeeled but washed), several cloves of whole garlic, two quarter sections of a lemon (I knew this soup would be Thai-inspired, so I used the lemons instead of lemongrass), a bunch of whole peppercorns, and 2 quarter-sized rounds of ginger. Later on in the cooking process, I added 2 chicken thighs and a handful of cilantro - whole, not cut up and with stems. I added salt to taste, and voila.

Thai Chicken Curry Soup

The above made about 4 cups of stock, and that's what you'll need for this recipe. In addition (if this looks like deja vu to some of you, you're not crazy; similar ingredients are found in my Thai curry recipe from nearly a year ago):

- 1 can coconut milk (398mL)
- about 3-4 cups of veggies of your choice; I used cauliflower cut up small, 2 julienned carrots, 10 large mushrooms, sliced, and a can of whole baby corn, quartered
- 2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 1/2 tsp Thai red curry paste, or to taste (you can substitute other curry pastes)
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 2 - 3 tbsp sugar, or to taste (add it in 1 tsp at a time so you can adjust it easily)
- 1/3 cup rice
- 2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 tsp minced ginger
- 1 cup chopped cilantro

Once I'd taken the meat of the chicken bones and strained my stock, I added the rice and brought it to a boil. I added the chicken and turned the heat down to a low simmer. I added the veg all at once with the ginger. Then I mixed the curry paste, fish sauce, and sugar together and added it to the soup, followed by the garlic. I added the coconut milk last. Then I added about a cup of chopped cilantro. I had to add sugar to it to balance out the flavour.

The smell alone was like an elixir from the heavens! It tasted awesome and looks just lovely, too. I am going to put it in containers to freeze and keep a bit out for lunches this week.

I'm glad I took the time to do this today. Creating a delicious new recipe was just what my weary soul needed.

Thai Chicken Curry Soup
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Thai Curry

IMG_0475
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

My husband claims this is as good as what they serve at our local Thai restaurant, Sweet Basil. If nothing else, this will clear your sinuses! Here's what I did:

For the stirfry: I took two boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced them up, and stirfried them until cooked through in some sesame oil. When that was done, I added: some broccoli florets, 2 julienned carrots, some sliced mushrooms, a sliced onion, 1 can water chestnuts (sliced in half), 1 can bamboo shoots, and 1 can miniature cobs of corn (quartered). I obviously drained the canned stuff first! I stirfried this a few minutes until the broccoli turned bright green. Then I added the sauce.

For the sauce: Thai cuisine has a balance between salt, sweet, sour, and spicey. Here are the five ingredients for the sauce: red curry paste (spicey), fish sauce (salty), coconut milk, lime juice(sour), sugar (sweet). As you can see in the picture, I used Thai Kitchen brand fish sauce and curry paste, and I basically followed the recipe on the jar of paste when making this. But I don't like really spicey food, so I cut down the amount of curry paste. The approximate measurements were 2 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tsp curry paste, juice of 1 - 2 limes (mine weren't juicy so bear that in mind), 1 - 2 tbsp sugar, and 1 can (398mL) coconut milk. I whisked this all up in a glass liquid measuring cup.

I added the sauce and stirfried until heated through. I then added a couple of handfuls of freshly chopped cilantro, and garnished with bean sprouts. I served this over a bed of basmati rice.

Notes to the readership.

- Fish sauce smells RANK. The first time I bought it, back in my university days, I chucked it out before using it because I thought it stank too much. But, those were my salad days and I was concentrating on things other than food. Do not sniff this or you may be put off! But it tastes great and is a must for any Thai dish.
- Make sure you buy coconut milk for cooking rather than baking. The baking variety is much thicker. Also noteworthy about coconut milk is that it isn't so bad for the waistline: 1/4 cup contains only 60 calories and 1 gram of carbs.
- Re. the sauce, do everything to your own taste. My husband likes this much spicier, and if you like it hot, add more curry paste. When you're mixing the ingredients, put them in a glass measure as I did and taste the sauce first before adding it to the stirfry, so that you can adjust it at will. Also, many Thai sauces tend to be more soupy as they didn't adopt thickeners when their cuisine was evolving, so don't do anthing stupid like adding cornstarch to this - it isn't necessary.
- The key to any good stirfry is having everything chopped up and ready to go before even starting to cook. This is essential! You don't want to be chopping one thing up as another cooks. That is a recipe for stirfry disaster! Also essential is that you ensure that your ingredients are approximately the cut the same size and thickness, to promote even cooking.
- You do not need a fancy wok to stirfry, although it's more fun. A cast iron skillet or large frying pan is perfectly fine - as long as you don't get overzealous and start flinging your veggies around as you stirfry.
- Always add the cilantro last. It's a fresh herb and very delicate. Overcooking it will only kill it.