Curry Confrontation
I don’t do frustration well. Whenever I encounter something that I can’t figure out, that I can’t get my head around, I become so inexplicably frustrated – in a manner of minutes – that I can usually be found sobbing, somewhere in a dark corner or nestled in between the freezer door eating spoonful after spoonful of ice cream.
Not really. But you get the idea.
So try to imagine the scene in my kitchen the first time I tried to make curry. If you have ever tried to make this dish at restaurant-standard quality, you know what I mean.
It was the summer of my senior year of college. I had spent a delightful afternoon walking to the grocery store and spice market, collecting all the necessary ingredients to produce my very own home-brewed Indian meal. Some $20 later, I was in my kitchen toasting fresh cumin in a pan, drinking a glass of wine and rather enjoying the idea of impressing my friends with a delicious dinner.
Two hours later, I was dumping $20 worth of disgusting slop into the trash with one hand and calling for take-out Chinese with the other. This, I discovered, is why chefs tell you to taste your dish as you go. This is why you don’t just serve your crazy concoction up with a side of rice and watch while your friends start to look back and forth at eachother.
Recipes be damned! Just because it’s in a book doesn’t mean it’s worth a peanut butter-frosted donkey.
That was four years ago. So I have no way to explain why, with absolutely no prompting, I decided to try my hand at making curry again this week. Wandering down the so-called “exotic food” isle at the grocery store, searching for dinner-time inspiration, I found myself staring face-to-face with a small jar that simply read, ” curry.” Not red curry, green curry, Indian curry, Japanese curry – just curry. And just like that I felt the stirrings of a challenge.
I think what I find most frustrating about this dish is not that I have fallen flat on my face while attempting to make it before. I think it has more to do with the fact that my former roommate could make curry like a Tibetan master … This from a man who’s dinner often consisted of Campbell’s condensed chicken soup – eaten directly from the can. And chili. From a can … Even he would admit on occasion that it closely resembled dog food. And yet, with little effort he would arrive at the perfect pot of Padang curry.
Some things are just so unfair.
Back at home with my jar of curry, I pulled out my pots and pans and began my journey. Nearby, I kept my emergency fall back – a can of spaghetti sauce and a bag of noodles.
The origin of curry is a curious thing. Some scholars believe it was devised in India, while others believe it was an invention of the English. The debate centers mostly around the fact that an English cookbook from around the time of Richard II included a recipe for the spicy dish. Though cuneiform text with references to ”a spicy dish with meat that bread is dunked in” was discovered on clay tablets dating back to 1700 B.C.
It seems it’s usually these time-honored dishes, the ones that have been around so long that no one even remembers where they came from, that throw me off the most. That throw most people off. It’s like pho. Have you ever met anyone that can make a great homemade pho? No. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles. And for me, my cookie is all crumbled up inside my curry.
A half-hour of onion chopping and sauteing later, the house smelled great – which is always the first step to success. Next was the chicken. I dropped in a few tablespoons of my industrial curry mix along with just a pinch of fresh garlic and ginger, a can of crushed tomatoes and coconut milk, cauliflower and mixed the whole shebang together. Then I turned the stove to low, hit the Pilates mat, and waited with baited breath for 45 minutes as my sauce bubbled away.
All in all, I must admit it didn’t turn out that bad and it was definately edible. (I think the jr of pre-mixed curry spices lent a hand) Then again, it wasn’t nearly as good my neighborhood Indian restaurant. But they’ve got a secret ingredient I can’t buy at the store - grandma. Grandma who’s been making this stuff day after day for 80 years. And given that this was only my second try, I was content with the results. Content enough to eat it again for dinner the next night.
