Tuesday, August 18, 2009

It's All About The Sambals or Hey! Lazy Happens.




I love to cook, don't get me wrong. I cook almost every day but there are times when even I who love to cook, and chop etc, get lazy. I'm a screenwriter, and I work with my husband /writing partner. The reason I've always been able to do all this cooking is that all our writing is done from home. In our office. Therefore, we get our work done, and we're also eating well. We did once opt to take an office at a studio we were working at, but we wound up staring out the windows, eating in the commissary, not getting anything done and having to make up work at home at night with a diet that quickly degenerated into fried pork rinds and chocolate pudding. Don't ask, and yes I still have a gall bladder.
Once that brief foray into degeneracy ended I was back with my regular Indian cooking but I have devised some easy fixes for when we're under deadline pressure, that doesn't involve eating out or ordering in.
Since our office is waaaaay at the other end of our house from the kitchen I usually go for a simple entree, something that can be slow cooking, or grilled quickly. What I try to do to make it interesting, is the side dishes, the accents that dress things up. Those are life savers and can make even the simplest chicken or even burgers special, they take very little time to prepare so I don't have to be at the other end of the house and can run back to my computer and work /surf Foodbuzz and are worth their weight in gold plated dining.
Yesterday I made a quick eggplant sambal. There were cute little pineapples on sale for 2.29 so of course I had to have one. There's a wonderful sambal that calls for slightly green pineapples and of course this one was..for 2.29 each what did I expect. It worked perfectly, here's my adaptation of a pineapple sambal.
You will need :
!.) 1 Pineapple...slightly green is actually best for this dish.


2.) Cut it up into small pieces, following are some pictures to help






3.) Place your pineapple pieces in a colendar and rub 1 teasp. of salt into the pineapple and let it drain for a few minutes.

4.) Finely chop 4 shallots


5.)Cut one small red onion in half and then slice it in thin half moons


6.) halve seed and finely chop 4 dried red chilies


7.) rinse the salt off the pineapple and let it drain. When it's dry place it into a bowl with the above ingredients. Stir it around and mix well.


Serve it up in a pretty bowl, salt and sugar it to taste.

This is an excellent relish, or side dish for fish, chicken, and anytime anyone has a deadline.

7 comments :

  1. I am going to have to try it. It sounds great!

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  2. oh it was good allright! there's none left. It would be outstanding with a fish dish.

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  3. It looks great Kathy. thanks for sharing.

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  4. This looks quite refreshing. I didn't know you can cook with green pineapple. I knew that you can make a Thai dish called somtum with green papaya. Why is it better to use a green pineapple for this dish?

    CheapAppetite

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  5. My guess about the green pineapple..or slightly green pineapple is that it will be less sweet . As you know, there's almost nothing sweeter than a ripe ripe pineapple..except a ripe ripe mango. So I imagine the reasoning behind underipe is to temper that somewhat. Another factor might have to do with rubbing the cut pineapple with salt to get some of the juices out, then rinsing it off. Less juices flowing with a slightly green pineapple...ripe might be a bit of a mess. I have a recipe for a green mango chutney which begins almost the same way, letting the slightly green fruit marinate in salt and sugar to de-juice it.

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  6. What an interesting recipe! Thank you for sharing.

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