Korma, An Indian Restaurant Comes To Your Kitchen. Now with Goat!

   Lately it seems as though I've been making food for large groups of people, finger foods for awards night, buffets for birthday parties. I just couldn't do anymore big crowd feeds. I was done for a while with racing around between steaming bamboo cookers and trays of samosas. I was having parties but barely getting out of the kitchen. I still wanted to cook, I just wanted to be able to sit down at the table with a manageable number of  guests and actually enjoy myself for once. So I resolved (sort of a belated new Years Resolution) to have a series of small dinners, especially small dinners where big parts of the meal could be made ahead of time. Thus, the Goat Korma feast.

   One of my good friends here in Sonoma, and my cooking mentor/godmother/kitchen role model is Paula Wolfert. Paula is the one who got me started cooking in clay 6 years ago. She gave me my very first clay pots and showed me how to cure and use them. Paula and her husband novelist Bill Bayer are part of our group of usual suspects here in town and we always love hanging out over a long leisurely lunch. About a week ago Bill had to be out of town and I decided it would be great to cook for Paula while he was away. What made it double great was the fact that her son Nick would be visiting during that time and we really wanted the opportunity to visit with another fellow LA/Sonoma transplant. Throw in our usual taste tester Mr. X and I now had my feasters.

   Lamb, or Goat Korma is a standard Indian restaurant dish. If you've ever eaten at an Indian restaurant, most likely there's been Korma on the menu. It's curry dish served in a mild almond sauce made with cream, yogurt and sometimes even coconut milk for the lactose intolerant. It can be made with lamb, goat, chicken or game and there is even a vegetarian version which I will be getting to soon. I make my Korma with meat on the bone. I feel it adds a lot more flavor and also what I look for is falling off the bone tender.

   Any Korma starts with the meat being seared to brown it and seal in the juices. It's then slowly cooked dum style, that is slowly, in a sealed pot. I cook mine in clay. It can also be made in the infamous slow cooker, aka the "Crock Pot." That's where the cook-ahead part comes in, so you can wake up the morning of your dinner party and say, "well that's done." Always a good feeling.

   Korma is also a showy, fancy pants dish. Since it originated with the cooking of the  Royal Court in Persia then migrated to India with the Mughals, this is not your grandpa's lamb stew.. Korma is an event meal, special guests, royal weddings, birthdays you get the picture. Hell, just  think up a celebration and Korma's your dish, which is why I chose to cook it for Paula. I made my Korma with goat, but the recipe works the same with lamb.

Royal Lamb or Goat Korma

Here's What You Need:
  
4 lbs of lamb or goat shoulder, bone in (have the butcher cut the leg with the bone into slices) If you're using boneless meat you'll need about 2 lbs.)
8 large shallots
A 1 inch piece of ginger peeled and chopped
5 Tbs of blanched almond slivers
1 cup of water
4 Tbs of coconut oil or vegetable oil
10 whole green cardamom pods
6 whole cloves
A 1 inch long stick of cinnamon
2 brown onions finely chopped
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp kashmiri chili or 1/4 tsp cayenne mixed with 1/4 tsp paprika
Salt to taste
1 and 1/4 cups of heavy cream, or yogurt, or coconut milk.
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 cup thinly sliced  almonds
1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro

Here's What To Do:

Put the 5 Tbs of slivered almonds, shallots, ginger, and 6 Tbs of water into a blender. Blend it into a paste and set it aside.
Heat the vegetable or coconut oil in a large pot, and when it's hot add in the pieces of meat.

Place the meat in 1 layer across the surface of the pot and sear it until it's browned on all sides. You may have to do the meat in batches. When it's done take it out, and set it aside.
Since I was cooking in clay, I then transferred the oil from the pot (after cooling it quite a bit to avoid cracking the clay) to my clay pot.
Put the cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick into the hot oil the meat was browning in.
Stir them around, in a few seconds the spices will start to swell up and get fragrant.

Add in the onions.

Stir fry the onions until they are a light brown.
Turn down the heat to the medium range and add in the paste from the blender.

Cook the paste for about 4 minutes then  add in the coriander, cumin and chili.

Stir fry the spices a bit, about 3 minutes or so.
Add in the meat pieces, and any juices, salt, cream, 1/2 cup of water.

Bring everything to a boil.
Once it's boiling, turn it all down to low and simmer everything with the lid on the pot.

Now, most recipes say you should cook this for an hour or so until the meat is tender. Stir it often and make sure nothing is sticking. I cook my korma in clay I simmer it for about 5 hours on a very low heat, just as one would cook something in a crock pot. I check it occasionally, and once it's in the simmer stage it's really no trouble.

When the korma is done transfer it to a Pyrex bowl and stick it in the fridge for overnight storage. The day of the dinner party, take it out, skim any fat that's accumulated from the top and slowly reheat it.

When cooking in clay I just keep it on a back burner of the stove on a low temperature for another 3 to 4 hours while everything else is cooking. This results in very tender falling off the bone meat.

Just before serving the Korma, stir in 1/4 tsp of garam masala.
Sprinkle the top of the dish with chopped cilantro and the thinly sliced almonds.

This recipe will feed 6 to 8 people.

   I served this goat korma with a  rice cooked with whole spices and fried onions, Spinach and Corn , a mango coconut salad, watercress and shallot salad, a salad of thinly sliced mooli (Daikon radish) and an onion, tomato and cucumber salad. So, one hot entree, accompanied by rice, a hot vegetable dish, and a variety of small fresh salad bowls. Of course there had to be chapattis. What's a dinner without chapattis? That gave me a chance to break out the Rotito Rolling Board the nice people at GitaDini sent me a while back.

It's got a place for everything (box for flour, hole to stash the rolling pin, easy to clean surface) and everything in its' place. I love this thing!

 

 

A good thing for me since I consider myself a very messy cook and usually need to be hosed down before I'm allowed at table with my guests. By the end of my cooking "process" it usually looks as though I've been fighting raccoons.

   Here I am screaming to take away the camera. Paula, who is neat and clean is highly amused. I meanwhile am waiting for some kitchen maven to make a designer drop cloth//hostess gown that I can wear while entertaining. You hear me Snuggie People?? There's a market out there.

  I've had some requests for the actual Chicken version of my Cauliflower cooked like a chicken dish. That will be coming up along with lots and lots of vegetarian dishes since spring is here in Sonoma and our Tuesday night  Farmers Market opens next week. Can't wait. There will also be granitas as it's getting hot here in Sonoma..   Meanwhile, follow along on Twitter at @kathygori. 

Old Cauliflower New Tricks. Bake your Cauliflower Like A Chicken.

This is not your brain. This is your cauliflower.

This is your cauliflower on Indian spices. Whoaaaaaa!

   Just in case there's anyone out there who doesn't know the origin of this expression or hasn't watched a "very special episode" of anything, it references this Public Service Commercial which ran on the TeeVee way back in the 80's.



Ah yes, the 80's back when everyone wore stone-washed mom jeans, leg warmers, neon colors and big old shoulder pads.

No wonder they thought they had to warn everybody. That's yours truly on the far right. And later, working my best Annie Lennox...

...out with friends. Note big bling earrings and lots of hair wax. I was just waiting to get the call for the Addicted To Love Video.

   So we see how people can get weird and change, but an innocent cauliflower? What the hell happened to that thing up there?

   A vegetable trick that's what.

  There's a traditional Indian chicken recipe called Murgh Musallam. It's a complicated recipe that involves skinning a whole chicken, marinating it in a spice paste for 2 hours then making a fried spice paste, and when the chicken has had it's go-round in the first marinade, it's then rubbed  inside and out with the second fried spice paste. One then wraps the whole bird up in aluminum foil and bakes it for an hour and a half. This dish is freaking delicious. It is also something that is not done every day. You can see why. This is a special occasion company dish.

   When we lived in LA, I would occasionally be asked by friends to come and teach them to cook certain Indian dishes. I always enjoyed this. One day my very very best friend in LA (who will remain nameless here) asked me to help her make this dish for a friend visiting from Canada. It seems it was the guy's birthday also, so she asked if I would I bake him a cake. Of course. She planned on serving this dish at a romantic lantern-lit dinner outside in their garden. Since the man had a plane ticket and needed to be at LAX  to return to Vancouver that very night, this complicated dish had to be set up like clockwork. I gave her a complete list of what would be needed and asked her to have all the ingredients ready to go when I arrived at her house early in the afternoon so that we would be ready to start cooking. I got over there with my equipment only to discover she had not bothered to defrost her chickens. Nothing was ready. No how, no way.

   Smash cut to the birthday boy leaving for Vancouver while everyone else at the party waited for the chickens to come to roost outside of the oven. That's the trouble with this dish made using chicken. Cauliflower however, that's a whole different story. There are a lot of recipes for Gobhi (caulifilower) Masallem, some are more complicated than others. This one which orginated with Julie Sanhi, is one of the best I've tried. It was so simple it was ready to serve in less than an hour. Always a good thing, especially if someone has a plane to catch.

   Another thing about this dish, the older the cauliflower the better. This is a little secret I learned from my friend Nisha Katona which you can see right here. So no need to run out and buy a fresh vegetable. Buy ahead and let it mellow a bit. Your mouth will thank you. This cauliflower is steamed for 8 minutes, covered (stuffed) with a spice paste and baked in the oven. When it comes out, cut into wedges and dressed with a delicious  tomato sauce. Cauliflower prepared this way can easily be the star of any vegan, vegetarian or paleo meal.

Cauliflower Musallam

Here's What You Need: 

3 tbs of vegetable oil
1 cauliflower, leaves, core, and stem removed.
1 and 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 Tbs finely chopped shallot
1 and 1/2 Tbs finely chopped fresh ginger
4 serrano chilies seeded and finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground fennel
1/4 tsp Kashmiri chili or cayenne
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 and 1/2 Tbs ground coriander
2 Tbs ground blanched almonds
1 tsp sea salt
1 Tbs flour (or gluten free flour)
6 sprigs of cilantro

Sauce

3 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can of tomatoes pureed
2 tsps cumin
1/2 cup of water
salt to taste
2 Tbs chopped cilantro

 Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Remove the leaves, stem and core the cauliflower, making sure to leave it intact.

Steam the cauliflower for 8 minutes.

When the cauliflower is tender, take it out and put it into a baking dish to cool.

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet or kadhai.
When the oil is hot add in the onion and fry it until it's lightly browned.
Add in the shallots and ginger and fry them for a couple of minutes.

Add in the chopped serrano chilies and give them another minute in the pan.

Add all the other spices, the ground almonds and the flour.

Cook everything for another 2 minutes or so.

Add in the water and stir until you have a thick paste.

Take the stuffing paste off the stove and let it cool.
To stuff the cauliflower, push half of the spice paste mix in among the florets.

Spread the rest of it over the top and sides of the cauliflower.
Sprinkle the sliced almonds over the top.

Pop it into the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes, but before you do look on the bottom and make sure your baking dish is oven proof. Can''t believe I did that.

While the cauliflower is baking make the sauce.
In a skillet or Kadhi, heat 3 tbs of vegetable oil.
When the oil is hot, add in the onions and fry them until they are lightly browned.
Add in the cumin and fry it for another minute.

Add in the tomato puree, salt and water, bring the sauce to a boil.

Reduce the temperature to simmer and cook it gently over a low heat for about 15 minutes.
Take it off the heat and add in the chopped cilantro.
To serve this baby up, put the cauliflower on a serving platter, and cut it into wedges.
Ladle some tomato sauce over each wedge.

Serve it up and enjoy.

   This is a dish that will make a great entree for any veg meal. It is easily made gluten free by using gluten free flour, and of course it contains no dairy for the vegans or paleo eaters amongst us. Add a nice salad, rice dish, whatever you please and you've got an easy complete meal for a Meatless Monday, no defrosting and it's done so fast, nobody misses any planes.

   Coming up next , a great new book about the magic of food and family plus more vegetable tricks done easy. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Herb and Mustard Pork Loin Roast

    Last Sunday we threw my dad a party for his 94th birthday, and after mentioning the pork loin roast I served, I had some people ask me exactly how to do that roast. Pork loin is a pretty lean meat, and a big problem with cooking it is that it can easily be overcooked and dry. It's also something I don't cook a lot of around here, but is/was a big favorite of both my parents.
  
   When it comes to family parties at our house I'm always safe with the picky eaters if I serve  Italian food, and since my family on both sides hails from Tuscany, (except for that Frenchman, and the Irish dame who got mixed up with the family back in 1850) that's the way they like to eat. So, about twice a year I find myself making this pork loin roast with herbs.

   I stumbled across the recipe several years ago via the Epicurious website. It's attributed to Maggie Ruggerio but I've tweaked it a bit to make it fit the Gori familys' taste. One thing I like about this recipe is that it's easy to make and it also cooks at the same temperature as the clay pot polenta I always serve it with. Two dishes with one oven. Always helpful.

Herb Crusted Pork Loin

Here's What You Need:

One  4lb boneless pork loin
1/2 cup of chopped shallots
2 Tbs of olive oil
8 sprigs of sage
8 sprigs of thyme
6 sprigs of rosemary
3 Tbs of whole grain old fashioned Dijon mustard

Here's What to Do:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, with a rack in the middle.
Pat the pork loin dry, Sprinkle it with 1 and 1/2 tsp of salt, and a few grinds of pepper to taste.
Heat a skillet (I use cast iron) and when it's hot add in 1 Tbs of olive oil.
Sear the pork loin on all sides until it's browned (I cook it about 3 minutes per side on a medium high heat.)
Take the roast from the pan and put it on a plate, to cool.

Put a rack in a roasting pan.
Lay 3 rosemary sprigs, 4 thyme sprigs and 4 sage sprigs lengthwise on the rack.
In a small bowl mix together the finely chopped shallots, Dijon mustard and 1 Tbs of olive oil.
Mix this together well.
Spread this mixture on the top and sides of the pork loin.

Lay the roast fat side up on the bed of herbs in the roasting pan.

Roast the pork loin on the middle rack in the oven for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, take the rest of the herbs, put them in a bowl with 1 Tbs of olive oil and coat them.
After an hour take the pork roast out and lay the oil coated herbs on top of the roast.
Pop it back in the oven and cook for another 10  minutes or so.
The roast is done when the meat thermometer reads 145 degrees.
Let the meat rest for about 25 minutes before cutting it.
The meat will be moist due to it's little coat of mustard and herbs.
 
I wish I had a picture of the finished roast to show you but it tends to disappear.
Meanwhile, I leave you with this iris.

Coming up next, I really am going to stuff that cauliflower like a chicken. Promise. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

An Appetizer For Al's Big Day. The Dehydrator Finally Pays Off

   I don't exactly remember where I first saw a dehydrator advertised. It was either on a  Late Night TV infomerical, the kind of show where they feature stuff "Not Sold In Stores", such as Pilates machines that hook onto the doorknob, and make-up made of special mineral dirt. Quick aside here, there is a store that sells this kind of stuff. It's called the As Seen On TV Store and I actually visited one once in Santa Barbara, California.

   So, I might have seen it there, or perhaps it was on Doomsday Preppers, you know, that show where people demonstrate how prepared they are for the Last Days. As everyone knows, if there's one rock solid accessory everyone needs for Armegeddon, it's a dehydrator. How else to preserve your neighbors flesh after you've killed him in hand-to-hand combat over a stray Guinea Pig both of you had your eye on.

   Ok, so say it's not that complicated. Dehydrators are perfect for preserving Summer's bounty for use later in the year. In my case that would be tomatoes. During tomato season here in Sonoma, the most delicious, succulent fruit are available for what seems like too short a period of time. A dehydrator solves that problem. A few hours in that little machine, sealing in a vacuum bag and wham bam, you're set for those long Winter months. If you want tomatoes in January, just bust them out, rehydrate them in water or olive oil and you are in business. It's that simple. In fact, there's a quick tutorial right here.

   It actually took me quite a while to take advantage of all the tomatoes I dried up last Summer, but this weekend I put them to good use when my dad had a birthday party. As I mentioned before, I was faced with a wide variety of stuff that his party guests could eat, or rather not eat, since all of them were octo or nona-genarions It was like a giant food obstacle course. My dad is a first generation Italian American and so were his guests. Settling on something they would all eat and were used to, there was only one choice, Italian food.
  
   I prepared an herb crusted Tuscan style Pork Loin...

Clay Pot No Stir Ploenta, with Porcini Marsala Mushroom sauce and fresh, spring asparagus pan-roasted and drizzled with olive oil. I baked some Artisan Bread and I started the whole thing off with a simple salad of mozzarella, basil and those dehydrated/rehydrated tomatoes.

Sun Dried Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

Here's What You Need:

1 package of fresh mozzarella ovals
1/2 cup of sun dried tomatoes
a bunch of fresh basil leaves
ground pepper
extra virgin oilve oil

Here's What To Do:

Rehydrate the dehydrated tomatoes by placing them in a jar of olive oil.

Put the jar in the fridge for about 24 hours.
As you see, I'm using an old Mezzetta Peppers jar. I never throw small jars like this away. Paula Wolfert told me several years ago that keeping a stock of them really comes in handy for exactly these sorts of projects.
Take the tomatoes out of the jar and dice them up.

Take several basil leaves and slice them in thin strips. Set them aside.
Place a large basil leaf on a salad plate. Place two small ovals of mozzarella on each leaf.
Scatter a mixture of the shredded basil and diced sun dried tomatoes on each oval of mozzarella.
Give each plate a couple of grinds of pepper.
Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the cheese and basil on each plate.
Serve it up.
 
   Of course, when there's a birthday party there has to be cake. Chocolate cake with a chocolate mousse filling.

He blew his candle out.

And whoa..what's that? It lit up again. Trick candle. Alan put one on my cake last month.

So Al did what any badass ex fireman  would do.

So much for trick candles.

   Everybody had a great time. Stories about the old days were told, lots of laughs, good food and White Zin (wine lovers, don't even ask). We wanted to make his first birthday party without Fran a good one. He went home with left over cake and armfuls of presents,
 
   Coming up next, back to Indian food and I stuff (yes, stuff)  a cauliflower. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Tasty Little Gujia, Holi Treats Great For Any Holiday Table. Baked Not Fried

  
   The last few weeks I've been feeling sort of like a car that's been up on blocks getting a full makeover in someone's driveway. In short I've been getting all the medical work/checkups/tests/etc done that I've neglected for the last year while we were taking care of Fran. This kind of stuff does not necessarily put me in a great mood. I've been poked, prodded, x-rayed and compressed, so far so good, just a couple more checkups and I'm done for this year. Meanwhile we've been trying to catch up with the work we're supposed to be doing, celebrating Easter, and this weekend I'm throwing a birthday party for my dad.

   Most of the time my dad never got a birthday party for his very own. Sometimes, his birthday was on Easter or his anniversary, and just got overshadowed by other family celebrations. Also, Fran was never a big one for birthday parties. When asked her age she'd usually just answer, "I'm older than dirt". Happy freakin' birthday to you. So this is sort of a unique event. I'm trying to throw a genuine shindig. The way I calculate it, the compiled ages of all the guests puts us at something a bit short of a millenium. Never mind the Spotify playlist for this event, coming up with the menu for this is gonna take a bit of "creativity."  With this crowd, imagine any food allergy or aversion that anyone you might know has and then  multiply it by say, a zillion.

  There's the guy who can't have nuts and the lady who won't eat any green vegetables for a reason you just don't want to hear but she'll tell you anyway, most graphically. (Note to self: Can one make a Mojito with Metamucil?) Then there are the ones who won't eat salad, and the ones who will but only if it's got iceberg lettuce, something I think I haven't eaten since I moved out of my parents house.  And then there's the lady who needs to sit on phone books at the table (Note to self: try and find phone books before this weekend) because she's very, very, very, short.  So, while tallying the list of "dos" and "don'ts" for this party and trying to come up with a menu that makes everybody happy, I've been amusing myself with something that makes me happy, and that's a delicious Indian dessert.

   So last weekend I decided to make a batch of Gujia, the deliciously sweet little fried Indian turnover cookies traditionally served during the Holi celebration. Note, that these treats are traditionally fried. Fried, considering what I'd been indulging in at my birthday party the week before didn't seem like such a fabulous idea, so I wondered if these cookies could be made a bit healthier. When I went searching, I discovered that I wasn't the only one who wanted to Eat My Gujia and not Fry Them Too. A lot of people did. I was not alone.

   As it turns out there are more ways than one to bake a Gujia. Some people bake them, some people bake them then brush them with a sugar syrup. I decided to split the difference. I brushed the gujia with a bit of melted butter before baking and then sprinkled each of them with a pinch of sugar. Sweet, but not too sweet, just right.

Baked Gujia

Here's What You Need:

1 cup of pastry flour, or whole wheat pasty flour
1 Tbs semolina flour
2 Tbs of melted butter or ghee
1/3 cup of water
1/4 cup of ricotta
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp of ground cardamom
1/8 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup of dried unsweetened grated coconut
sugar for sprinkling
melted ghee for brushing

Here's What To Do: 

Mix the pastry flour, salt and semolina together.
Rub the melted butter or ghee into the flour mixture.
Add the water slowly, until you have a nice soft dough.
Knead it with a bit more flour until it becomes pliable and you can work with it easily.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with a damp cloth and set it aside for about 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a kadhai or pot, mix together the ricotta, sugar and coconut.

Heat the mixture slowly for 8 minutes or so, and keep mixing it so it doesn't stick.
Take the pan off the heat and add in the apricots and cardamom.

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Lightly grease the parchment paper.

Making the Gujia:
 
Divide the dough into small balls.
Roll each ball of dough into a small circle as though rolling chapattis.
Place a tablespoon of the coconut, ricotta, apricot filling into the center of each circle.
Fold the pastry circles in half.

Seal the edges and press them together with the tines of a fork.

Place the gujia onto the cookie sheet, brush each with a bit of melted butter and a pinch of sugar and bake them for about 10 minutes or until they turn a nice golden color. You may need to bake them a bit longer, depending on the speed of your oven.

 When they're done let them cool on a raised baking tray.

Serve them up with a nice hot cup of chai.

   No, these are not fried and you will not get that crunchy fried feeling in your mouth. You will also not get that horrible guilty fried feeling in your gut after indulging. And yes, we indulged. This recipe makes about 20 gujia, Next morning there were 2 left. Need I say more?
 
   Coming up next, there's a cauliflower giving me the hairy eyeball and daring me, just daring me to make my move. That's next. Follow along at Twitter at @kathygori