Curry: The Magic Spice

Tags

apple, balogna., cayenne, corriander, dill, ginger, green pepper, ham, mystery spice, paprika, raisins, teenage carrots, thyme, tumeric, two brands of curry, zuchinni

I’ve never been a big curry eater. I do love spicy foods, but the opportunities to eat curry around here have been limited to “East Indian” nights at the Shadow Lawn Inn or an Inddia Independance Day dinner held in the basement of a Milledgeville church. This has been partly due to kids who have been put off spices by their spice eating father as well as by parents who are too embarassed to take their stuck up kids anywhere public.

But I digress.

This past year I’ve had opportunity to sample curry fare at a couple of local Thai restaurants. Why the insurgance of Thai restaurants, I don’t know. I think maybe Italian, bad steak, and Central American samplings have run their courses.

Thandi’s doesn’t claim to be Thai, and I’ve never seen Thai people there, I don’t think. Being an Atlantic Canadian, I’m not sure what a Thai person even looks like. I think I met the owner’s wife — that’s what we assume around here, that owners are men — the night I was there waiting for our table, at the bar downstairs. It’s in an old brick building downtown on one of the old brick streets. This building seems to be the heartbeat of taste for the city. It used to be home to two different Italian restaurants, but Italians here carry about the same status as Thais do, maybe even worse.

Sorry, stil digressing.

Suwanna’s is on the west side of the river in a residential neighbourhood next door to a funeral parlour. It also seems owned by Atlanatic Canadian WASP males but maybe a bit younger. At least there were no old wrinkly women there that looked like owners’ wives. And again, there were no Thais in sight.

I’ll describe the food: it tastes like curry. They have every type of curry dish imaginable. One place had buttered chicken curry that sounded dreamy, and I tried several dishes at both. Apparently other people at our tables were just as curious as I was to sample this new Thai food.

I wasn’t disappointed with either place, but I wasn’t overwhelmed either, except by curry taste. I don’t mind curry, but well, I’m not Thai or Indian. I’m a Norwegian Irish blend that screams plain olde fish and potatoes. I think I liked the curry giner beef the best, but the buttered chicken was a close second.

I tried some curry dishes at home.

First I had to buy some curry. I went to the spice section of my grocery store, and found it sitting right there lots of it too. I realized right then and there that other people must be eating teh stuff, and I felt a little left behind. I also looked around for those elusive Thai people but no luck. Since I liked ginger the best, I bought some of that too. There were more curry jars than ginger jars. Curious indeed. *groan*

So I’ve made several dishes now. I like a simple dish I call asparagus scrambled eggs. It’s pretty simple: chop some asparagus, sauté it in olive oil, cover it in spice, and when it’s almost done, pour in three mixed eggs. It’s too runny to keep a shape, so you have no choice but to make scrambled eggs. I’ve made this at least a half a dozen times this spring, and it hasn’t turned out bad yet.

But it does stink up the house.

My biggest enlightenment was learning that Curry Asparagus Scrambled Eggs (CASE) tasted almost exactly like Buttered Chicken (BC) and Curry Ginger Beef (CBB). The texture was different; eggs do that. But the dishes tasted pretty much the same to me.

I decided to experiment.

SO last night I threw everything in, and I mean everything. The base was Vermeulen Farms Asparagus. First off I didn’t plan this dish. It just happened. The asparagus was so crisp and so fresh and the stalks so stiff, I think it must have kicked off a testosterone rush. *oops* I realized that eggs weren’t going to sate me. I made mad dashes to the spice cupboard and the fridge and grabbed everything that looked good: zuchinni, green pepper, apple, ham, raisins, teenage carrots, ginger, two brands of curry, corriander, thyme, cayenne, dill, tumeric, paprika, a mystery spice, and some balogna.

I stirred it all into my caste iron pan and slapped a cover on it. Some time later, after a few turns, I poured it on a large plate. I sat down and pondered my questions:
– would it be edibale?
– would it taste any different than CASE, BC, or CBB?

The answers are yes and no with one minor exception. The balogna tasted like Slig. I will not experiment with it anymore. I’ll stick to frying it plain, a good olde Newfoundland Steak.

I did eat it all and I did enjoy it.