Asian Coconut Curry Sauce

Asian Coconut Curry Sauce? I just made this name up last night (actual date of post is 2014). I have been making this sauce for over 15 years and have finally decided to write it down. Over the years I have made several variants and versions of this incredible sauce that include many Asian herbs, spices and veggies. The recipe that I have decided to write down is my base version.

There are other herbs/spices and veggies that go great with my recipe but it's entirely up to you what you add. In fact feel free to change the amounts in the original recipe to create your own. I do this every-time I make it.

ASIAN COCONUT CURRY SAUCE

1 can of coconut milk (13-15 oz)

1/2 cup of Canola oil
1/2 cup of Honey

1/3 cup of Fish sauce
1/2 cup of Curry powder
1 Tbl + 1 tsp of Coriander
1 Tbl + 1 tsp of Cumin
1 Tbl + 1 tsp of Garlic Powder (or fresh)
Cayenne powder (optional for heat)
Use a blender to combine everything. 

The above dish contains fresh ginger, green onion and Cilantro too. Again the my recipe is a base sauce that can be used for stir fry, marinade, or just a plain sauce your food with.

I used my all time favorite meat "Skirt Steak".

In a previous blog titled Skirt Steak I discussed in detail everything you ever

wanted to know about skirt steak and probably some tidbits that might have caught you by surprise.  

You can certainly use other meats. I love using Chicken thighs/Breasts for making Asian BBQ skewers. You could also use Flat- Iron steaks too if you could not find skirt steak. In fact if you wanted you could go vegetarian and not use any meat but that would be sacrilege in my house. I gotta have my meat!!!

My list of ingredients that could accentuate your dish. 

• Chilies - There are large chilies, medium chilies, bird's eye chilies, and dried bird's eye chilies. The hotness of the chili is mostly in the pepper's inner tissues. If you are not used to cooking with chilies, cut out this part. You will still get the flavor of the chili but not the hotness.

• Chinese Chives - Generally, the chives that we buy are the European chives. The Chinese chive is more pungent. For cooking, the chives are bought fresh then chopped whole, flowers and all, and used in stir fries and spring rolls.

• Cinnamon (and Cassia Bark) - Know that what you buy in an American supermarket may not be cinnamon although it is labeled as such. It is most likely cassia bark. True cinnamon is from Sri Lanka, in Asian markets and it is labeled as 'cinnamomum zeylanicum' - for Asian cooking, purchase it in rolled up quills rather than ground - they are more flavorful and will last longer. Cassia bark is related to cinnamon and comes from other parts of the world. It is usually used in large pieces for flavoring and then it can be easily picked out of the dish. Cinnamon is always preferred for sweet dishes.

• Fresh Coriander (aka cilantro) - In American markets you may have to ask for fresh cilantro. The more mature plants, used in Asian cooking, are usually found in Asian supermarkets. For Thai cooking, the roots, leaves and stalks are used for green curry paste. In Indian and Chinese cooking, just the leaves are preferred.

• Curry Leaves - A must in Indian cooking. Can be used fresh or dried.

• Fenugreek - The fresh leaves are used rather extensively in Indian cooking. The dried leaves are called 'methi.'

• Galangal - You may see this rhizome in a market and think it is ginger. It is important to know the difference - the galangal appears to have a series of rings around it, fresh ginger is smoother. This rhizome gives an aromatic bitterness to Thai dishes and is known as 'ka' in Thai markets. Better to buy it dried.

• Ginger - This rhizome is very commonly known and is sold in all markets now. It is highly recommended that you use only fresh ginger - the flavor and aroma are well worth it! It is used universally in Asian cooking (nice to peel, chop and boil to scent the house, too).

• Kaffir Lime Leaves - These fragrant leaves are found in Thai markets. They can be used whole, or shredded and mixed into a paste.

• Limes -  In cooking valued for acidity, juice and zest. Great in marinades. 

• Lemongrass - This is one of the essential ingredients in Thai cooking that is now found here in Thai markets and sometimes in specialty markets. It gives a citrus like sourness to Thai dishes.

• Star Anise - Easily found in American supermarkets, this dried star-shaped fruit is a member of the magnolia family. It has a pronounced aniseed flavor and can be used whole or ground. It is native to China.

• Thai Basil - Because there are at least 3 kinds of basil used in Thai cooking, it is important to buy the right one for your dish as they all taste different.

Spices Used in Asian Cooking:

• Cardamons (green) - Green cardamons are native to Southern India but are now grown throughout tropic areas. To give a subtle flavor to a dish, remove the cardamons before serving.

• Cloves - Easily found in all American supermarkets, cloves are used in most parts of Asia in both sweet, and savory dishes. Remove whole cloves before serving a dish.

• Coriander - Ground coriander is easily found in American supermarkets. In Asian markets it can be found in seed form. The seeds are dry-roasted before using. The ground coriander will lose its fragance if it is stored too long. Only dry-roast what you need for a recipe.

• Cumin - There is white cumin and there is black cumin (Nigella). White cumin is easily found in the market both in seed form and ground. White cumin is used in Southeast Asia. It is usually roasted, ground and used in curry paste. (See black cumin, Nigella, below).

• Fenugreek seeds - Very popular in curry pastes in Southern Indian cooking.

• Five-spice - It usually consists of: cassia, star anise, fennel seeds, anise pepper, some may have cloves as one of the ingredients. This mix is known for being aromatic and not hot.

• Nigella - Nigella is black cumin. Indian cooks usually prefer this cumin to the white cumin. It too, is found in seed form and is then usually roasted, ground, and mixed in curry paste. This is my favorite thing to add to chili.  

• Seven-spice - Seven-spice is also known as Japanese shichimi. It is a blend of fragrant spices that include: tangerine peel, poppy and sesame seeds and seaweed flakes. A hot blend of Seven-spice would include ginger and sansho pepper.

• Turmeric - the warm yellow color of this spice makes us think of saffron - but it definitely cannot be a substitute. Turmeric is sold all over the US and adds a distinctive flavor to Asian festival dishes.

• Sesame seed oil -I would be remiss if I did not include this.  I love this stuff.

Mix and match all the Asian sauces and spices.

LEMON GRASS

Kaffir Lime Leaves

STAR ANISE

GINGER

GREEN ONIONS

CARDOMAN

NIGELLA SEEDS

Galangal

Doshers Gochugang-Mayo-Sauce

This sauce is the Bomb. This sauce has many uses and I will attemt to capture just a few below. As some of you know I Sous-Vide a lot and this sauce makes a great schmear for searing. Not all but many use mayo for their grilled cheese sandwiches because of it's ability to act as a conduit for heat transfer. The flavors and sugar content makes everything brown up every well too. It's also a great dipping sauce too. It's awesome on Buffalo wings and just about everything. Easy to assemble and only takes 5 minutes if that.

Note-This sauce is great for hot wings too. Just make sure to add lots of butter and kick it up more with sriracha. What I would do? I would melt butter in pan and add sauce and adjust to make the perfect wing sauce. I would also add some acid too like Lime juice or rice wine vinegar to kick up the acid levels.

Examples of recent dishes…..

These Flat-Iron steak was SV and topped with the sauce for the sear. They were Faux-Aged with Fish-Salt and Warm-Aged too.

Sliced extremely thin…

Covered in sauce….

Beef Lettuce wrap………

Sous-Vide Chicken thighs……Sv @ 140 𝓕º for 3 hours….Topped with sauce for the sear. 

Indian Butter Pickles

So over the last year or so I have been playing around with pickling and fermentation. Learning about pickling and fermentation takes time, study and of course experimentation. Seeing how I still work, have a family and other culinary hobbies this is going to take a very long time. What I lack in time I make up for in tenacity. I'm just beginning to understand all the basics and the Do's and Don'ts. I own several books on pickling and the creme de la creme on on fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz "The Art of Fermentation" Prior to these books I had a basic understanding of Hot Water Bath Canning, Pressure canning and canning in general. I even played around with sauces using a PH meter reader to ensure safety.

Like everyone else I started eating pickles as a kid. My first recollection of eating pickles takes me back to NYC on the corner of Essex and Delancey Street in New York City. That picture of the subway station is where my Mom and I would exit every weekend. Every weekend we would take the J train from Brooklyn to the lower East side of Manhattan to pay my Bubbe a visit. 

It was a weekend I always looked forward too. If you look closely we would exit the train station walk about 40 yards and turn right on to Delancey Street. Those pictures of course do not represent the time period I am talking about which would have been in the early 70's. After turning right on to Delancey Street there were a plethora of stores to accommodate our Jewish taste buds. Every stereotypical food was there to cherish, admire and buy. We had to walk from the subway station to my Bubbe's and along the way we always made a pit-stop at the pickle place on Delacney Street. When I say they had pickles I just don't mean Kosher Dills either. Everything was pickled. Besides the 15 plus barrels filled with everything they also had jars and jars. 

There's so many things to write about but I will keep this one short. We also paid homage to Katz's Deli which was located across the street from my Bubbe and Yonah Shimmel's Knish Bakery where I got my Black and White cookies from among other delicious things.

It's the middle of January and it's kind of hard to find cucumbers for pickling so I went with the English Cumbers for my butter pickles. Nice alternative for butter pickles.

While doing some research on pickling I came across a low pasteurization pickling approach and found this quite interesting. I wondered if I should use my Sous-Vide (Immersion Circulator aka IC) for this application. I checked with Chefsteps and low and behold they outline the whole process. My recipe is a modified version of theirs. Thanks Chefsteps!!!  Read Chef-Steps version here......





This is right from Chef-steps and I thought it was important to post here...... this is their work not mine. 
Again Thank you Chef-Steps

"Are these quick pickles really shelf stable? Can you ask your resident mathematician/food safety expert/all around nice guy Douglas Baldwin to explain?

Here's Douglas:

“Food pathogens don’t grow if it’s too hot or too cold, too acidic or too basic, too sugary, too salty, too spicy, too smoky, and so on. Pickle recipes are too acidic for pathogens. These recipes add acid; others use fermentation. While salt and sugar make it harder for pathogens to thrive, it’s the vinegar on its own that makes the pickles shelf stable. Since vinegar takes a while to kill the pathogens, we add a cooking step to make them safe right away.

“Distilled 5 percent white vinegar, at about 2.6 pH, is very acidic. Food pathogens can’t grow below 4.0 pH, and vinegar is 25 times more acidic than this. (The pH scale is logarithmic, so 3.0 pH is 10 times more acidic than 4.0 pH.) Cooking or pasteurizing the pickles kills the pathogens that can grow below 4.6 pH, and the vinegar in this recipe is 100 times more acidic than this. For taste and safety, our brines are 38 percent and 44 percent vinegar. So as the brine diffuses into the fruits and vegetables, it quickly acidifies them to below 4.0 pH, and so no food pathogens can grow. Since no food pathogens can grow, the pickles are safe to store in your cupboard.”

The following recipe is a guide line so add, subtract or concoct what every suits your taste buds. I would suggest not changing the Vinegar Water ratios for safety reasons. 

This recipe is estimated to work with 9 one quart Jars. Make sure the jars are clean thoroughly and you're using new seals. 

7 English Cumbers sliced on a Mandoline filled 9 jars. Using a mandoline ensures consistency too so use one if you have one on hand. 

Bring the following ingredients up to 140 f degrees. Whisk until dissolved.

2000 grams of Water (I use filtered water)

2000 grams of 5% White Vinegar or any vinegar that is at least 5%

300 grams of White Sugar Which equates to 7.5% of total weight of the Water and Vinegar

100 grams of Pickling or Canning Salt which equates to 2.5% (using Pickling or Canning salt dissolves into liquids easily). 

To Each Jar Add... or what ever you want.

A few Tejpatta Leaves (.4 grams)
1-2 Dried Kashmiri Chilly (2-3 grams)
1 tsp Kala Jeera (Black Cumin 2-2.5 grams)
2-3 Dry Curry Leaves (.15-.20 grams)
2 tsp Black Mustard Seeds (7 grams)
1tbsp Coriander (4-5 grams)
2 Long Chinese Pepper (2 grams)
1 tsp Whole Cloves (1 gram)
1 tsp Celery Seed (1 gram)
1-2 crushed garlic cloves
2-3 Slices of Jalapeno
2-4 Slices Multi Colored Sweet Peppers

  

Fill jars with half of the cucumber slices and give it a shake. Toss in the rest packing them fairly tight. Leave about 3/4 of an inch at the top and fill with the heated brine stopping a 1/2 inch from the top. 

This post is not not intended to instruct you on how to CAN so I would suggest you read up on the subject. 

Put lids on jars and twist until finger tip tight. If you put the lids on to firmly the air will not be able to escape and the jars could shatter or crack. 

Process using the Immersion Circulator at 145 f degrees for 2.5- 3 hours. Eat after about a week. 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Old-Fashioned-Fermented-Garlic-Dill-Pickles/

Russian Stout Mustard

This is very similar to my Bourbon Barrel Stout Mustard.  After drinking this beer I knew I had to make mustard from this Russian Stout. Heck I am mostly Russian by blood so why not a mustard by yours truly.

Like many of my other mustard recipes SEE HERE everything starts out with seeds and a liquid. I won't go into a lot of details here because this is so similar to my Gingerbread Stout Mustard.  

Place beer and seeds in a bowl, give it a stir and place in refrigerator for 3 days. After three days place all ingredients in a food processor or in my case a vitamix. Add just enough water to help the blades process the seeds and and give it the texture you want. This is different for everyone. 

Note: there is no measurement for water. Depending on how much liquid the seeds absorbed the water content changes.

All done...

Note: In the Bourbon Barrel Beer Mustard I had use only 60 grams of Apple Cider Vinegar which created a Ph of 4.3 which was perfect for hot water bath canning. With the Russian Stout Mustard the Ph was averaging 4.68-4.72 so in order to CANN properly I added another 30 grams of Vinegar (Total of 90 grams) to bring it down to acceptable levels. For more details on how to can CLICK HERE.

Moroccan Mustard

I love Moroccan Food! So I decided to make a mustard using the traditional spices that are used to create this incredible cuisine. I own three Tajines which should tell you how much I love this food. 


Before I dive into the recipe and only if your interested take a look at some of my previous posts to understand more about mustard.

Combine and stir the mustard seeds with the Vinegar and the first Water listed in the recipe which would be 600 g. Cover and let sit for about 36-48 hours in the refrigerator. Note: Adding vinegar in the beginning will produce a less pungent mustard. If you want a pungent mustard add the Vinegar at the end with the rest of the ingredients. 

Let's talk about the other ingredients. When possible I like use whole spices but you don't have too. If you bought them whole make sure to grind them in a spice mill. Anyhow combine all the spices in a bowl and set aside. Measure out the sugar and honey in separate bowls. Note: I soak the bottle holding the Honey in hot water so it will pour easily and will combine with the rest of the ingredients with ease. Grab yourself a big ass blender and blend the seeds to your desired viscosity. Start adding the Spices, Sugar and Honey and water which is listed at the end of the recipe. Start adding the additional water listed at the end of the recipe to get the desired thickness. You may end up adding less or more depending on what you want. Let the mustard sit for a day or two in a bowl refrigerated and then test. How does it taste? Adjust from here. More Sugar, Honey Salt or whatever.  

Now on to the bottling or jarring of the mustard. I heated the mustard using a double boiler to 165 F degrees. After the mustard was heated through it was scooped into 6 oz jars and capped off. This is called hot packing. Note: the caveat to Water Bath Canning is the Ph has to be below 4.6.  After they were capped off the mustard was submerged into boiling water for about 15 minutes. Most recipes call for 10 minutes but I added five more minutes because during the hot packing I did not bring to a boil. Note: Heating the mustard will continue to mellow the mustard. I wanted the Moroccan flavors to come through. Note: you do not need to heat or hot pack or for that matter can. Just scoop the mustard into the jars and place in refrigerator. Again heating the mustard will create a less punject more mellow tasting condiment. 

Review- Simply delicious. Adding the vinegar in beginning really paid off. Of course heating the mustard also helped mellow the flavors. All the Moroccan flavors came through. This mustard could be used in many many applications. First thing I thought of was lamb.