Sunday, February 7, 2010

I.AM.CHEF.

I don't normally cook. Mon pere is the most amazing chef around, and we eat delicious, innovative, healthy meals almost every day. There has been little need for me to create my own meals; all i do is taste and eat and comment. It is a lovely existence. But whenever i am living on my own, as i do every few months, i realize just what kind of crappy junk i mindlessly pour into my body when no one is there to remind me to do differently. I eat box after box of mac and cheese, bag after bag of perogies, endless hamburgers and when i start to feel listless, i eat a salad.
That has started to change. This summer, i started discovering my dad's Jamie Oliver cookbooks, and they gave me ideas. Instead of frozen pizza, i would try a new kind of fresh tomato sauce with my pasta. When I was tempted to drag the summer boy-of-the-month out for McDonald's, i would make crunchy garlic lemon chicken. From scratch. (Well, not literally. I didn't kill the chicken, or pluck it, or grow the lemon tree or pull the garlic. But you know what I mean.) Now, even when i come home exhausted from a long day of school, then work, i have found enjoyment in opening up a cookbook, getting an idea, and tailoring it to meet our fridge's contents.
I don't normally write about food. I love food; i am inherently a gastrophile, but good food is more like breathing to me...I don't think about it. But yesterday, under my dad's tutelage, I made the most breath-takingly delicious green curry I have ever had. And trust me, I know curry. Not only do we have curry at least once a week, but I attended a cooking school in Chang Mai, Thailand. And this one beat them all.
Here is the loose recipe. I don't measure things precisely, and as always, tailor the ingredients and amounts to fit your fridge and the taste.
One large onion, chopped quite small. Toss it into a large frying pan with some oil, and start frying at medium heat.
Add one large sliced carrot to the pan.
Once the onion has started to soften, add one red pepper, diced and sliced.
Then about 2 heaping tablespoons fresh finely chopped ginger
Then about 1 1/2 heaping tablespoons green curry paste.
1 tablespoon fish oil (it's gross, but necessary)
2 tablespoons brown sugar.
1 juiced lime
Fry and mix around until one or two of the pieces of onion are lightly browned. Not too long as you want the peppers to be crisp, the carrots to be half crisp, but long enough for the onions to be not crunchy.
Add one can coconut milk.
Then some frozen shrimp.
Simmer lightly until shrimp is hot all the way.
It is spicy, sweet, sour, and absolutely delicious. Maybe it was a fluke. But i like to believe otherwise.

1 comment:

  1. We truly are spoiled in terms of the way we eat on a daily basis thanks to our fathers.
    OH YUM!
    This post (and thai curry) makes me so happy!!!

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