Preamble: I got a carton of coconut milk and a package of shredded (but, alas, sweetened) coconut. At the Holy Land in Midtown Market, I got a lot of tumeric and cumin. And I picked up a pound each of goat and lamb. I'll have to cut off a lot of fat, so together I may have a pound or so of meat.. Plan is to make A Concoction ala Romm (ie NO ADDED SALT w/ginger, garlic and cilantro; I usually use a LOT of these, but this time didn't emphasize them due to the curry.
Sorry if this is more of a narrative than a recipe. That's how I roll.
Step 1: Make a lot of quinoa. I generally make three cups (w/six cups of water) at a time. This lasts for a long time. Regular elbow macaroni was tempting, but what the heck.
Step 2: Cut the lamb and goat meat. I will eventually brown these. (Wow, is goat ever hard to trim! If I use goat again, I'll get cubes or something. The lamb was better, but still fatty. I'm really tempted to add a pound or so of ground beef, just to make The Concoction meat-heavy. In retrospect, I should have.)
Step 3: cut up veggies.
Half an onion (left over)
A fair amount (probably half a pound each) of two different mushrooms. One are baby bellas. The other is similar, but I forget the name.
A red pepper
Three jalepeño peppers
Four asparagus
Four scallions
Some cilantro
A couple of minced garlic cloves
Step four: Brown the meat. I used grapeseed oil and a little hot chili oil, plus a few chopped garlic cloves
Step five: Concoction! In a six-quart pot...
Three 18.7 oz cans Tomato Basil Bisque
Two soup cans coconut milk
7 oz flake coconut
Two Romana tomatoes
Lots of turmeric
Lots of cumin
Bay leaf
Some cayenne pepper
Here is where I added the major amount of cilantro, garlic and ginger
Add the browned meat.
Heat until bubbling, then turn it down to a simmer.
During heating phase, taste. I kept adding turmeric and cumin until it tasted like a curry
Step 6: Make toast.
Step 7: Serve Concoction over quinoa, with toast side
Result: Yum!
Post Mortem:
I think everything worked pretty well... except for the goat. Despite my best efforts, the goat chunks were fatty and gristly
I was going to add some chia, but forgot. Don't think it made a difference.
The coconut milk experiment was a bit of a dud. It was okay, but didn't really add to the flavor and just served to dilute the tomato soup (which is what I wanted). Carole thought using the yogurt was better.
Carole, who had never tasted coconut curry before, said the previous batch was better. More meat, less soup, served over noodles. And because I used so much turmeric and cumin and not many ancillary spices, it wasn't as complex. Okay, I can live with that.
For next time: Use more meat (the 1.34 lbs of ground meat is sufficient), yogurt, play with spices. I'll experiment with using turmeric and/or cumin as a sub-flavor. Is that possible?
Hope you (plural) don't mind me posting these now and again. Might as well have a record.
