Hap­py 2008!

Would some­one please remind me of my New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion? That is, please to refrain from putting EVERY sin­gle poul­try car­cass that emerges from my kitchen into a stock­pot, cov­er­ing it with water and putting it into my “larder,” the space out­side my gar­den door? Because guess what? If I put, say, a turkey leg that was, after serv­ing as a love­ly din­ner, into such a stock­pot and then leave for a week for Christ­mas, and then come back and for­get it’s there for anoth­er four days… it is an unlove­ly thing. It does seem a ter­ri­ble waste sim­ply to chuck the leg bone into the bin and con­sign it to obliv­ion, but it is prefer­able, on the whole, to dis­pos­ing of its mouldy incar­na­tion 10 days lat­er. Wel­come home to me.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself: did you ever see such a love­ly hydrangea- near­ly-on-fire? It was­n’t real­ly. But there were some crack­ly moments that gave us pause, and there was, as well, quite a lot of wax in my hair when all was said and done, my hav­ing suc­cumbed to the sheer beau­ty and sat for a long time on the bench you see here where Avery perched for the pre­cise num­ber of sec­onds required for the pho­to and then scarpered. This was two nights after Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut, two days of rain, unfor­tu­nate­ly, so that John’s and my valiant attempts to light the can­dles were thwart­ed for quite some time. We near­ly exhaust­ed three of those tur­bo lighter thingys I love so much. But it was worth it, was­n’t it? For over two hours the can­dles burned, we took pic­tures and oohed and ahhed, and Anne came across the road to admire. She, John and I stood there, our feet grow­ing ever cold­er, just gaz­ing at the flames and wax­ing philo­soph­i­cal about the mean­ing of life. John’s mom came out to join the admir­ing throng, as did Avery and Grand­pa Jack, but not for long. They suc­cumbed to the tem­per­a­ture, and final­ly Anne and John did too, and I just sat on the bench among and under the can­dles, try­ing to fig­ure out a way to cap­ture the seren­i­ty and qui­et and glo­ry, and car­ry it inside with me. Maybe even a way to bring it all back to Lon­don, where seren­i­ty is a com­mod­i­ty rather thin on the ground.

Love­ly! And the next day we trekked up the mead­ow on the oth­er side of the big red barn and vis­it­ed the bench we acquired from a dona­tion to the South­bury Land Trust. What do you give the man who has every­thing (John’s dad)? Why not a bench to ben­e­fit the Trust, with “John’s Dad’s Bench” writ­ten on a love­ly bronze plaque on its back? That worked as a gift. We all sat and drank in the gor­geous views from all sides. The bench is sit­u­at­ed in the mid­dle of an enor­mous mead­ow, pre­cise­ly between the only two trees to grace the expanse: two love­ly old gnarled apple trees (some rot­ten spec­i­mens on the ground attest to their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, so we’ll have to vis­it some autumn). What was it about this hol­i­day and the mean­ing of life bit? We med­i­tat­ed on that again, while Avery iden­ti­fied win­ter fairies in all the sparkling bits of ice and snow cling­ing to the branch­es. Why not find a spot and a wor­thy recip­i­ent your­selves and be a bet­ter per­son for your dona­tion? I bet your town has a Land Trust too. “I’ve got a lit­tle piece of immor­tal­i­ty now,” John’s dad glowed. Oops, I just typed “immoral­i­ty,” and had to cor­rect it. That sounds like more fun than immor­tal­i­ty, actu­al­ly. But I get his point.

We had an inor­di­nate­ly busy week at “home,” much of which is a blur to me now after three days back “home.” You see the schiz­o­phrenic nature of my life. We came home to face the mas­sive job of unpack­ing all the glo­ri­ous Christ­mas presents (the day spent with Jill, Joel and Jane, along with my fam­i­ly, was quite PER­FECT, how we miss every­one). Then the New Year’s Day “Ride to Buck­ing­ham Palace” with Avery’s sta­ble. An annu­al tra­di­tion not to be missed. It’s so touch­ing to see it all unfold again: the pro­ces­sion­al down the Mall, the cross to the Palace, all the tourists tak­ing pic­tures of our love­ly girls. And Avery near­ly iden­ti­cal to her self a year ago, only… two inch­es taller! We have the mea­sur­ing marks in the Con­necti­cut kitchen to prove it. How is that possible?

Well, final­ly after ten days of cook­ing very tra­di­tion­al, Amer­i­can hol­i­day foods, I am pleased to offer you a tru­ly exot­ic recipe! Remem­ber a while ago I rec­om­mend­ed Vicky Bho­gal to you? Well, she’s real­ly proved her­self now. Last night I was long­ing for some­thing real­ly… not Amer­i­can. No gravy, no pota­toes, no turkey. Spices, that’s what I want­ed! And what I made was indeed spicy, not in a hot way, but in a fes­tive, flavour­ful way. The house smelled like an Indi­an restau­rant! It’s called a biryani, and while the recipe looks com­pli­cat­ed, and was a bit, let me share with you a slice of culi­nary wis­dom that I gained through my cook­ing. Your expe­ri­ence with this dish will be a smoother one, and less prone to intim­i­da­tion, I think, with this insight. Lis­ten, dear read­ers, and learn.

Pic­ture a gener­ic sort of… casse­role. In Amer­i­can cook­ing, it could be, say, tuna noo­dle casse­role. In Ital­ian, it could be, say, lasagna. In Greek cook­ing, it could be, say mous­sa­ka. But the gen­er­al idea is this: cook you up a starch and set it aside. Then cook you up a meaty thing and set it aside too. Now non­stick-spray a deep dish. Then lay­er the starch with the meat, bake it, and bob’s your uncle (or ahmed, lui­gi, con­stan­tin, or what­ev­er). And in Indi­an cook­ery, it’s… a biryani. I will explain.

The dish requires cooked rice, and cooked chick­en. Then you lay­er them and bake it all. It’s just that the ingre­di­ents look intim­i­dat­ing­ly for­eign, and the method unfa­mil­iar. But cast your mind back to the last time you made lasagna, and do not suc­cumb to fear. It’s the same thing, I promise. Only Indi­an. I’ve adapt­ed this recipe slight­ly to accom­mo­date a child’s taste buds, which do not accept whole spices. But you could leave them in if you felt brave.

Chick­en Biryani
(serves 8)

2 cups bas­mati rice
5 car­damom pods
5 whole cloves
1 tsp black pep­per­corns
1 bay leaf
1 stick cin­na­mon, snapped in half
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil (not olive, bet­ter sun­flower)
3 onions, fine­ly sliced
1/2 cup yogurt
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 1/2 tsps grat­ed fresh gin­ger
4 green chill­ies, fine­ly chopped

2 lb diced chick­en
1/4 cup chopped toma­toes
5 car­damom pods, slight­ly split
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cloves
dash fresh­ly ground pep­per
2 bay leaves
1 tsp ground cin­na­mon
2 tsps corian­der pow­der
1 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsps lemon juice
hand­ful chopped corian­der
large pinch saf­fron, soaked in 4 tbsps warm milk
but­ter for dotting

Now. I know that looks like a lot. But I’ve divid­ed the ingre­di­ents up into the cat­e­gories in which they’re cooked togeth­er. Pic­ture the rice and spices as the pota­toes in a mous­sa­ka, or the pas­ta in a lasagne. Then then onions and chick­en and such are the meat sauce. And the last bits are the parme­san cheese top­ping. Trust me.

So steam the rice with all the spices in it. Stop it cook­ing just before it’s ful­ly cooked, because it will cook fur­ther in the oven. Now, I myself removed the whole spices because Avery would nev­er eat them. But aside from the car­damom pods, one could eat them all. You decide. Set the rice aside.

Now brown the onions in a large skil­let until quite, quite brown. Save about 2 tbsps on a dish, and put the rest in a large bowl. Com­bine with the yogurt, gar­lic, gin­ger and chillies. 

Brown the diced chick­en in the onion skil­let for about five min­utes, and then add the yogurt mix­ture. Mix well, add all the oth­er ingre­di­ents down to the cin­na­mon and cook VERY VERY low for 30 min­utes. The oil will begin to sep­a­rate. This is good. Remove the bay leaves.

Now you’re ready to lay­er. Start with a chick­en lay­er, then a rice lay­er, then chick­en, then fin­ish with a rice lay­er. Spread with the remain­ing sliced browned onions, then sprin­kle the lemon juice over, the corian­der, then the saf­fron-milk mix­ture. Dot with but­ter, cov­er tight­ly with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

DELI­CIOUS. You should serve this dish with some fresh-made pap­pad­ums (noth­ing eas­i­er in the world: 90 sec­onds in the microwave on full pow­er: they’re like a mag­ic trick) and the appro­pri­ate gar­nished (I love cucum­ber rai­ta and lime pick­le, but choose your own), and a good side veg­etable. We end­ed up with sauteed pep­pers, but they were SO BOR­ING. I have to think of a bet­ter side, to mar­ry with such a com­fort­ing yet exot­ic main dish. Sug­ges­tions grate­ful­ly accepted.

***********************

Well, I have spent my sec­ond straight after­noon at “Enchant­ed,” for which I feel I deserve a prize although it’s enjoy­able. Per­fect for 10-year-old girls, maybe a bit too scary an end­ing for a lit­tle, lit­tle girl. And a cute sound­track, for which I’m grate­ful because I’m being forced now to lis­ten to it inter­minably on iTunes. So as a reward I shall repair to my cher­ished copy of “The Lord Peter Wim­sey Com­pan­ion,” THE Christ­mas gift from my ador­ing fam­i­ly. Only they know how much only I could love such a vol­ume. And I do.

So Hap­py New Year to you all, and may it be a healthy and pros­per­ous one!