Thursday, November 18, 2010

Ethnic Experimentation

As promised, almost 1 week to the day, I am, as we speak, cooking the curry recipe with the substitution of lamb instead of chicken. AND I informed my landlords of my cooking intention. AND I put the slow cooker outside. AND I used a different potato (red skinned vs baker) in the hopes of the potato melding more with the body of the curry. Is that even a legitimate description? The body of the curry?. It does seem to take on a persona of it's own. A legitimate being...maybe even celestial? I'll know by 6:30am tomorrow when I venture outside to reclaim my crockpot from the elements. Hopefully the "warming" function accounts for 0 degrees and the dampness of west coast winters. If not, I'll expect to find rare lamb with raw potatoes and a curry sauce base that's just itching for 8 hours of cooking at extremely low temps. I'll probably still take it for lunch though in true foodist style.
I ended up using bone-in lamb steaks. The grocery store had that or a butt roast joint. I had talked at length with a co-worker and fellow foodie, C-A, earlier and she knew her lamb cuts. She suggested shoulder for this dish. And it had to be from New Zealand. Australian lamb is apparently more mutton-y. And I just made a new word up. I could not determine the origin of my steaks but they had the bone in, looked solid enough for the job and were, in my opinion, looking mighty appetising, even in their clingwrap enclosed, styrofoam infused raw-ness. Can you go wrong with lamb at all, though? Even if you overcook it, it's rich flavour and, well, general richness will endure the most inexperienced of wannabe chef's lack of knowledge and experience.
Anyway,I digress, I made the base curry sauce as the recipe dictated. Again I was reminded how good this would be for a base stove top curry. That's next on the list. I never measure amounts with spices,despite the recipe "suggestions". I know which spices are overbearing, subtle or fireworks in your mouth and so I usually use a combination of two foodist techniques...guesstimation and " just throw it in, it'll taste great, recipes are just a guide, right?".

It all smelled amazing once everything was in one pan. I texted my landlords living above and put the extractor fan on, just as a precaution. Curry sauce was made, I assembled the dish and then respectfully placed it outside to cook at low heat for about 8 hours. I will awake tomorrow to a snow scene with a crock pot in the middle....Heaven!
Check back in a few days for the review of the lamb experiment...hopefully minus eviction due to excessive crock pot usage.

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