Masala Kissed Rainbow Trout

In this neck of the woods, it is considered near criminal to “overpower” rainbow trout with flavours.

A mere hint of lemon and a pat of butter is the purist’s law when it comes to this delicate fish.  Some purists go so far as to brown the butter, which is considered edgy.  But I like my spices, and couldn’t resist.  This recipe involves some chopping, but otherwise it’s very easy to prepare.  This recipe is too much for two people, but I made it for us anyway.  A big eater would enjoy getting an entire fish to herself!

1 cup diced sweet potato

I cheated and used this!

1 long sweet red pepper, diced

½ small red onion, diced

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

2 Thai chillies, finely diced (or to taste)

1 teaspoon ginger, finely chopped

1 teaspoon garam masala

2 cleaned rainbow trout

½ teaspoon garam masala 

1 clove garlic, finely sliced 

½ teaspoon coarse salt

1 lemon, sliced into rounds

pats of butter, optional

Begin by chopping and slicing the onion, mushrooms, sweet red pepper, chillies, ginger and  sweet potato.  Be sure to dice the sweet potato as finely as possible, so that it can cook well, and even caramelize a bit if you are lucky.  (Mine were cooked but not caramelized; they were a bit too big.)  

Assemble on a huge sheaf of aluminum foil.  

Sprinkle on garam masala and mix around to combine well.  Lay the fish on top of the vegetables, and make a mixture of the next amount of garam masala, along with the garlic slices and salt.  Press into the cavities of each fish.  Lay slices of lemon over each fish.  As I’m still trying to lose those winter pounds, I placed no pats of butter atop the fish, but that doesn’t mean you have to be so glum. 

Pinch together the sides of the aluminum foil, and fold tightly to wrap the fish.  Pinch together the end sides as well, folding as closely to the contents as possible.  This must be a leak proof, closed system, so that the contents will steam properly.  The lemon will provide enough moisture for steaming.  Place on the barbecue at medium high heat, and cook for ten minutes on each side.  When done, open the foil carefully so the steam doesn’t blast you.  

Get a tight seal!

I’d call this an easy, one pot dinner, but look ma, no pot!  The trout were just kissed by the spices and garlic, but the veg were nice and spicy.  A beautiful combo, and so easy!

Creamy Coconut Shrimp

 

Creamy Coconut Shrimp

Most of my shrimp recipes are superfast, but not this one.  This one takes time and loving attention, but is so worth it!  This is a rich feast, suitable for company.  If you’re planning to serve this to dieters, don’t let them see this recipe!  ‘Tis sinful, actually.  But so worth it…

While this takes more time than usual, it’s not significantly more complicated.  Don’t be too tidy chopping, as the sauce gets blended once it’s cooked.

1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
½ teaspoon fennel
several flakes of mace
3 green cardamom, bashed and ground a bit
1 black cardamom, husked and bashed
4 cloves
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
1 stick cinnamon or cassia equivalent

½ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon smoked paprika

2 plus tablespoons ghee (Indian clarified butter)

1 red onion, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
2 Thai chillies

5 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
1 large fresh tomato, chopped

1 can coconut milk

½ teaspoon sea salt (or to taste)

enough cleaned and shelled shrimp to serve 6

fresh or frozen green peas (optional)

½ fresh lime, juiced

Start by dry roasting the whole spices.  When they become fragrant and slightly wispy with smoke, put in spice grinder, but set aside the cinnamon or cassia.  Add the ground turmeric and paprika to the spice grinder, and buzz till finely ground.  Set aside.

Add the first 2 tablespoons of ghee to a large wide pan and heat to medium hot.  Toss in the cinnamon or cassia, onion, ginger, and chillies, and lower heat to medium.  Cook till the onion is golden and a bit crispy on the edges. 
 

Add the chopped garlic and cook for another few minutes.  Add the ground spices.  If they seem dry in that pan, get out more ghee.  I didn’t want this dish swimming in oil, but I was happy to use another tablespoon of ghee at this point.  Cook the spices for another couple of minutes, then add the tomato.  Add the coconut milk. 

At this point, I used a regular slotted spoon to remove the vegetable pieces, and put them into a container to hold my immersion blender.  I then blended them smoothly and returned them to the liquid.  If I had been using a deep pot, I could have just stuck the immersion blender into the pot, but a large wide pan is needed for quicker reduction of the coconut sauce, and you can better watch the progress of the shrimp cooking too.  Never put an immersion blender into a shallow pan, as it will cause a huge and splattering mess, she says, from sad experience…

Once the sauce ingredients are back together in the pan, stir, keeping on medium heat, and let reduce.  This is the time consuming stage.  It should be reduced to a thick sauce, which will need stirring from time to time.  This will take about twenty to thirty minutes.

Once the sauce is thick, taste for salt.  Add as necessary, then add the shrimp.  Watch very carefully.  As soon as they pinken up and start to curl, use your judgement.  As I was using frozen shrimp (fresh is very expensive here) I removed them from the pan with a spider.  (Not the creature, but a wire mesh spoon, Chinese in origin.)  You can use a large slotted spoon if you don’t have a spider. 

Since frozen shrimp releases liquid into the sauce, I continued to reduce the sauce till it was once again thick, about five minutes.  If you’re using fresh, you likely won’t need to reduce your sauce after the shrimp are cooked.  About two minutes before serving, I added frozen peas to the sauce, stirring till they thawed and heated through.  This is an optional step, completely up to you. 

Pour the sauce over the shrimp, squeeze the lime juice over the whole dish and take to the table.  Last night I served these with lacha parantha, but in the past, I’ve served with scented basmati rice.  For my dieting friend, I also served rajma tiki masala, which was a cruel thing to do, since she recently returned from India, is frantic for authentic flavours, and will never find my tikki masala cakes here in Calgary. I suppose I could take a box of the magic stuff into my local Indian grocery to see if they can source it for us.  Wouldn’t that be fabulous?

Back to the creamy coconut shrimp, this is a silky and creamy dish, quite decadent, but excellent for company.  As for the dieter, I was careful to serve a fresh and light dessert, which you can find immediately below this post.  

Stay tuned to see how I curry up Easter this year!

Oh, and I added ribbons of kale to the rajma and cooked for 30 minutes.

Simple Masala Lemon Shrimp

Simple Masala Lemon Shrimp

Now for the other details about what I served Ruth and the ladies the other day--  It wasn’t just mango saffron claffouti, honest.  Seeing as I had planned to prepare for the festivities that morning, I was a little shocked to discover that in fact I had a hair salon appointment, and had to take off in a huge hurry. 

Luckily I had already prepared the channa and sag paneer, and this shrimp recipe is super fast.  Unfortunately, I never did have time to get around to the dusting, but since we began in the kitchen and moved to the diningroom, the dust in the livingroom wasn’t an issue.  (Have I mentioned that I’ve been crazy busy planting my garden?  More on that later.)

1 teaspoon cumin seed,
1 teaspoon coriander seed
½ teaspoon fennel seed
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
20 grates black pepper
½ teaspoon coarse salt
2 tablespoons ghee
2 organic lemons, sliced into 1/8 inch rounds
2 fresh garlic cloves, chopped
2 Jalapeno peppers, minced
1 huge sweet red pepper, sliced into thin strips
enough peeled and deveined shrimp for 4 people (we ate a lot and had leftovers)

Using a mortar and pestle, roughly grind the seeds.  In a big pan, heat the ghee on medium high heat and then add the crushed seeds and the turmeric, pepper and salt.  After they’ve fried for a minute or two, add the lemon slices, a few at a time.  Pick them up as they warm, and squeeze the juice into the pan, and return the slices to the pan until they’re all squeezed and cooking.  Add the garlic and Jalapeno, stir, and let cook for a minute or two.  Add the red pepper and the shrimp.  (I confess to frozen shrimp, peeled but tail on, but would use fresh if I didn’t live in such a land locked environment!)

Stand guard over the shrimp, and flip each as they turn pink.  Because I was using frozen, I removed the shrimp and red pepper strips from the pan with a slotted spoon, and put them into a serving dish.  Then I cranked up the heat to reduce the water that the frozen shrimp left behind until I had a nice buttery spicy sauce.  I poured that over the shrimp and peppers, and served it with basmati rice, with channa and sag paneer on the side.  The lemon slice is edible, tasting a bit like pickle.  It's delicious!

This dish took less than twenty minutes to prepare, from start to finish.  Had I used fresh shrimp, probably five minutes!  The ladies enjoyed it, along with a lovely bottle of German white wine, a perfect accompaniment to seafood and spices.

Salmon Poached in Spinach

Salmon Poached in Spinach

It’s true, we do eat a lot of salmon, so sometimes I need to change it up a bit.  I had a huge craving for spinach, salmon and masoor dal, which is a rather odd combination, especially since I cooked it all in one pot.

Masoor dal cooks so quickly, and it adds both depth and fabulous nutrients, so I like to use it fairly often, although I’m not a fan of regular dal.  (Shhhhh, let’s keep that a secret!)  I’m happy to report that my healthy and delicious recipe was a success.  Hopefully yours will be too!

The Masala 1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon fennel seed
3 pieces cassia
4 cloves
3 green cardamoms, crushed and bashed
1 black cardamom, husked and bashed
½ teaspoon black cumin seed
1 flake mace
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
½ teaspoon black salt
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon dried chillies
½ teaspoon smoked paprika

Put the last three ingredients into a spice grinder, then roast the other ingredients in a large dry pan, on medium high heat.  As soon as they start to smell good, and give off a few wisps of smoke, add them to the mixture in the spice grinder.  You can whiz them into a powder once you’ve got the rest going.

Most food bloggers are my daughter’s age.  Here’s a picture of my spice grinder, which began its days as a coffee grinder.  It’s as old as my daughter, and therefore most bloggers.  The yellowing is the result of its being made of old, old, old plastic and grinding masalas for the last thirty three years…

The Rest

1 tablespoon mustard oil
1 teaspoon ghee
½ teaspoon mustard seed
½ teaspoon cumin seed
1 inch ginger, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped
2 packages frozen chopped spinach  (later in season, use fresh)
½ cup water
¼ cup masoor dal (small orange lentils)
4 fillets salmon
1 tiny lime, juiced

While that pan is still hot from the masala, add the mustard oil.  After a few moments, test its heat by adding a few mustard seeds.  If they sizzle and whiten, add them all, then immediately add the cumin.  It will immediately sizzle and whiten too, so cool it down by adding the ginger and onions, stirring, and reduce the heat to medium.  Cook the onion till it softens and caramelises  While that’s happening, whiz those spices in the grinder!  Add the garlic and cook a few minutes.  Add the ghee and freshly ground masala, and cook a few more minutes, stirring gently.  Add the tomatoes and cook for another few minutes.  Because I was using frozen spinach, I added the water, stirred, then the masoor dal, then the frozen spinach.  I covered the pan, and twenty minutes later, was able to stir the thawed spinach.  At that point, I added the salmon fillets, and cooked them gently till they were no longer translucent, and flaked with a fork.  (Another confession, almost as bad as not liking traditional dal, I don’t like my salmon the way sophisticated types do—I overcook by some people’s standards.)  Stir the lime juice in, just before serving.

If I had been working with fresh spinach, I would have let the dal cook about ten minutes, then I would have added both the spinach and the fish at the same time.  No use overcooking that spinach!  It’s much healthier when cooked for less time, and combined with the health benefits of the salmon, this recipe will positively power you right up!

PS.  I have kale waiting to be planted as soon as the frost threats end, and I’m looking forward to posting lots of kale recipes.  I like it as much as spinach, which I’ve never had much success with in the garden.  My red kale that I started from seed looks dismal, so I bought some regular kale already started.  I’ll plant all of it, because sometimes the dismal plants get very happy in a real garden.

My red kale is in the front pots.  Dismal, so far!

Cedar Plank Barbecued Masala Salmon

Cedar Plank Barbecued Masala Salmon

The leaves have finally popped out and the birds are singing.  After a day spent planting flowers in the garden, it was time to put on the barbecue and have something delish.  Delish fish, that is!  This recipe will make the salmon succulent, smoky and spicy.  This would be a great dish to serve to guests, but greedy guts us, we gobbled it down by ourselves!

You can buy cedar planks for this purpose in barbecue stores and at supermarkets, but you use them only once, and they’re very expensive purchased this way.  Instead, we go to a lumber yard, and buy a single untreated cedar fence board for about six dollars.  Husband Person saws it into three pieces, and then we’re set for three fancy meals over the summer!

Put food on after the board has been oiled and heated!

1 cedar board, soaked in water for about four hours
1 tablespoon mustard oil
about 15 scrapes of ginger (I use a potato peeler)
1 teaspoon coarse salt
½ red onion, very finely diced
½ habanero pepper, very finely diced
2 fresh garlic cloves, very finely diced
2 large fillets of wild Sockeye Salmon (you can purchase rather than catch)
1 teaspoon cumin seed
½ teaspoon coriander seed
¼  teaspoon black cumin seed
¼ teaspoon fennel seed
freshly ground pepper
1 organic lemon, sliced thinly, then halve the slices

Turn on the barbecue to medium high.  When it’s hot, pour half the oil onto one side of the damp cedar plank.  Put it on the barbecue, oil side down.  Let it get to the scorching stage, where it just starts to smell like burning wood.  Use heat proof gloves to take it off the barbecue, and on the oiled side, place half the salt, most of the ginger, onion, habanero, and garlic.  Rub the rest of the oil into both sides of the salmon fillets.  Place the salmon skin side down on top of the onion mixture. 

In a mortar and pestle, roughly grind the spice seeds, then  sprinkle over the fish, along with the rest of the salt and add freshly ground pepper.  Sprinkle on the remainder of the onion, ginger, garlic and pepper.

Put back in barbecue, and close the lid.  Cook for about fifteen minutes, then add the sliced and halved lemons.  Close the lid, and continue cooking for another fifteen or so, till the salmon flakes when touched by a fork.  Because I’m a prairie girl, I like my salmon cooked more thoroughly than sophisticated West Coast types!

Our neighbors became alarmed at the smell of burning cedar, but we assured them all was well.  We cooked vegetables along with the salmon, so the salmon took about ten minutes longer to cook than it should have, as we kept losing heat every time we opened the barbecue to add another vegetable.  Regardless, it was magnificently delicious.  Delish fish!

Poached Masala Salmon with Sweet Red Pepper and Asparagus

Poached Masala Salmon with Sweet Red Pepper and Asparagus

Well, wouldn’t you know it.  The snow has been swirling around out there, covering up my pretty pansies, tulips and hyacinths.  Luckily those flowers are all toughnuts, and when it melts by this afternoon (optimistically) or in a couple of days, they’ll be fine.

Meanwhile, last night I needed something to warm me up, and thought this recipe for masala salmon would do the trick.

The Masala

1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
½ teaspoon fennel seed
2 cloves
¼ teaspoon black cumin seed
5 green cardamom pods, smashed with seeds loosened
1 black cardamom pod, husked
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon dried fenugreek leaves
2 cinnamon sticks
3 flakes mace
1 teaspoon black salt (available in Indian groceries)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika powder

Put the above spices, excepting the last two powdered spices into a large non-stick pan, and gently roast.  When they become fragrant, and give off the slightest wisp of smoke, put into a spice grinder.  You can leave the cinnamon in the pan.  Add the powders to the spice grinder and blend all into a powder. 

The Rest
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
½ teaspoon dark mustard seed
½ teaspoon cumin seed
1 inch ginger, chopped
1 large red onion, chopped
3 large fresh garlic cloves, chopped
½ habanero pepper (with seeds)
1 heaping teaspoon ghee (clarified butter)
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 huge sweet red pepper, chopped
1 cup water
½ cup plain yogurt
½ cup cream (I used 17%, if using heavy cream, reduce the amount)
4 salmon fillets
1 bunch asparagus, tough ends removed, stalks chopped into 2 inch lengths

Add the oil to the pan with the cinnamon stick, and put the heat on high.  When it’s hot, add a few mustard seeds.  When they turn white and sizzle, quickly add the cumin seed.  Add the onion and ginger, stirring, and immediately reduce the heat to medium.

Cook till the onion has caramelised and softened a bit.  Add the ginger and habanero and cook for a few more minutes.  Add the ghee, then the masala, cooking for another minute or two.  Add the tomato and pepper, and let cook about five minutes.  Add the water, and put a lid on the pan.  Cook at least ten minutes, till the peppers have softened.

Use an immersion blender to puré the vegetables.  Add the yogurt, salmon, and asparagus stalks, and gently poach on lower heat.  Turn the salmon fillets when their bottoms are starting to look cooked, and continue cooking.  When they are almost done, (no longer translucent, to my Prairie girl taste), add the asparagus tips and cream.  Gently stir to combine the cream into the sauce.  Serve over basmati rice, or with rotis.  

This dish is sweet, pungent and rich.  I understand that there’s a new gingerbeer out there, and it’s my hope to buy some today, as I imagine it will go beautifully with this type of food.  Tonight I’ll be using pretty much the same masala to make butter chicken for my non-heat loving friends.  I’ll skip the hot pepper entirely, reduce the peppercorns and get my heat from that glass of gingerbeer I’m so looking forward to!

In the meantime, here's a brief glimpse of our morning!  The snow flakes have doubled in size since...   For some reason, blogger won't let me link to a recently uploaded video, so I'm having to give you a mere link instead.  Anyway, it's pretty, so watch it and let me know what you think.

Roasted Squash, asparagus and shrimp too!

Roasted Squash, asparagus and shrimp too!

This is almost a one dish meal, and it’s straightforward to prepare.  One dressing for all three items!

¼ cup mustard oil
10 or so slices of fresh ginger, using a potato peeler, finely chopped
4 fresh garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 to 2 Thai chilies, finely chopped
pinch of coarse salt
1 acorn squash, halved, seeds reserved
bunch of fresh asparagus, tough ends snipped off
enough shrimp to eat for this meal (shrimp won’t reheat well.)
7 curry leaves
1 tiny lime, juiced

Preheat oven to 350F.  In a microwave proof glass cup, combine the oil, ginger, chillies, and garlic, and cook on high for one minute.  Add salt.

On a cookie sheet, place the two squash halves facing upward.  Poke the squash cavities with a fork and baste generously with the oil mixture, making sure to get lots of ginger, garlic and chili onto the squash.  You’ll have lots left over, which you’ll use later.  Because I’m a pumpkin seed lover, I keep the squash seeds, and baste the cookie sheet under where I’ll put them, then I baste them too.

Roast in the oven for about forty minutes, till they are fork tender, but not quite completely soft.  During this time I checked on them a couple of times, and basted everything again.  Remove the sheet from the oven, and baste the sheet where the asparagus will go.  Place the asparagus on the cookie sheet, and baste it generously.  (You’ll still have lots of the mixture left over.)

Put the sheet back in the oven for another five minutes.  Check the asparagus to see if it’s a little tender.  You don’t want to reduce it to mush.  If it’s almost done, turn off the oven, and put the heat on medium under a non-stick skillet.  At this point, there won’t be much oil left in the mixture, but don’t worry.  Add the mixture to the pan and cook gently for a minute or two.  Add the shrimp and curry leaves, watching very carefully.  Flip each shrimp as soon as it pinks up on the first side.  Remove from heat as soon as they are all cooked through.  (This takes very little time!)  Pour lime juice over the shrimp.  I had basmati rice on hand, as husband person likes rice with everything, but I found the squash removed my desire for rice.  On the other hand, I got to have some of my roasted squash seeds, a type of vegetable caviar, as far as I’m concerned.

This recipe is easy to prepare, and the vegetables have a mild but sweet flavour.  The roasting time leaves the cook with ample opportunity to read a book or, in my case, watch a few missed episodes of Coronation Street.  Oh, oh, did I just admit to that? 

Quick Coconut Shrimp



Now don't you do what I have done...

Quick Coconut Shrimp

Monday night is chorus night around our house, so I need to dash something onto the table in a hurry, and it can’t be too heavy as husband person can’t feel weighed down while he sings like a bird.

This Goan influenced quick coconut shrimp recipe is the answer.

Ingredients

As many shrimp as you’re planning to eat in one sitting (they don’t reheat well)
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon chili flakes
vinegar
1 teaspoon grape seed oil
1 teaspoon ghee
1teaspoon dark mustard seed
1 teaspoon cumin seed
10 curry leaves
½ red onion
½ inch ginger, finely chopped or grated
2 jalapeno chilies chopped, or to taste  (these were not hot enough for me!)
2 fresh garlic cloves, chopped
¼ cup shredded unsweetened coconut
freshly ground black pepper

In a deep bowl, mix the turmeric, chili flakes and shrimp.  Pour in enough vinegar to almost cover all the shrimp.  (If you’re using frozen, place the bowl in the kitchen sink filled with warm, not hot, water.)

Put the heat on at high, and added the oils to the pan.  Test for heat by adding a few mustard seeds to the oil. If they sizzle, add them all, then quickly add the cumin and let it turn white and sizzle.  Add curry leaves, chilies chopped onion and ginger, stirring.  Turn heat down to medium, and cook till the onions are soft and somewhat browned.  Add the garlic and let cook for a minute or so and then toss in the coconut.  Grate black pepper over the pan, generously, as turmeric and black pepper work in tandem to be especially healthy.  Turn heat down to medium low, and using a slotted spoon or spider, lift the shrimp out of their marinade, and gently cook.  The key word here is gently.  The vinegar will have already started the cooking process, so you need to be vigilant.  It takes only a minute or two.  I confess I overcooked mine, which you can tell from the tight foetus shapes in the picture. Regardless, I served this quick dish with rice and lazy girlgreen beans.  The tanginess of the shrimp was balanced out by the sweetness of the green beans.  It was a quick meal, but so much better than dropping by a fast food joint before heading out to chorus.

Pink Salmon and Purple Pakoras

Pink Salmon and Purple Pakoras with chutney

Purple Pakoras

Faith and begora, it’s a purple pakora.  I have no idea why I think that’s so funny.  Maybe because way back in the first days of search engines, even before the WWW existed, almost any term entered into a search engine seemed to bring up a document on the Ayurvedic Invasion into Ireland.  It was a curious document, but I never did have time to investigate it.

In the meantime, here we have a fast, healthy and easy recipe for red cabbage pakoras.  You don’t have to confine yourself to red cabbage, although it’s among the healthiest foods there are; you can also use red pepper, red onions, carrots, whatever you like as long as it can be cut into strips, and will cook fairly quickly.  For this dish, I also made little chunks of salmon, but you could keep the meal vegetarian and use paneer.

1 heaping tablespoon of a prepared spicy masala powder

2 cups channa flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup cold water (more or less)

1 tablespoon oil

I’d make a masala from scratch, except my idea here is to keep this simple and fast.  If your masala has enough salt, fine, otherwise add more to taste.  Mix the first three ingredients in a bowl, then slowly add the water and stir.  You want a fairly thick batter.  Make the batter spicy and salty, as it covers the vegetables, fish or paneer in a thin layer, and you want it tasty. 

Red cabbage, finely sliced

(or red pepper, red onion, carrot, potato, doesn't matter, as long as it's finely sliced)

 Mix the sliced vegetables into the batter.  Put your non-stick griddle on medium heat.  Once it’s hot enough, brush a skiff of oil over it, and spoon appetizer sized amounts of batter and vegetable onto the griddle.  Flip when the batter has set, and the vegetables are soft, about seven minutes.  Watch the heat and adjust as needed.  Cook about another seven minutes.  You will be at the griddle for about twenty minutes, starting new pakoras and removing them as they’re done.  Be sure to brush a new skiff of oil over the griddle for every batch, as the hot oil seems to seal the batter very nicely.

If you  are doing protein with this meal, use 1 x ½ inch bits of salmon or paneer.  Cooking times are about the same.

Serve with a cilantro mint chutney.  Wouldn’t these be just fantastic on Saint Patrick’s Day?  Can’t you just hear it?  Faith and begorra, it’s a purple pakora…

Quick healthy salmon salad

Quick healthy salmon salad

(Look ma!  No mayonnaise!)

Quick healthy salmon salad

This salad recipe is super healthy, quick to make, and tasty with just a few Indian ingredients:

1 whole sweet red pepper, diced
3 thin slices of red onion, cut into small pieces

1 orange (I prefer a blood orange, if you can get it), sliced and cut into small pieces

½ of a 213 gram tin of salmon (save the rest for another salad tomorrow)

5 to 10 dehydrated banana chips, crumbled into large pieces

1 tablespoon unsalted shelled pistachios

1 teaspoon excellent quality olive oil

1 tiny lime, juiced

sprinkles of turmeric powder (I keep some in a salt shaker for handy access)

freshly ground black pepper

10 or so stalks of fresh cilantro

a pinch of dried chillie flakes (to taste)

I combine all of the above ingredients into a bowl about the right size for my lunch, drizzle the oil over it all, sprinkle the turmeric and grind the pepper over the salad.  Salt is unnecessary as the tinned salmon is salty enough. Using kitchen scizzors, I cut up the cilantro and stalks over the salad.  I toss it gently and gobble it down. 

Quick Coconut Masala Shrimp

Okay, this isn't a picture of quick coconut masala shrimp, but it is about Indian cuisine, since the camel is stealing banannas!

My friend Allison phoned yesterday, asking me for “that shrimp dish” recipe.  This dish requires a lot of hovering and stirring, but it’s fairly quick, about half an hour.  Don’t even think of ditching it to go to the bathroom, or check your email.  Commit yourself to this and you will love it! 

Quick Coconut Masala Shrimp

The Masala
Actually, you can use this masala for any fish recipe, adding a little jaggery if you like it.

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 teaspoon coriander seed

1 teaspoon fennel seed

2 cloves

4 green cardamoms crushed in a mortar and pestle and de-husked

1 black cardamom treated like the green

1 piece of mace

10 black peppercorns

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground smoked paprika 

Use a large shallow pan to cook this in, putting on the heat to medium when your whole spices are assembled. Add them to the pan, watching carefully.  (Don’t add the powdered spices at this point as they’ll burn.)  You want to see a slight bit of smoke wafting up from your roasting whole spices, but the spices shouldn’t turn a dark colour.  When it smells heavenly, pour them into your grinder (a committed coffee grinder for this purpose only is fine), along with your ground spices.  Grind till you have a nice powder.  Inhale the fragrance and ask yourself if the easiness of the boxed masalas is really worth it.

The Shrimp and Vegetables

1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter available in jars)

1/2 teaspoon dark mustard seed

1/2 teaspoon cumin seed (yes, that’s more cumin seed!)

1 small red onion, diced

1 inch ginger, matchsticked

1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, julienned, depending on how hot you like it

2 to 3 diced red sweet peppers

1/4 cup coconut powder mixed into 1 cup water

2 or 3 tiny limes or 1 regular lime

About 15 to 20 frozen shrimp, raw, cleaned and shelled, but with tails on.  I know, I know, whaddya mean frozen shrimp?  I live in Calgary, for heavens sakes, the nearest ocean is a thirteen hour drive at 110 kilometers away.  We have roadside shrimp stands, but apparently they promise food poisoning.  If I were to shell out the money for fresh shrimps, I’d still follow this recipe, but cook the shrimp in less time.

So, heat that pan up to high, and add your ghee when it’s hot.  Sprinkle a couple of mustard seeds in, and when they’re hot, add the rest.  Stand back, cringing.  They splatter and sting.  In a few moments they’ll turn white, so quickly add the cumin seed which will also sizzle and turn white.  Add the onion and ginger.  Stir to cool the pan and turn the heat down to medium.

After the onions have softened and carmelized a bit, add the jalapeno, and the masala.  Stir to make sure the masala cooks evenly for a few moments.  Add the diced sweet peppers, the coconut mixture, and put a lid on everything for about fifteen minutes.  Okay!  Now you can go to the bathroom, but don’t touch your email.  You can pour yourself a glass of wine, though.

When your peppers are soft, use an immersion blender to puree the works.  It will be fairly thick, but the shrimps will dilute it as they thaw.  (If you’re using fresh, add maybe 1/4 cup of water at the most.)

Add your shrimp to the sauce, crank the heat back up to high and stay there.  As soon as one starts to turn pink, gently flip it over.  This is where you really need to hover, ever watchful, tending to those babies.  If parts of your pan are hotter, move the fully cooked shrimp out, and bring the others to the hot spots.  (If I were using fresh shrimp, I’d keep the temperature at medium.)

Even frozen shrimp should take less than ten minutes to cook, so be very careful.  If their little pink bodies curl into tight foetal positions, take them off the heat at once!  Squeeze your lime juice over the works.

Serve over basmati rice or with chappatties.  (More on chappatties later.  I personally find them to be killer difficult, but you could substitute whole wheat pita bread, I suppose.)  Anyway, this quick coconut masala shrimp recipe will delight you.