vij's chickpeas in star anise

Man... I have a backlog of recipes to post for you people! Things have been so crazy. I have two final projects due in the next couple of weeks. One of my final projects involved, well, food (what else is new - food is my obsession) so I had to cook up a bunch of things that would look pretty in photographs. In fact, I blew my weekly budget at the grocery store on all these projects. I baked a layer cake (which didn't end up making the final cut, but was delicious) and some more cupcakes (which did). I redid my kalamata hummus photo. I baked cookies that sounded more exciting than they actually were. And I made a curry.

A curry that I've been desiring ever since the delightful Foodess posted it on her blog. People, this curry is just as good as it sounds. It's sweet, spicy, protein-rich and meat-free. Honestly, I felt that cardamom was more dominant as a flavour than star anise, but the anise was there. It probably would have been different if I'd used ground star anise.

But, in all seriousness, run (don't walk) to your nearest grocery store to get the supplies you need to make this for your dinner. Vij will not disappoint you. He never, ever does.

turkey curry 2011: turkey curry with butternut squash and green cardamom

 

 It all began on new years day on my 32nd year of being single. Once again I found myself on my own and going to my mother's annual turkey curry buffet. Every year she tries to fix me up with some bushy-haired middle-aged bore, and I feared that this year would be no exception.

I've decided to start a tradition at Unhip Squirrel. When I was in my late teens, I had my wisdom teeth pulled out. My dad arrived the day before my surgery (yes - they put me under!) armed with supplies to aid my recovery, the most memorable of which was the newly released Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. Little did he know that Bridget Jones would become the bumbling heroine through my late twenties, as I alternated my singleton pride with navigating a sea of lame boyfriends and what she so brilliantly called emotional fuckwittage. Excuse the language.

Don't make the mistake of lumping Bridget in with all the other chick lit out there. Bridget is an original (if I can say that when her story is loosely based off Pride & Prejudice).  Fielding so keenly captured what it was like to be a single girl who regularly faced the question, "How's your love life?" I think that while she is an exaggeration of all of us girls, each one of us can find something to relate to in Bridget. Even now that I'm what she would consider a smug married. She's universal.

What does this have to do with turkey curry? Well, early on in the book (and in the opening scene of the movie) we are presented with a family tradition that Bridget is forced to partake in each year - the turkey curry buffet. It's a gruesome fix-up affair that inevitably ends in Bridget's humiliation (see the above link). Given that even the name of this blog is an obscure reference to Miss Jones herself, it feels appropriate to pay homage to her by doing an annual turkey curry, without attempting to fix anyone up.

vij's ground beef curry

Do you ever feel like a cookbook "gets" you? Do you feel like you are totally on the same page as the chef? Do you have a cookbook that has never, not ever, failed you even once? I do, and it's Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine. Vij is consistent. So far, he has knocked every single recipe in this book out of the park for me, and I've made quite a few of them. I have learned to trust Vij. If he says to put whipping cream and beef in the same dish, I will do it. I will do just about anything the man tells me to do in a recipe, the only exception being that his salt content is astronomical. No average sized recipe should have a tablespoon of salt in it. Sodium aside, when it comes to the kitchen, Vij makes my toes curl. Who does that for you?

butter chicken

There is a story behind this butter chicken. Before moving to Montreal, I worked for a company that had an annual potluck at Christmas. One of my co-workers was famous for bringing his wife's amazing butter chicken to the potluck every year. Before I left, I asked for the recipe and I got way more than I expected. On my penultimate day of work, I found a huge and very heavy plastic bag on my desk. It contained a recipe, a full batch of butter chicken, rice and little spice packages. Amazing!