cooking

A buddy at work’s been asking me and my buddy Sachin for a general shak recipe for a while, so he can try making chicken and lamb Indian-style. We finally got around to writing it up for him today, check it out:

General Shak recipe, serves 3-4:

2 cups of your main ingredient
1 small onion or half a big onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
2 small garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
1 habenero pepper, finely chopped
2 plum tomatoes, or one regular tomato, chopped
1 quarter of a lemon
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon cumin seed (optional)
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1) Cook whatever the main ingredient is. In our case, we pressure cook our beans and vegetables until they’re tender enough to be ready to eat. I usually heat up 1 cup of beans that’ll expand to about 2 cups.

2) Heat up oil and mustard seed (and cumin seed if you wish) in a pan until the mustard seed starts popping.

3) Add onion, pepper, garlic, jalapeno, and habenero pepper to the oil. Let them cook until the onions are clear.

4) Add tomatoes. Mix and let cook for another 5 minutes or so.

5) Add main ingredient. Mix and let cook for 5 minutes or so.

6) Add coriander, chili powder, turmeric, sugar, and salt. Mix and let cook for 5-10 minutes. Add salt to taste, to help bring out the flavor of the other spices.

7) At this point the shak should pretty much be done. Squeeze lemon juice into shak, mix and let simmer for a few minutes.

8) Serve and enjoy.

This past Thursday, I woke up at about noon, trying to take advantage of the day off I had for Thanksgiving, and recoupe from the All Natural show I checked out the night before. Although it was a normal day when I arose, Thursday night was a momentus evening among the extended Trivedi family household.

After I woke up I showered up, then headed to Caputo’s with the moms. Picked up a bunch of herbs I’ve never used before—like sage, marjoram, celery seeds—and about 4 pounds of tofu. After I got home, I mashed up all the tofu, squished it into a strainer-bowl thing, put a plate and a gallon of milk resting on top of it and let is sit in the fridge for about 2 and a half hours. Meanwhile, watched the bears finished getting wailed by the cowboys, and cut up some vegetables—celery, mushrooms, onions, and garlic. I sauted the vegetables for a bit, added a bunch of dried bread, and the herbs.

After I took the bowl of tofu out off the fridge, I hollowed it out til I was left with a one-inch bowl of tofu. Dropped some of my stuffing in there, covered it up with the tofu I scooped out, flipped it onto a baking sheet, and ‘viola’ as they say. I had on my kitchen table a Tofu Turkey. It's on.

I basted it with sesame oil, soy sauce, jalepeno mustard and a bit of orange juice a few times while i let it cook for about two hours. But in the end, my family for the first time in our lives, had something kind of comparable to a turkey on Thanksgiving. Damn, when I put it that way, it doesn’t sound so momentous. But with all the dramatic Star-Wars-ish music you guys were humming in your head while you were reading this, I’m sure you got the same effect I did. It's on. Lol.

Wednesday night checked out All Natural at The Metro. It was tight, lots of local hip hop. But Cap D took the show, as usual, with his brand of conscious hip hop. Tight, tight shit.