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Skriven 2013-12-23 00:29:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av NANCY BACKUS
Ärende: chew please 630
=======================
 ML> It's a trend in itself, no need to try to cash in. Anyhow I'm
 ML> suggesting an underlying explanation for the birth of the trend.
 NB> Maybe... I'd've been more likely to think that it was just a different
 NB> cheese to add instead of the usual cheddar, jack, etc.

I really think that a flavor "sensation" was deliberately
being engineered with the dish.

 .. or a
 NB> different dressing, instead of ranch or thousand island...

I offer no explanation for bleu cheese dressing, which just
seems like such an abomination.

 NB> Sure... bacon makes most things tastier...  In this case, the bacon
 NB> made a synergy with the blue cheese to make it a bit better than just a
 NB> plain burger with bacon on top...  :)

Next week I'm topping a casserole of mac and cheese with
half a pound of ground bacon. Going to half cook the ground
bacon, strain it out, and use the fat to cook veggies in,
then strew the mac and cheese with the stuff before baking.

 NB> Speaking of experiments...  I found Tate's gluten-free Ginger Zingers
 NB> at Lori's, and found them to be as good as you said

Lovely little crisp things.

Toothless Nawab Kebab
cat: Indian, main
servings: 4

1 kg leg of lamb
50 g ginger
50 g garlic
75 g Raw papaya flesh
50 g butter
30 g gram dal
1 ts chili powder
salt and pepper
1/2 ts mace
1 ts green cardamom freshly powdered
Clarified butter or oil to fry

Galouti Kebab

In Lucknow, kebabs are meat patties delicately flavored with
spices and fried in clarified butter on a large tray. Here
is one so soft you don't need your teeth to eat it. Honest!

Lucknow, a muslim city in the North of India, was ruled by
nawabs for 150 years, becoming a place of utmost culinary
refinement and the capital of Persian-inspired Indian Awadhi
cuisine. When the British East India Company decided to pull
the plug on nawab rule in Lucknow in 1856, sending nawab
Wajid Ali Shah in exile, the uprising that ensued changed
British rule in India for good.

I visited the city last year on my way to Benares and would
gladly go back. The city has an amazing feel to it - you'd
think you are in Pakistan, but people are very friendly and
not suspicious of foreigners. The city is very clean and
well-run. It has many attractive monuments from both the
nawab and British periods.

Legend has it that the ruler of Lucknow, nawab
Asaf-Ud-Dowlah, had lost all his teeth. And yet, the
toothless nawab was so big there was no horse that could
carry him. What was his secret? Legend has it that he
commissioned the creation of a version of his beloved kebabs
that could be eaten without teeth. His court chef designed a
new kebab that would use the finest lamb cuts, mince them
twice very finely, add a tenderizer and flavor the whole
with a heavenly spice mix. I have tasted this kebab in some
of the best restaurants in India and of course at every
single meal in Lucknow. Gorgeous! The texture is so fine it
surprises at first, but being dispensed from any chewing is
blissful. Kebab makers in the Chowk bazaar claim to use 100
spices in their kebabs - that's about every spice they can
get and I'm not sure the meat is any better for it. I
obtained several recipes from books written for Indian chefs
and reproduced the dish at home successfully. Here is for
you this cult dish part of the Lucknawi identity.

Measure 30 grams gram dal or about 3 heaping Tb.
These are split yellow lentils from the Indian grocery
store, buy those that say 'gram dal' on the package.
Dry-roast the lentils until they turn a shade darker,
stiring them regularly to minimize burning.

Add the spices - peppercorns, dried chilies, mace and
green cardamom seeds you just removed from their pods.

Grind to a fine powder in an electric mixer.

Dice the leg of lamb. You can trim the fat because we will
add more fat later.

Grind the meat twice, using the finest disc you have. This
is our first layer of decadence. I have to be honest here,
normally I ask the butcher to do it (twice) and it takes but
a minute. But here I wanted to give my readers some dramatic
illustration of the grinding and for some reason it took me
the best part of 30 minutes to grind the meat with my bloody
Porkert grinder. I will soon buy an electric grinder.

Peel and crush a garlic clove and a thumb-sized piece of
ginger.

Indian meat is sold freshly butchered. As a result, it is
much tougher than what we get in the West. Indian chefs have
long used various ingredients to tenderize the meat -
yogurt, lemon juice, vinegar, pineapple and my favorite,
papaya, which contains an enzime - papain - that would
soften bones if you left them long enoug. We will use papaya
but mix it in only half an hour before cooking - our second
layer of decadence.

Cut the papaya in half and remove the seeds. Scoop out the
flesh of one half and grind it or chop it to a pulp.

Dig a well into your ground meat and add a piece of butter at
room-temperature. This will be our third layer of decadence.
Lamb fat is considered less noble than butter - but it is
more tasty.

Finally add your ground roasted lentils and spices and mix
everything together until you have a smooth paste.

Pour a little oil into a bowl to oil your fingers and palms.

Form apricot-sized meat patties, oiling your hands as you go
to prevent the meat from sticking. Wash your hands carefully
afterwards, they will be coated with fragments of chili and
papaya and they might tenderize part of your body you don't
intend to eat.

Oil your largest frying pan with clarified butter or oil. Do
not use butter as it might burn.

Cook on medium-high, turning from time to time with kitchen
tongs, until both sides of each patty is well-browned.

There we are - three layers of decadence and no teeth
required! The most delicious kabab on earth humbly cooked in
my own kitchen!

The flesh is incredibly soft and fragrant. Serve with an
Indian flat-bread such as chapati or paratha. As my driver
in Lucknow says, 'You are now like Nawab person'.

Published 18/02/2008
http://FXcuisine.com/default.asp?Display=148

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