Sunday Night Curry

(because nobody takes a good picture of curry, here's some beef)

I cannot keep up this pace for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it gets damn expensive to cook something other than mac-n-cheese all the time. I still have the grand Pizza Dough Experiment to conduct before I am smack out of my gluten free flour mix, and a few other things, but this might be the last food blog for the week.

It is odd what happens when you start closely reading recipes with an eye to cooking someone else's food and writing about it. No one will accuse me of being a good noticer (not a word, but I am a notoriously BAD noticer. We're all bad at something, and this is my Achilles heel. I have to look at stuff and take pictures multiple times before I remember something was there, and then if it pisses me off I block it out like it never happened. SUPER inconvenient.), so that I have noticed some deficiencies quickly is a Big Thing.

And if I am being honest, some of the things I notice are deficiencies in me also. So "boneless" means "no bones," and usually for a reason.

But.

A recipe without salt is an odd thing. And also a recipe that calls for water but has a very short cooking time for a pretty tough cut of meat is strange. So there were adaptations.

Korean curry

Last entry from this weekend's orgy of cooking is Korean curry. Except it's not really Korean because my version did not specifically use Korean curry powder because "Asia Food" did not have specific Korean curry. A cursory search of the interwebs tells me that there are a million regional curries, each with their own proportions, but many of the spices are similar. And the "Asia Food" lady told me all curries were basically the same. So we are going with that theory, calling it Korean curry even though it should be called Madras curry, since that it the type I purchased (unfortunately more hot than The Child would like, but more on that later).

Side note: Korean curry of the Ottogi brand (which everyone recommended) also has wheat flour as its first ingredient, which tells me that it is super mild and also not GF. So it's a good thing we couldn't find it.

And full disclosure: Prior to this I was not a huge fan of curries in general, so I haven't usually sought them out. I have no idea what "authentic" curry tastes like, and this might offend some people. Ah, well. Life is too short. If  decide I Love. Curry. I will then refine it a bit. Until then, here's this one.

Which was delicious, with a few tweaks, like adding chicken broth instead of straight water and FOR GOD'S SAKE ADDING SOME SALT. How is there no salt called for in this curry recipe? Nothing? Did I miss it? No salt in the ingredient list.

This was a steaming bowl of love on a windy Sunday night. The house was buttoned up all cozy-like, dogs were walked and bedded down, and all was left was working on Halloween costumes and eating our weight in rice and this delicious food. As I eat it, I can already think of what I might like to do, starting with choosing a rough cut of meat and braising it for longer, adding veg later. The short cooking time didn't do the short ribs any favors; they were delicious, but it would have been better if the collagen had broken down a bit more. And I like a bit of bite in my veg. And I would have added a bit more curry. I toned it it down for the kid just to start, but I think I would maybe season the beef with curry first, then add more with the veg.

The biggest surprise? The Child loved it. Ate a huge bowl.

An unqualified success, this dish, and a satisfying end to a lovely fall weekend.

Edited: link fixed!