It’s been a few years since I did this one. In fact, the last time I cooked Masaman curry was at the IDOS Spring Convention back in April of ‘08. THAT was a seriously long time ago.
I was overdue. Last time I’d done it, the curry wasn’t as hot as I might have liked, so this time, I went with powdered spices instead of a paste. I also did it all with bottom heat, simmering the food in the coconut milk. Anyway, here it is!
Dutch Oven Masaman Curry
12” Dutch Oven, about 20 coals below
* 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
* 2 tablespoons Curry Seasoning. ( I bought it out of a box, not the little bottles of “curry powder”)
* 3 medium onions
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 14 oz cans of Coconut Milk
* ½ cup peanut butter
* 6-7 medium potatoes
* 1-2 lbs meat (This time I used about equal portions of cubed chicken an uncooked peeled shrimp)
* up to 1-1 ½ cups water
* ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
* 4 bay leaves
* 3 Tbsp sugar
* 3 Tbsp tamarind pulp, or some splashes of tamarind juice/nectar
* ½ cup unsalted, chopped peanuts
* ⅛ - ¼ cup coconut (I chopped up some fresh)
* 3 tsp salt
* Liberal shaking of cinnamon
First, I got the dutch oven onto the coals (the entire dish was done with bottom heat), and put the oil in the bottom. After it had heated, I added the curry spices. I mixed that in the oil, and let it activate in the heat a little, then added the garlic and the onions to saute. If you wanted, you could add some chopped green pepper and/or celery here. Maybe some green onions.
Once all that was nicely sauteed and translucent, I added the coconut milk, and the peanut butter. You could add the peanut butter by the spoonful, and then it would be in smaller chunks and dissolve a little better.
I chopped up the potatoes and cubed the chicken and added those to the heating coconut milk. I also added in the shrimp. Once I put the meat in, I covered it with the dutch oven lid to help it trap the heat. Still, I didn’t add any coals to the lid.
I let the liquid get warm again, and added in the remaining flavoring ingredients. I let these simmer, covered, for about an hour or so, while I made the rice. The water is in the list, primarily to help adjust the overall liquid level. You could also dust in a little cornstarch or flour to thicken it up, if need be, right at the end of the cooking. Also, taste it while it’s simmering to see if the spices are hot enough for your taste. If not, add a little chili powder, or more curry dust, let it simmer, and then check it again.
Serve it over rice, and it’s delicious!
Mark has discovered a love of Dutch Oven Cooking. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.
I saw a recipe for “spice bread” online several months ago, and I’ve wanted to do this ever since. I lost the recipe, but I had this general idea for the spices.
I have to say that this is quite possibly the tastiest bread I’ve ever made. It almost tastes like a cake. I was really nervous about the spice mix. I tried to sample it beforehand, but it’s tough to tell how it’ll turn out with the bread and the honey.
Mark's Spice Bread in the Dutch Oven
12” Dutch Oven
17 coals above, 8 below for 350 degrees (in normal weather, more in cold)
1 cup hot water
1 Tbsp yeast
3/4 cup honey
4-5 cups flour, with probably about cup to be added during kneading
A pinch of salt
1 cups milk
1 egg
2 Tblsp olive oil
2 tsp spice mix (made of ½ tsp each of Ground cloves, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Paprika, Nutmeg, Dried ground ginger)
An egg to coat the top
As with all of my breads, before making the bread, you should read my Squidoo.com lens on dutch oven bread making to grok my processes (that’s GeekSpeek for “understanding how I do it”).
I started by activating the yeast in the water and honey. I just let it sit for quite a while until it became frothy and bubbly. I love the smell of yeast in the morning...
While that was frothing up, I played with the spice mix. I didn’t really know what I was getting or anything, I just chose a bunch of spices that I knew or had read work well in sweet dishes, like apple pies or bananna breads or things like that. I’d also read that oils can extract the flavors of spices, so after I’d mixed the spices up, I put a coupla teaspoons into the olive oil. I tasted it, but I wasn’t sure if it would be enough spice to flavor a whole loaf of bread.
Then, once the yeast water was bubbly, I added the ingredients in the second set, and the oil/spice mix together, and stirred it all up. From that point on, it was just a matter of kneading and raising and baking just like any other loaf of bread.
I did know that I was on the right track, because I tasted a little pinch of the dough and it was goooooood.
It was a little tricky to cook it out in the snow, but since I pre-heated the lid, it worked really well, and it baked in about 40 minutes. I kind of overcompensated on the bottom heat, so the lower crust was a little thick. The upper crust was nice, brown, and soft to the touch. The crumb was tender and tasted a lot like a spice cake. With a bit of butter, it was heaven.
I’ve been cooking a lot in my dutch ovens lately. I did my world-famous pumpkin pie, and some breads and chicken things. I haven’t been writing about it, however. That’s mostly because I’ve been doing repeats of recipes that I’d already written up and posted. And, since I hadn’t really made any significant changes or updates to the ingredients or the process, I didn’t feel any real urgency to write them up.
Also, I’ve been in a lot of personal stress of late, but that’s not something to deal with here.
So, between those two issues, I haven’t really posted here as much as I’d like, but this week, I got really excited and thought to do something new. I started flipping through recipe books earlier in the week, like I used to do, looking for something new and challenging. I wanted to try something I’ve never done before. One thought was Greek Dolmades. I’d really like to try those, but I’d need to find a source for the grape leaves. I know they’re out there in SLC and Provo, but I just haven’t had the chance to look for them yet.
I ended up coming across a recipe from the Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook. I found a recipe for Chicken and Dumplings. Not only have I never cooked it, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever eaten it before. I know that’s weird. It’s about as American as American cuisine gets. But I just don’t remember it. So, I was kinda up against something that I was really unfamiliar with.
There are a lot of steps to this process, so it’s not a simple or basic dutching dish, but it is a complete one-pot meal: veggies, meat, dairy, and bread all in one. All you need is a cup of iced Diet Dr Pepper, and your table is complete!
Dutch Oven Chicken and Dumplings
It all started by firing up some coals and heating up some oil in my 12” Dutch oven. While that was starting and heating, I opened up the thawed thighs and seasoned them pretty liberally with Kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper. You could use breasts, but much of the flavor of this dish comes from the chicken fat that gets rendered out of the thighs.
The first actual cooking step is to put the thighs on the heat and fry them up. I put the lid on, because they cooked better with the trapped heat. I turned them once during the process.
While they were cooking, I sliced and chopped up all of the ingredients in the second set.
I removed the cooked thighs, and put them in a bowl to cool. The recipe book said to remove the skin. I decided not to, but in the end, decided that was a bad choice. Having the skin in the soup wasn’t as appetizing as I thought it would be.
I drained off and reserved most of the fat that had been rendered out of the thighs. I added the veggies to what remained in the dutch oven, and cooked them, stirring. Next time I make this, I would hold off adding the flour, however, and let the veggies brown a bit. Then, I’d add the lemon juice and scrape up any fond from the bottom of the dutch oven with a wooden spatula. Then, add in the flour, and stir it up to coat the veggies in a sort of a semi-roux. Also, while the veggies were cooking, I cut the chicken from the bones and shredded the meat.
Finally, I added the next set of ingredients, the liquids and the chicken, and brought it up to a simmer. While that was heating up, I mixed up the ingredients of the last set, for the dumpling dough.
As it approached a boil, I added the herbs, and also added any more salt and pepper to season it all to taste. Then, I stirred it all up and got the dumpling dough. I dropped it in, a heaping tablespoon at a time, all around the Dutch oven. I put on the lid, and then put on the upper coals. The lower coals is really just an estimate. Throughout the cooking process, I was adding more coals to the chimney so I’d have a running supply of hot coals. Once the dumplings were in, I cooked the whole thing for about another half hour or so. I only checked it once during the cooking, then again when it was all done.
I was afraid that the dumplings would be soggy. Like I said before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But, in the end, it was delicious. The dumplings swelled up as they cooked, like biscuits do, and the stew was delicious. The dumplings were rich with chicken flavor, from both the stew and the chicken fat added in. There was plenty to share and extra for lunches this week.
