Pressure Cooker Spicy Oxtail and Chickpea Curry

I just bought a pressure cooker and I LOVE IT. I've gone bonkers, trying out all sorts of recipes and even amending my own to suit it. Basically any recipe I have that requires simmering something for hours can go into the pressure cooker and simmer for 30 minutes.

So. Oxtail curry. This usually takes hours to melt the collagen and get the tough meat meltingly tender. NOT TODAY.

Ingredients

• 0.75 kg ox tail -Try to buy them at 3" diameter or less. If there isn't any, add 15 minutes to the cook time as it takes time to break it all down
• 2 tbsp yellow curry powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 cup coconut milk (see Ingredient Notes)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 onion - diced
• 4 cloves garlic - minced
• 1 tbsp scotch bonnet flavoured hot sauce (optional, this WILL GET SPICY)
• 1 can chickpeas - drained and rinsed
• 1.5 tsp fish sauce (add more to taste)
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• Cooking oil

Let's do it!

1. Put your pressure cooker on the stove on high heat. Heat up oil. Brown the oxtails on all sides.
2. Add onions and cook until onions are soft. Stir often to keep everything from burning.
3. Add garlic and spices. Cook for another 3 minutes.
4. Add everything else.
5. Close the pressure cooker and bring it to pressure. Bring heat down to medium-high (150ºC) for 40 minutes. (See note below)
6. After 40 minutes, turn on the quick release and let the tasty smelling steam fill up your kitchen.
7. Check on the dish. If it seems a bit too thin, simmer uncovered for a while until it thickens.
8. Season with more fish sauce or hot sauce to your taste.
9. Serve with rice or bread.

Lunch it up!

This is super easy to lunch up. When cooled, I took all the meat off the bones and packed the stew in a lunch container with the rice on top, so that it wouldn't soak up the stew during the day and get all soggy. Heat it all up in the microwave and ruin all your coworker's day with your incredibly fragrant lunch, while they're all eating sad sandwiches or packaged salads.


Note on the pressure cooker: I use a combo of my induction cooktop and pressure cooker. The induction cooktop gives me say more control over the temperature than my electric stove, which goes on and off in order to keep the heat. If I tell the induction cooktop to do 150ºC, IT STAYS THERE. Induction cooktops are amazing, they boil water way faster than an electric range, making them my go-to for pasta.

Laksa - seafood noodle soup

Sometimes my cravings get so overwhelming that I end up spending way too much time and effort on satisfying them. Enter laksa, a deliciously fishy, rich and spicy noodle soup I first tried in an Asian food court in Markham, ON (First Markham Place, if you're wondering). I wanted it BAD, but not bad enough to drive 30 minutes to get it. Plus, the noodles they use have dairy in them and give me a tummy ache.

The laksa paste I made was based on a recipe I found online and adjusted for my own taste and the ingredients I had in the house. The laksa paste was the hard part, everything else about this recipe is dead easy.


The key to this paste is having a large and very rough mortar and pestle. You can definitely use a food processor, but I find that you won't get as smooth as a paste. That means the result will be a soup with small bits of galangal, shallots and other stuff, which is UNACCEPTABLE. I found this bad boy at Winners. It's ridges are super rough, and make short work of both dry and wet ingredients. It's about six inches wide and two inches deep. I would have preferred a bigger, deeper one, as it would be even better at keeping all the ingredients in the thing, but I couldn't find one and counter space is at a premium in my house. When you buy one, go for the granite variety and make sure it's super rough. I used to use a smoother marble one, which was great for dry spices, but terrible with grinding things like garlic. Instead of grinding it, it would just smoosh it up the sides. Very frustrating. Just spend the $40 and invest in a valuable kitchen tool that will last forever.

Laksa Paste Ingredients

• 6 dried long red chillies
• 1 tsp coriander seed
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 2 shallots
• 2 lemongrass stalks (the softer white parts, hard outer leaves removed)
• 1 inch galangal, peeled
• 1 tbsp peanuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp shrimp paste
• 4 dried anchovies (see note on ingredients below)
• 1 tbsp peanut oil

Let's do it!

1. Boil some water and soak the chillies in a bowl until soft. Drain the water and chop.
2. Toast the dried spices and peanuts in a hot pan. Let cool. Add to the mortar and pestle with the anchovies and grind into dust.
3. Chop the shallots, lemongrass, galangal and garlic.
4. Put everything except the peanut oil into the mortar and pestle. Pound and grind until you have a uniform paste. 
5. Mix in peanut oil.
6. At this point, I push everything into a silicone ice cube tray and freeze it. When frozen, I pop them out and put them in a freezer safe zipper bag for easy use later. This will make about 6-10 servings, depending on how strong you like your soup flavoured.

Yes, I realize you can see chunks of chilli pepper despite my rant about mortar and pestles above. Also, this is the leftover paste after I made the soup below.

Okay, let's put this all together.

Laksa Noodle Soup Ingredients

• 4 servings udon noodles (or whatever Asian noodles you prefer. I buy mine in the freezer area of the Asian grocery store)
• 1L chicken stock
• 200mL coconut milk, more if you like coconut milk a ton (see note on ingredients below)
• 2 tbsp laksa paste (or more, if you like a stronger flavour)
• 1 tilapia filet
• Peanut oil
• 1 cup of frozen, assorted seafood, rinsed well
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• Sriracha

Let's do it!

1. Heat up the chicken stock, coconut milk and laksa paste in a pot and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the flavours meld.
2. Heat up a frying pan to high and add peanut oil. I used the same pan that I toasted the spices and peanuts in, which gave some added flavour. Fry up the tilapia until the outside is cooked. I do this to cook some of the water out of it, since I use frozen tilapia, which is super watery.
3. Chop up the tilapia into 1 inch squares.
4. Put the fish and other seafood into the broth and simmer until cooked, maybe another 5-10 minutes.
5. Cook the noodles in a separate pot according to package directions.
6. Put the noodles into bowls, pour soup and seafood over and top with cilantro and Sriracha to taste.
7. If you're lunching this up, pack the soup and noodles separately, as the noodles will soak up the broth and you'll get a thick, gummy mess.

A note on ingredients

Dried anchovies

I buy these at the Asian grocery store, in the dried goods section. They come in a bag. I find that these are super great for adding a seafoody, umami flavour to food without adding to the saltiness of the dish. 

I've actually made a umami powder by grinding up dried anchovies, dried seaweed and dried mushrooms. I've given it as gifts and people really enjoy it. I add it to Asian dishes that are tasting a little bland, but don't need any more salt.

Coconut milk

I've found that coconut milk comes in a variety of price points. The ones I buy are generally more expensive, and will be mostly just coconut milk and water. The cheaper ones have all sorts of preservatives and mystery ingredients in them. I can't confirm that the purer ones taste better, but why add any unneccesary ingredients?

Spinach and Potato Curry Roti

Potato in curry is one of my favourite things in the world. So the first time I had spinach and potato curry roti, my mind was absolutely blown.

Anyway, this is a great spicy lunch for a super cold day.

Seriously, Toronto?

I added in peas for some protein, to round out the meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 4 medium yellow flesh potatoes, peeled and chopped into roughly 1" cubes
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons or so Jamaican-style curry powder (I use Irie brand)
• 1 can coconut milk (buy the one with the highest percentage of actual coconut in it)
• 1 package frozen spinach (300g), defrosted and drained
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• Salt and/or fish sauce to taste
• Hot peppers to taste
• Flour tortillas. The big ones, not the 6-inch ones

Let's do it!

1. In a medium sized soup pot, heat up the coconut oil over medium heat.
2. Add the onions and curry powder and stir for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the potatoes and let them fry on the bottom of the pan. Stirring once in a while, maybe cook for 4 more minutes.
4. Add garlic and fry for 1 minute.
5. Add the coconut milk and stir. Bring this to simmer and cover.
6. I like my potatoes really soft, so I simmered this for about half an hour.
7. When the potatoes are cooked through, add the frozen spinach and stir to combine.
8. Once that's all nice and simmering again, add salt or fish sauce to taste. Personally, I think fish sauce and curry are a winning combination, but not all of us like fish sauce. So you may have salt.
9. Add more curry powder if you think it needs it. I love a ton of spice.
10. At this point, I also added about 1/2 teaspoon of my homemade "hot sauce", which is actually just fresh red chilli peppers, garlic, salt and vinegar blended. It's crazy hot and doesn't really change the flavour of anything. It just adds heat.
11. Add the frozen peas, stir to combine. Turn off the stove and cover. Nothing worse than overcooked peas.

Lunch it up! 

You can assemble this at home, or you can bring the tortilla and curry separately. I like to keep things separate (therefore, less soggy). Put the big tortilla on a big plate, spoon some curry into the middle, then roll up into a neat little package. Microwave and you're done. 

Penang Curry Paste

Back in one of my older posts (curry noodle soup), I linked to a recipe for Penang curry paste. It was the wrong one, which I discovered when I made it for a bunch of people.

I looked in my handwritten recipe book and found the real one. I'll be fixing the link, since that last one was no good.

Ingredients

• 5 dried chilis (I use birds eye chilis)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large shallot, sliced
• 4 large cloves of garlic, mashed with the side of a knife and chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 tbsp lime zest
• 1 tbsp cilantro root (this can be hard to find, as most grocers cut the root off fresh cilantro)
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 2 tbsp peanuts
• 1 tbsp shrimp paste

Let's do it!

1. In a dry saucepan, toast the coriander seeds and peanuts until fragrant. Don't let them burn! Let cool.
2. Using a spice grinder, or a mortar and pestle, grind up the dry ingredients: chilis, salt, pepper, coriander seeds and peanuts.
3. Using a mortar and pestle, crush all the other ingredients. Depending on the size of your mortar and pestle, you may have to do them one at a time, and mix them together in another bowl. 
4. Mix everything together.
5. At this point, you can either cook with it, or put it all in a zipper freezer bag, flatten it and put it in the freezer. I'll break off chunks of this and let it simmer in coconut milk when I'm ready to make curry. This makes at least 6 servings of curry, depending on how spicy you like your curry to be. 

Note: I was gifted a spice grinder at our wedding and it is INCREDIBLE. I like to buy my spices unground, because I heard that they keep better that way, and it also makes it much easier to toast them, which a lot of Asian recipes call for. A spice grinder makes this recipe way easier to make.

Fancy Fish Curry

Sorry for the iPhone photo. I don't always bring the good camera to work

This recipe is based on one for Gulai Ikan from Charmaine Solomon's "The Complete Asian Cookbook." I was in the mood for an East Asian green curry fish dish (yes, my cravings are just that specific) but I didn't have all the ingredients, namely curry leaves. Plus, I was working with Grace brand Pure Creamed Coconut, which comes in a box and is basically super concentrated coconut. It's pretty good, but I find the texture a bit mealy. Thus, the straining, and thus the most silky, delicious curry sauce I've ever made in my life. Just a warning, you will end up with a whole pile of dirty dishes and this isn't really the quickest thing to make.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb basa fillets, cut into manageable chunks
• 1/2 package of Grace Pure Creamed Coconut (cut it lengthwise so you get the oil as well as the meaty part) 
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, roughly chopped
• 1 jalapeño, deseeded and roughly chopped (less if you want, but these aren't really that spicy)
• 1 tbsp coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp fennel
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 2 strips lime rind
• splash of fish sauce to taste
• chives, chopped

Let's do it!

1. Simmer the creamed coconut in 1.5 cups of water until it's completely dissolved.
2. If you're using ground spices, great. If not, buzz all the spices in a spice grinder (I almost exclusively use whole spices. I hear they keep longer.)
3. Simmer the coconut milk, onions, garlic, ginger, jalapeño spices and lime rind for about 10-15 minutes to cook the vegetables and let the flavours meld.
4. Add fish sauce to taste.
5. When the flavours are to your taste, run the mixture through a very very thin drum sieve. This is an annoying, laborious process. It requires using a ladle to stir and push as much of the sauce as you can through the sieve. The sieve I have has holes just about big enough for baking powder, but not granulated sugar. I don't know where my mom got it from. Possibly an Asian housewares store.
6. Lay the fish fillets on a heated saute pan and pour the sauce over it. 
7. Simmer until the fish is cooked, about 4 minutes per side.
8. Top with chives.

Lunch it up!
I served this with sauteed kale and cabbage and brown rice. And it was INCREDIBLE. I packed the rice with the veggies and the separately so that the rice wouldn't soak up all the sauce. I heated them together.

Curry noodle soup - Sick at home edition

If you're truly, horrendously sick, you'll have to had done some planning before making this. Hopefully you have most of these items in your house, like homemade broth in your freezer, coconut milk in your cupboard, curry paste and noodles. You should also have some vegetables and proteins hanging around in general. And if you're sick, you need to have lemons/limes so you can drink lemon honey water all day. Anyway, I'm rambling. And possibly feverish. So let's go.

Ingredients:

• Homemade broth, or the stuff in cartons, which for some reason taste better than canned to me
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 tbsp curry paste, or to taste. I made a batch of Penang curry paste and keep it in my freezer.
• Chopped up meat or tofu 
• Chopped up veggies (I had some zucchini lying around)
• Noodles, prepared according to the package. I used Korean sweet potato noodles.
• Optional: cilantro and lime

Let's do it!

1. Put coconut milk in a small soup pot with curry paste. Stir until well combined.
2. Add broth, until it's the consistency you like.
3. Add veggies and meat/tofu. Simmer until cooked through.
4. Put cooked noodles in your bowl.
5. Pour soup over noodles, garnish with lime and cilantro. Season to taste with salt/soy sauce or fish sauce. 

If you've got a well stocked kitchen, this should be totally doable, despite being feverish.

Serves 3.

Elaine's Mom-style Chinese Chicken Curry

I love my mom's curry. It is amazing. But since I am not my mom, I can only make half-amazing curry, despite following her every direction as she hovers over me in the kitchen. Someday she will bequeath whatever secret she has to amazing curry (it better not be love) and I will be able to do it. But until then, here's how I make mine.

Ingredients
1/2 onion, quartered
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled. Sliced, if you don't mind finding all sorts of ginger in your food
2 small potatoes, peeled and cut into roughly 1" cubes
8 chicken wings including tips, separated into the three chicken wing pieces
1 can coconut milk
1-2 tbsp yellow curry powder. Like soy sauce, I have 4 kinds of curry in my house. I use Jamaican yellow curry for this recipe
Roughly 1-2 tsp fish sauce or soy sauce to taste
salt

Let's do it!
Stir fry the onion, ginger and garlic in some oil in a pot with a lid. Stir fry until the onion is soft.

Add potatoes and fry for a little while longer.

Add curry paste and stir around for a couple of minutes. Everything is going to start to stick to the bottom of the pot. Add coconut milk, stir, scraping the bottom of the pot (with a wooden spoon, obviously) and cover. Simmer on low until the potatoes are half done.

Add chicken wings, add a pinch of salt and cover and simmer until the chicken is done. Add soy sauce/fish sauce to taste.

Serve over rice.

This recipe is pretty easy, and not very spicy (unless you get spicy curry). It's one of my comfort foods. I particularly enjoy mashing the potatoes into the rice.

Unfortunately, my husband is not into curry, so UNFORTUNATELY I have to eat it all by myself. Right now I have some in the freezer. I'll let you know if it freezes well.