Crab Curry

My favourite curry ever. Hands down.

If I have one pet peeve, it's when a dish is referred to as '...in a curry sauce.' Maybe in asian cuisines this is acceptable, but to me, an authentic curry of any cuisine (and this is an absolute for Caribbean curries) a curry is defined by the meat or vegetable cooked in it. The sauce of a curry is flavoured by that ingredient. You do not make the curry and then add the meat to it; you create the base for the sauce and add the meat, which helps to develop the flavour of the sauce. You cannot slap the sauce from a chicken curry on fish and call it fish curry. If a West Indian tastes the sauce and cannot tell you what kind of curry it comes from, they are not worth their weight.

My rant over, I will say that crab has a flavour that clings well to curry (probably oil soluble?) and is all around hearty while sweet at the same time. My husband doesn't prefer it for all the work required to get at the flesh, but to me, the best tasting foods need some effort put in to reap the delicious rewards.

Big Pot of Crab Curry for Easter Lunch

Crab Curry

Sri Lankan Sea Crab, or King Crab		2 lbs, on knuckle
Potato		5 large, peeled and cubed (1.5")
Onion		2 med onions, chopped
Garlic		6 cloves, minced
Tomato Paste		2 tbsp (heaped)
Coconut Milk		3/4 cup
Maririri Pepper		4 (depending on your heat preference)
Curry Powder (Sri Lankan)		6 tbsp
Cumin (parched)		3 tbsp (ground)
Turmeric		1 tbsp (ground)
Sea Salt		1 tsp
Canola Oil		2 tbsp

Preparation:

1. Wash and clean crab legs in lemon water
2. Pour canola oil into pot on med-high heat
3. Saute onions and garlic until translucent
4. Add tomato paste and stir until mixture is coated and paste begins to sizzle
5. Add curry powder, cumin and turmeric
6. Cook out all moisture until the paste begins to fry
7. Add potatoes and stir to coat
8. Cover and let cook on medium heat until partially cooked
9. Add crab, increase heat to medium high and stir to coat
10. When mixture barely begins to sizzle, add coconut milk
11. Add enough just-boiled water to cover and stir briefly
12. Add whole maririri peppers
13. Partially cover and bring to a boil
14. Reduce heat to medium, stir once, and let cook uncovered for approximately 20-30 minutes.
15. Skim the fat continuously. I've said before: most people don't do this, but in our family we cook flavourful food as healthy as possible.
16. Reduce heat to low for fifteen minutes and continue skimming fat
17. Stir. The liquid will have turned to a thickened sauce. Turn off heat and remain covered until ready to serve. Traditionally, seafood and fish curries are served over rice, not roti.

Pork Curry

It was a funny thing I realized while speaking to my dear friend Genevieve on the phone. She called and I told her I was cooking. When she asked what I was making, I told her, and I could almost see her cringing up her nose. I realized then that pork curry is not something most Guyanese (or Trini's, for that matter) would ever cook, as most of them stay away from not only beef, but also pork. She said they just cook 'the usual' curries, which were chicken, goat, fish. The usual? By who's standards? And it hit me. These were things my father never had until he married my mother. My mother's family was from 'town' - the city, where there was a congregation of race, religion, and altogether more culturally 'melted' than the rural areas where most others lived. To live in the city was to be more open to what your neighbours were doing and eating. And hence, we eat pork curry. When I told Genny 'come on, you know you can curry anything', she replied 'yes, but not everything curried tastes good!' She's right, but pork is definitely not one of those things. It is so delicious. Here is how to make it.

Image 1: The meat itself gives off much liquid.
This must all cook off before additional ingredients are added.

Image 2: A Maririri pepper - I'm unsure of the proper, English name,
but this is the typical Guyanese pepper used in cooking and pepper sauces.
I added four to this pot.

Image 3: After adding the potato and water - it should just cover the contents.
This shot captures the curry at a rolling boil.

Image 4: The completed curry ready to serve.

Pork Curry

Pork Loins		2, 1" cubes
Potato		Peeled & 1.5" cubes
Onion		2 med onions, chopped
Garlic		6 cloves, minced
Tomato Paste		2 tbsp (heaped)
Maririri Pepper		0-4 (depending on your heat preference)
Curry Powder		6 tbsp
Cumin (parched)		3 tbsp (ground)
Turmeric		1 tbsp (ground)
Sea Salt		1 tsp
Canola Oil		2 tbsp

Preparation:

1. Wash and trim pork and cut into 1" cubes
2. Pour canola oil into pot on med-high heat
3. Saute onions and garlic until translucent
4. Add tomato paste and stir until mixture is coated and paste begins to sizzle
5. Add curry powder, cumin and turmeric
6. Cook out all moisture until the paste begins to fry
7. Add pork and stir to coat and then leave to brown
8. Juices will release. It will seem like a lot of liquid (see image 1), but rest assured, it will all evaporate. It will take a long time and require occasional stirring, but do not skip this step and do not continue before the meat itself begins to fry after all the liquid has disappeared. Doing so will result in a bland, one note dish. I say this for all curries. Do not skip this step.
9. When the meat has caramelized, add potato and enough just-boiled water to cover and stir (see image 2).
10. When finished stirring, add your whole maririri peppers (see image 3). Partially cover and bring to a boil.
11. Reduce heat to medium, stir, and let cook uncovered for approximately 20-30 minutes.
12. Skim the fat continuously. Most people don't do this, but in our family we cook as healthy as possible and with the constant skimming, up to half a cup of fat can be removed.
13. Reduce heat to low for fifteen minutes and continue skimming fat.
14. Stir. The liquid will have turned to a thickened sauce (see image 4). To thicken sauce further, my mother taught me a trick - smash a few of the potatoes in the pot against the side and stir into the curry. Turn off heat and remain covered until ready to serve over steamed rice.

Red Thai Curry Beef

Quick shot of my bowl

It was another rainy day and I wanted to make something hearty. I didn't want anything tomato based. I wanted something saucy. And I didn't really know what I was going to make until I took the meat out of the fridge. And even then, I had an idea of what I was going to make, but not exactly how I was going to make it.

This is not exactly a textbook Thai Red Curry, but it borrows the flavours that make this dish work. I made some substitutions based on what I had on hand (read: what I could use in a pinch instead of searching while my daughter grows increasingly impatient) and the results turned out so yummy with a great texture, that honestly, there isn't a thing I would change.

Shot of the pot right before we dished in.

Red Thai Beef Curry

Stewing Beef		1 lb
Onions		5 med, chopped
Garlic		1/2 head, minced
Ginger		2 tbsp, minced
Lemongrass		1 stalk, finely sliced
Thai Chillis		5 whole peppers
Non-Fat Sour Cream		1/4 cup
Non-Fat Yoghurt		1/2 cup
Crab Paste		2 tbsp (ground)
Tamarind Paste		4 tbsp (1/6 pkg)
Tomato Paste		2 tbsp
Fish Sauce		1/4 cup
Khaffir Lime Leaves		5 leaves
Curry Powder		2 tbsp
Coriander		1 tsp (ground)
Black Pepper		1 tbsp (optional)
Canola Oil		4 tbsp

Preparation:

1. Wash beef and cut into 1" cubes
2. Pour canola oil into pot on med-high heat
3. Saute onions and garlic until translucent
4. Add ginger and lemongrass and saute until barely beginning to brown
5. Add tomato paste, crab paste, curry powder and coriander
6. Cook out all moisture until the paste begins to fry
7. Add beef and stir to coat and then leave to brown
8. Juices will release. It will seem like a lot of liquid, but rest assured, it will all evaporate. It will take a long time and require occasional stirring, but do not skip this step and do not continue before the meat itself begins to fry after all the liquid has disappeared. Doing so will result in a bland, one note dish. This is the step that separates the 'holy-crap-this-is-amazing' from 'it's-nice'.
9. When the meat has caramelized, add lime leafs, chillies and enough just-boiled water to cover and stir.
10. In a separate bowl, add tamarind paste and pour enough boiling water over to cover. Use a fork to quickly and vigorously mash the paste until all the pulp has been removed from the seeds and the skins. If you use 'sweet-tamarind', you will get a crappy taste. What you're looking for here is the intense sour of tamarind paste. Do not substitute this. Once you've mashed the paste, your water will become a pulp. Strain this through a fine meshed sieve directly into the pot.
11. Add fish sauce to the pot.
12. Stir and let boil for ten minutes.
13. Add yogurt and sour cream and stir to completely incorporate. The yogurt may appear a little grainy - that's okay. It will completely dissolve by the time the dish has finished cooking.
14. Reduce heat to low and cover for fifteen minutes. Turn off heat and remain covered until ready to serve over steamed rice.