v. gautam

Since we have not heard from Sweetback, the OP may have abandoned her (?) quest for a simple curry powder recipe owing to the growing complexity of the discussions. If so, here is a Jamaican curry powder recipe that might fit the bill: Proportions by weight: Turmeric powder 5 Coriander seed whole or powder (as convenient) 4 Cayenne or sweet hungarian paprika or milder anaheim dry red pepper 3 Fenugreek seed (depending on taste) 2-3 Cumin seed 2 Peppercorns 2 Anise 2 Yellow mustard whole 2 Cloves 1 Ground ginger 1 Nutmeg 1 Allspice 1 Grind fine and store in a glass bottle in freezer.

Reading Adam’s post reminded me of Hemant Trivedi, who writes in eGullet under the handle ‘Nichiro’. The gentleman is like an older brother to me and will pardon me for excerpting portions of his website, especially since one of his driving passions is to teach the fine points of Indian cooking to the younger generations, and especially to others who may not have ever experienced it. He is an extraordinarily talented cook, scholar, globetrotter, polymath and much else, He will be delighted if his words serve to enlighten some aspect of Indian foodways, and I hope that the forum moderators will understand that I excerpt full recipes here as a crucial pedagogic device that heartily will be supported by the author. I have made a few small changes in grammar and syntax to make the recipes more accessible to an International audience, but otherwise, everything from here on down is Hemant Trivedi, writing in his own wonderful style. His views and recipes are worthy of close attention. BTW, readers will guess that he cooks with a South Indian accent, but his home base is Saurashtra, Gujarat, as well [on the western coast of India]. “CURRYS --- CURRY...CURRY...CURRY...CURRY. The term curry derives from kari, a Tamil word meaning sauce and referring to various kinds of dishes common in South India made with vegetables or meat and usually eaten with rice In Tamil cuisine, from which the word originated, curry refers to any dry preparation involving meat or vegetables shallow-fried with dry spices. Used as a word in itself, it usually means chicken curry or mutton curry; the dishes made with vegetables are usually referred to with the vegetable as prefix - e.g. Potato curry, Beans curry. Curry is usually eaten with Rice and Sambar or Rasam. -WIKIPEDIA MADRAS CURRY POWDER[ I am not in favour of using readymade powders but in the present circumstances, using Garam Masala powder, Curry powders and Sambar &Rasam podis have become an integral part of cookery. This is due to paucity of time. So how can Hemant escape from this???. I am posting MADRAS CURRY POWDER today. This will be followed by Garam Masala and other powders and ready to eat podis like Chutney podi, Curry leaves podi and host of others. Madras curry powder is a fantastic blend of spices which was popularized all over the world by the Britishers. Their CHICKEN CURRY and MUTTON CURRY was too hot to handle for the uninitiated. This one curry powder has its humble origins in Madras. The fisherman community and the Pariahs were the people who according to me were the people who should be credited with this curry powder combination. . INGREDIENTS Dry Red Chillies 200 gms. Coriander seeds 150 gms. Black peppercorns 15 gms. Fenugreek seeds 1 tsp Black Mustard seeds 1.5 tsp Cumin seed 1.5 tsp Black gram dal, split, hulled 1 table spoon [urad dal] Pigeon pea, ditto, 1 table spoon [toor or arhar dal] White Rice 1.5 tsp Asafoetida 1 tsp Turmeric powder 1/2 tsp Curry leaves 1/2 Cup [METHOD OF PREPARATION As in all the powders in South, it is important that the ingredients need to be sun dried till chillies crumble when pinched and so should the coriander. But since it may not be possible for most of you, dry roast each ingredient separately in an Iron skillet just to let the moisture leave the ingredients. Only rice needs to be roasted till the grains become light pink and the curry leaves should crumble. Use a coffee grinder and grind to powder all the ingredients properly. Sieve the powder. The powder is to be stored in an air tight container. A Glass jar is a must. Use this powder to make Mutton curry, Fish Kozambu, Chicken Curry etc. Please do not confuse this powder with Sambar Powder. This mistake is repeatedly committed by foreigners; they think sambar powder and curry powder are same. Another CURRY POWDER: Roast the following ingredients in medium heat to a light golden color. . After having cooled them, grind to a fine powder. INGREDIENTS: 20 green cardamom pods, 2 cinnamon sticks which are broken into small pieces, 5 bay leaves, ½ tsp cloves, ¼ tsp grated nutmeg, 2tbsp aniseed, 1sp peppercorns, 10 dried curry leaves, 5 red chillies, 6tbsp coriander seeds, 3tbsp cumin seeds, 3tsp turmeric, 1tbsp fenugreek seeds, 2tbsp black mustard seeds. And now here is Sensei-san in his inimitable teaching style.illustrating a very important point : how ready-made spice powders become incorporated into variations of dishes, Indian-fusion, if you will, remembering that India is as large and considerably more diverse than Western Europe: Brinjal (Eggplant) Kootu I was preparing to try a different approach to kootu I had in mind but I just could not get the right combination.So yesterday evening when I went in the kitchen, I was blank and had no plan.One thing was sure that I was not adopting any standard style like Kerala Kootu or Tamilndu kootu , neither was I going to use curds or lime. I just set about fashioning kootu powder with one after the other ingredients. For giving body to powder, I used a shortcut of using sambar powder but jeera (cumin) was the magic I wanted to retain; it had to have a hot bite so more red chillies went in and then came the question of making it totally different , so Asafoetida in a raw state went in the powder. As a soothing touch, coconut (copra) powder also went in. The rest was elementary.You have the result in the form of recipe which got me 8.5 on a scale of 10 from a very strict daughter who gives marks as if she loses a million bucks with every mark awarded. So go ahead folks and try this KETA KOOTU which stands for Kerala Tamilnadu Kootu. National Integration of the best kind I would say.!! KATHIRIKKAI KOOTU (KETA KOOTU) For a family of four 2 servings Green/Regular Brinjals 350 gms Tamarind Juice 1 tbsp Salt to taste Kootu powder Asafetida 1/2 tsp Kadalai Parappu (channa dhall, split chickpeas) 1 tbsp Curry leaves 1 sprig Sambar Powder (T. Nadu style) 1 tsp (heaping) Coconut powder 2 Table sp Whole red chillies 2 to 3 Jeera 1/2 tspoon Tempering Mustard seeds 1/4 tspoon Black Gram Dhall (Ulutham parappu) 1 spoon Red Chillies 2 nos (broken) Sesame Oil (Gingly) 60 ml (2 to 3 ladleful) First prepare Kootu powder. This powder is different from the ones you might have used so far. Fry Kadalai Parappu in a little oil till just it starts changing colour. Under no circumstances, it should be even light brown or give off frying smell. Fry green curry leaves and red chillies along with parappu. Powder them after they are cold along with Sambar powder, jeera, Asafetida and copra (dry coconut ) . Do not use desiccated coconut please. Set aside. Select green Brinjals (long ) or usual dark brinjals of long variety. If not available, use others but Brinjals should be of sweet variety and not acidic. Cut in 1. 5 " long pieces of 4 pieces from one big piece. Immerse in water for about ten minutes. This would remove oxidating enzyme oxidase which browns it and sometimes gives funny taste. Pat dry with a clean cloth. Take oil in a kadai (wok) , add the tempering. Set on medium flame. When the mustard seeds start popping, the black gram dhall would have turned slight brown. Now add the brinjals and sauté for four minutes at the most. Now add a spoon of Tamarind juice and salt. Mix thoroughly and cook for further two to three minutes. By now the brinjals would be 3/4 cooked. Now add the Kootu powder you made and mix thoroughly. Taste for salt. Turn the mix properly for a minute and switch off the stove. Cover the kadai and let brinjals cook in residual heat. After 30 minutes, check. The brinjal Kootu would have cooked beautifully. Reheat and serve with rice, Rasam or sambar rice. Tastes equally great with poories, chapathis etc. Enjoy!!! Back to Curries Thanks to all the ForumHubbers for making this happen Vege Curry, Mixed (Karnataka) MIX VEGETABLE PALAYA (KARNATAKA STYLE) Karnataka Curries have a totally different type of taste than other southern curries. There is a very biting Chilli usage and there is a fine usage of Mustard and Coconuts in Vegetable curries. I am posting a MIX VEGETABLE CURRY in coconut milk Gravy . Remember, that if you cannot get hold of Coconut Milk in Indian Stores, try a store which sells Thai or Malay food items.If you still cant get the same , you can use plain milk or Cashew paste thinned to form Milk. This PALAYA tastes great with Rice and Parathas and Poories. Note above how he provides the proper specific Indian name for the particular dish, before following it with the looser INDIAN-ENGLISH equivalent of XYZ CURRY. This is a point well worth remembering, and a trend that throughout history has caused much confusion about the meaning of the word “CURRY.” Now see how the 2 eggplant dishes given below differ, although both are from south India, indeed from the contiguous states. ENNAI KATHTHARIKAI CURRY Ingredients: Peanuts, raw, 2tbsp, White poppyseeds-1tsp, fenugreek seeds]-1/2tsp, White sesame seeds-1tsp, Cumin seeds-3/4sp, Small asian shallots- 15. Tomato pieces-11/2 cups, Garlic cloves-6, Coriander powder-11/2tsp, Red pepper powder[mild]-1 tbsp, Turmeric powder-1tsp eggplant-8 to 10[small round ones, substitute small Italian type?] Unroasted sesame oil- 4tbsp, Mustard seeds-1tsp, Peppercorns-1tsp, Green chillies-5,[slit them lengthwise] Tamarind-a lime size ball Enough salt to taste. Method: Dry roast peanuts, cumin seeds, poppyseed, sesame seeds, fenugreek seeds to a golden brown colour and grind them with onions, tomatoes and garlic without adding water. Add the turmeric powder, chilli powder, and the coriander powder and mix well. Cut each eggplant in to 8 pieces lengthwise, add enough salt and the mixed masala to this, mix well and keep them covered for 1/2 hour. Heat the oil in a wok and add mustard seeds. When it splutters, add the green chillies and the peppercorns and fry for two minutes. Now add the eggplant with masasla and cook on a medium fire until the oil comes on the top. Extract a thick juice from the tamarind and add to the eggplant. When all the water is absorbed and the oil floats on the top, put off the fire. The gravy must be thick. Onion (Gutti Vankaya Kura) GUTTI VANKAYA KURA As a general rule, almost all the curries from Andhra Pradesh are EO & ET type and are fire balls for the uninitiated. But once you get the hang of them and once you get a taste of Andhra food, you would love to have them again and again. Today I am posting first version of GUTTI VANKAYA KURA Round small Brinjals 250 gms. Red chillies(dry) 7 to 8 nos. Dry coconut (Grated) 1/2 cup Coriander seeds 1 spoon Fried Bengal Gram dhall 3 spoons Onion 2 nos. Tamarind 1 medium lemon size salt to taste Turmeric powder 1/2 spoon Oil 2 ladle full [60 ml?] Cut brinjals (slit) in four but retain the stalk .Make the cuts from the top as you are going to stuff them. Take oil in a kadai and fry the brinjals till they are 1/2 cooked and are ready for stuffing. Keep them aside. Make a powder of red chillies, salt , coriander seeds, copra (dry coconut). When the powder is ready, add onion pieces and Turmeric powder and make a paste of the whole thing in a mixi (oriental food processor). Now take about three spoons of oil in the woki and fry the paste for about two to three minutes stirring it constantly. Remove from fire and let it cool. Now stuff the brinjals with the fried paste and when the stuffing is over, keep the brinjals covered for about 15 minutes. Now reheat the Brinjals for about ten minutes on a low flame, taking care to see that the brinjals do not become too soft and soggy. Serve piping hot along with plain rice. This also goes very well with chapathi and parotha. ............................................................................................................................. Now on to some non-veg options with a southern accent, also from the same author; note the same spices, used differently to give an entirely different experience: CHICKEN MASALA: Ingredients: Chicken pieces- 2 kilo Fresh curd- 8 tbsp Ginger paste-4tsp Garlic paste- 4 tsp Coarsely ground black pepper -2 ½ tbsp Lime juice- 2 tsp Turmeric powder-1 tsp Cumin powder-1 tsp Red pepper powder- 1tbsp Fennel powder- 3 tsp Coriander powder-2 tsp Oil-7 tbsp Chopped onion- 3 cups Chopped tomatoes- 2 cups Red chillies, dry-6 Curry leaves- a handful Salt to taste Procedure: Clean and wash the chicken pieces well. Marinate these chicken pieces with the fresh curd, ginger paste 2sp, garlic paste 2sp, coarsely ground pepper -1 ½ tbsp, lime juice , cumin powder red pepper powder, fennel powder, coriander powder, salt and turmeric powder for 2 hours. Heat a big wok and pour 6tbsp oil. When it becomes hot, add the chopped onion and fry slowly until the color changes into golden brown. Then add 2tsp ginger paste and 2tsp garlic paste. Fry well for a few minutes. Then add the crushed tomatoes with 1/2sp salt and cook well until they are well mashed and the oil floats on the top. Then add the chicken and cook until the chicken pieces are cooked and the gravy is thickened. Cook on medium fire and do not add any extra water. Heat a small wok and pour 2tbsp oil. When it becomes hot, add the dry red chillies, curry leaves and 1tbsp coarsely ground peppercorns. Pour this on the chicken masala and mix well. Cook for a few minutes and then put off the fire. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. TOMATO MUTTON (chevon) CURRY Ingredients: Oil- 3tbsp Ghee- 3tbsp Mutton pieces- ½ kilo Turmeric powder- 1 tsp Salt to tatse Grind to a paste: Chopped tomatoes- 1 cup Small onions-8 Garlic cloves-10 (indian cloves are very small) Ginger- 1” piece Chopped coriander leaves- ½ cup Shredded coconut- 2tbsp Powder the following: Fennel seeds- 1tsp Red chillies-8 Cumin seeds- 1tsp Cinnamon- 1 piece Cardamom, green-2 Poppy seeds- 1 tsp Fennel seeds- 2tsp Procedure: Add the ground paste with the mutton pieces and mix well with enough salt and the turmeric powder. . Pressure cook this mutton for 5 or 6 whistles. Heat a wok and pour the oil and the ghee. Add the ground powder to the ghee and fry for a few minutes on slow fire. Add the cooked mutton masala and cook until the gravy thickens. Add chopped coriander and curry leaves.

"Curry Powder" [in the narrow sense we know it in the US or the Western world] may indeed be utterly useless when creating traditional dishes of northern India or Bengal, for example. However, many south Indian [specifically Tamil Brahman] vegetaian dishes do rely on a number of pre-made 'dry' powders that could include copra, often supplemented by a second fresh-ground wet paste, the whole preparation finished off with a 'tempering' or 'baghar' of whole spices and fresh curry leaves [Murraya koenigii]. The cooking of Maharashtra and the western coastal plain also takes advantage, to some extent, on pre-made powders compounded of a number of spices that are toasted and finely ground; these mixes may also include roasted and gound copra, shallots, cashew nuts, lichen, and numerous aromatics suited to the food to be prepared. As you can see, these kala masalas, goda masalas etc., are far more than 'curry' powders where one size fits all. So in that sense, curry powder could be said to not be a serious ingredient, and I think that was what Scott's intent was. Nonetheless, authentic Jamaican curry powder is used in, say, Jamaican curry, American curry powder in egg salads, or in Western redactions of 'Indian' curries are delicious all by themselves, and here curry powder has an important role. Brands like Frontier Spice provide an excellent product. The gentleman upstream who remarked about the importance of the flavor of fenugreek in curry powder surely must have been speaking about this westernised curry powder. It is doubtful that any north Indian 'curry' [other than the aachari] truly admit the taste of fenugreek within their traditional flavor palette. When I was growing up in India the very early 60s, we saw no spice powders;even chilies and turmeric were ground to a paste by hand each morning in our home in rural Bengal 40 miles from Calcutta. This was standard in all homes, rich or poor. These two spices were the first to be replaced by their powdered forms and until I left in 1988, there was never ever any general use of 'curry powder' even as a convenience product in this part of Bengal. Of course, things are different in other parts of the country with educated women in busy households choosing to experiment with many available convenience foods. There is a Lamb Vindaloo that evolved/originated in post-war British curryhouses at the hands of Sylheti cooks from Bangladesh. This has NO connection WHATSOEVER, save the name, to the dish called VINDALOO that in India is prepared with pork and comes in two redactions: the primary one, of course, is Goan, the secondary East Indian (an old community going by that name of converted Marathas settled around old Bombay). What sense is there decrying the former which has become validated and authenticated in its own right by being extravagantly loved? So with curry powder. It may not have a serious place in cooking traditional UR-Indian foods, but it does have a role in turning out a number of derivative, and even uniquely delicious products. In that sense it is not trivial at all. .

Did you have a particular dish, or a particular type of dish, in mind? If you can try and tell us a little more about what you like to eat or the types of flavors you would like to reproduce at home, we might have a better grasp of the type of spice combinations that you would love. See, its a bit like forensic sketches of suspects: tell us a little more, and we shall go on from there. The Frugal Gourmet has a recipe in one of his books, but i forget which; his, like most American curry powders (McCormick etc.) contain celery seed. These add a distinctive note, that i find delicious, but create a dish not necessarily familiar to India. Similarly, you may go to Pat Chapman and find many dishes there that evolved in Britain. Again, Elizabeth Andoh, and japanese cookbooks in English, employ Japanese curry blocks, plus an assortment of fruity additions [mango chutney, apple etc] to come up with their own extremely sapid curries. Vietnam and Hongkong do similar things plus coconut milk; and i shall not even move to other places beyond. So, if you are better able to define which flavor complex, or which specific dishes [ British type vindaloo, US Southern Country Captain, Steam Table Chicken Curry, British Roghan Josh, British Balti, etc.] set off your 'curry' craving, then it will be possible to pinpoint what type of SPICES or SPICE POWDER COMBINATION might best meet your needs. Sorry for this long-winded answer. As an Indian, feel sort of responsible that you not get lost in the wilds of the spice forest, but get the results you are actually craving. Please pm me if i can help further. regards, gautam

Does Mesh-mesh Amrah ring any bells? Dr.Joe Goffreda, New Jersey Agriculcutural Experimental Station, Cream Ridge, Rutgers, NJ, is one of the leading apricot breeders in the USA. He might be a good person to answer your question. Best of luck. g

If you can find fresh caul fat in your area, you can lay out a large sheet of the caul, spread the fish paste along the middle but asymmetrically, the far edge somewhat broader. Fold it back towards you. Now you have the two edges meet, and the fish paste betwwen, making a large roughly oblong sausage. Try to leave enough edge space so that you can fold once more into a rough cylinder. Then you can chill and with your hands squeeze to form round shpes, that you then cut off and pan fry, or dust with cornstarch and deepfry. If this is becoming too complicated, just cut pieces of caul fat and wrap your paste in them. Then you can shape them easily, and as you fry, the fat will melt away, and leave a very delicious fish cake. The caul fat is one of the best quality fats from the pig. It is very useful also in smashed shrimp balls. g

Thank you so very much trillium and ecr. I think you both have confirmed the clue provided by Charmaine Solomon, and trillium, what you describe coincides exactly with my childhood memories of watching the murtabak craftsmen at work. I have summarized for my own clarity what we seem to agree on: dough: initial conditions yet unknown, flour type, shortening, water temp. i.e. boiling water dough etc. kneading conditions/tempeatures: unknown Post-kneading: oil: dough balls glistening, slick, or soaked in oil resting: dough balls recovering under specific conditions of warmth and humidity heat: of a tropical climate: be it calcutta, thailand, s'pore, colombo, m'sia more heat: proximity of waiting dough balls to the heat source bench: smooth marble or stainless steel slick with oil skill: long practice Some things have become clear thanks to you guys. Now I will wait to actually get to Portland someday and ask(!) about the flour and the rest. g

Are there any true Murtabak makers present in the S.E. Asian restaurants in the US today? By which I mean Murtabak specialists who can flip the dough into the air and turn it into paper thin sheets? Question 2: Would any of our Makan experts, especially those now prowling the field in S.E Asia, be interested in a bit of detective work to discover what is the technique/science behind preparing the dough so that it is able to do what it does: flare out so spectacularly? This inquiring mind has wanted to know for decades! Will someone please put it out of its misery? Charmaine Solomon, in her book on Asian Cooking, has a recipe for Godamba Roti (the Sri Lankan name for Murtabak) which involves immersing the dough balls in oil for some time! That is her short-cut truc for the home cook. Have not had the courage to try it. g

If you are are curious about what my description in the previous post entails, a good friend of mine filmed these marvellous sequences in detail and posted them on another site : [http://www.anothersubcontinent.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2701&hl=singapore& st=30 http://www.highlyirrelevant.com/singaporefood/] The Singapore version of the Mughglai Paratha is apparently called Roti Paratha, and this is different from the frozen roti pratas[sic] we are able to buy here in the US. Note the 'twice cooked' variation in the Singapore style as opposed to the Bengali redaction. Re: Babu in Manhattan, Pan, it used to be pay what you feelit is worth;no longer. I have heard, (no personal experience) that the Luchi, kosha mangsho, and tomato chutney are true to their bengali originals.They do not serve Mughlai paratha, asfar as i can tell.

The murtabak probably has a Muslim ancestry, because in West Bengal,India,it is known a Mughlai Paratha. Charmaine Solomon gdecribes it as godamba roti in Sri Lanka and gives a recipe in her bookon Asian cooking. Returning to the Bengali version, with which I am most familiar, it is the quality of the dough, rather than the filling,that distinguishes the excellent from the mediocre. The filling in all cases comprises beaten duck eggs, minced onion, minced green chillies, ditto fresh ginger root, and a tiny amount of cooked goat mince. The true artistry lies in the shaping of the dough, a lump of which is pinched off, and slapped down on a sheet of marble slick with mustard oil. With deft outward flicks of the wrists, the lump soon flies into a thin transparent sheet resting on the marble board. A few tablespoons of the beaten eggs are ladled in for the 'single' order, double that for the 'double'. Then the two sides are folded towards the center, not quite meeting. The same is done with the top and bottom. You have in the middle, then, a little rectangle, where the egg is in a liquid pool, as well as being enclosed between dough to the sides and top and bottom. This ensemble, 8 inches x 8 inches, pool side up, deftly is transferred to a griddle, and pan-fried until egg is set;then turned over and very lightly browned. The desired goal is a sort of chewy, stretchy yet tender dough with a crisp top encasing a tender chili/ginger-suffused egg omelette. The meat is elided in the Bengali redaction. the combination of mustad oiland ghee [clarified butter], dough consistency/crispness/tenderness, egg seasoning/tenderness defines the Mughlai paratha. Mughlai paratha almost always is a restaurant treat, and is served with a bland potato 'curry';or, for special occasions, a dry braised chevon dish called kasha manghsho. I believe "Babu" in New York is said to serve an estimable version of the latter.

Hi Pan, Thanks for the heads-up. Am appending the full text; will be violating copyright, probably, and request the moderator to edit this post until guidelines are satisfied. Include the full text so that readers may forward it to others who may be able to be of help. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/dining/2...?pagewanted=all December 21, 2005 A Brighter View Astern Than Over the Bow By KIM SEVERSON Chalmette, La. IT'S early morning on a marshy stretch of water that runs east from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. Ray Brandhurst, who has known nothing but the Louisiana shrimping life, is three cans of iced tea and a dozen Kools into his day. On the rear deck of the 50-foot shrimp boat he built by hand - a boat that Hurricane Katrina sent halfway to the bottom of Bayou Bienvenue - Mr. Brandhurst jerks a line securing a green mesh net. All at once a thousand pounds of wild white shrimp, each about the length of a ball point pen and kicking for its life, pours onto the deck and buries his stubby white shrimper boots. "We're having our Bubba Gump moment, all right," says Mr. Brandhurst, who can't resist quoting from the movie "Forrest Gump." Those shrimp, fat from the marsh debris stirred up by both Katrina and Rita and as plentiful as Mr. Brandhurst has seen in his 30 years of shrimping, are about all he has left. Like many men and women who made their living pulling oysters and shrimp from the waters of Southeast Louisiana, the Brandhurst family was laid flat by Katrina. A wall of water 25 feet high wiped out nearly every home, boat and business in Chalmette and surrounding St. Bernard Parish, about a half-hour drive from downtown New Orleans. More than three months after the storm, the parish remains a moldy, wrecked shell of what was home to 70,000 people, most of whom made their living from the water. The Brandhursts' four-bedroom ranch house in Chalmette, the largest community in the parish, sat in water for weeks. Down the street, he and his wife, Kay, ran a retail shop called Rebel Seafood, where for 20 years they peeled shrimp, cut fish and boiled seafood. It's gone too. So are thousands of family snapshots and two generations of recipes, including a handwritten cookbook that doubled as a family journal for Ray's mother. Those are what Kay misses the most. The couple and their children are squished into a one-bedroom apartment in an ugly New Orleans subdivision, an hour's drive from the boat and their old lives. Within weeks the shrimp will stop running for the season and the Bubba Gump moment will be over. The Brandhursts, one of the last Louisiana wild-shrimp families, will have to figure out if they have enough insurance and fortitude to scrape together a new life or salvage one in an industry that was dying even before the hurricanes. "When this is over we have no income," said Mr. Brandhurst, 48, explaining why he spends 18 hours every day shrimping. "I can't afford to walk away from it. I've got four kids." In a way Katrina was just one more blow to the industry. For years rising fuel costs and falling prices have eaten away at what little profit shrimpers made. America transferred its affection from domestic to imported shrimp years ago. Now imports make up as much as 88 percent of the market, most of them from places like Vietnam, Ecuador, Thailand and China. Plenty of imported shrimp are farm-raised, and batches have tested positive for antibiotics banned for use in the United States. But fishmongers at places like the Fulton Fish Market in New York say Gulf shrimp are inconsistent in both flavor and size. The shrimp have thin, harder-to-peel shells. Some taste of the iodine-rich kelp they eat. Imported shrimp, on the other hand, are bred to have thicker shells and less delicate flesh. They are easier to care for and sell. Ask Mr. Brandhurst about imported or farmed shrimp, and he'll shoot you a look. "They have tweaked the genetics on them so much they're a commodity now, like soybeans," he said. The market has changed, too. People don't have as much time to cook, he said. "They don't want to spend half an hour peeling shrimp before they start cooking." In Florida and Texas some companies farm shrimp organically, with an eye to limiting environmental damage. The bulk of the nation's domestic wild shrimp still come from big factory trawlers working the Gulf's open waters. Texas shrimp tend to be larger than most, and Florida produces firm wild pink shrimp that have a certain appeal. The ones taken off Louisiana, where two-thirds of the vessels are 50 feet long or less, tend to be smaller. But Mr. Brandhurst, along with plenty of cooks in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, will tell you that what comes from Louisiana waters is the sweetest of all the Gulf shrimp. Louisiana, second only to Alaska in the amount of seafood that hits its piers, produces the most domestic shrimp. In 2004 Louisiana took about 120 million pounds out of the water. But with less than a quarter of the shrimpers back in business and most of the state's processing centers knocked out, the catch might reach only 60 million pounds in 2006, said Ewell Smith, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. And though shrimp are plentiful now, there's no telling how much damage the habitat sustained. "We lost as much marshland between these two storms as we would have lost over 45 years," Mr. Smith said. Mr. Brandhurst, who bought his first shrimp boat at 15, has been watching the business slip for a decade. In the 1980's and early 1990's, he recalled, maybe 400 shrimp boats worked the lakes and bayous between New Orleans and the Gulf. The numbers kept dropping, and just before Katrina hit fewer than 100 remained. Now he pretty much has the water to himself. The Louisiana oystermen might have it worse. In 2004 about two-thirds of this country's 750,000 million pounds of in-shell oysters were "Gulf easterns." Louisiana produced most of those. The 2006 harvest will be down at least 60 percent, said Mike Voisin, a lifelong oysterman who runs an industry-government partnership called the Louisiana Oyster Task Force. Many of the state's oysters were killed by the hurricane's huge silt deposits. The storm was so violent, thousands of acres of oyster beds and reefs were smashed and will have to be rebuilt and restocked. Although Mr. Voisin said that plenty of oysters will be available for holiday feasts, the extent of the damage hasn't yet sunk in. "I still wipe my eyes when I talk about it," he said. "You think back on all that these people have been through, the shock of it. People just can't get focused. They can't set a direction." But like the shrimpers, the oystermen are driven to rebuild their industry. And that means defending southeast Louisiana seafood with an attitude that is part pride and part defiance. At a place like Domilise's po' boy shop in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans or at the Bourbon House oyster bar in the French Quarter, ask where the seafood is from and the answer is, "It better be from Louisiana." Outside the state, the nation is feeling a little squeamish about Louisiana seafood. "When the people saw the city being dewatered and the press labeled it toxic soup, that just killed our seafood sales," Mr. Smith said. But things are looking up. All of the state's two million acres of oyster beds are open, damaged or not. On Dec. 8 a team of health inspectors from the state, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that hundreds of samples taken out of estuaries near New Orleans and all the way over to the Gulf shores of Alabama showed that the seafood was safe. The truest test of Louisiana's seafood might be from the people in New Orleans who are eating it, which is pretty much whoever can afford it or find a restaurant with enough shuckers to keep the oysters coming. For Mrs. Brandhurst, shrimp is the staple on her table. Before Katrina, every other dinner she fed her children was shrimp or, in the off-season, boiled or stuffed crawfish. They were sick of it. Two months after the storm, when Mr. Brandhurst had finally refloated his boat and pulled in his first load of shrimp, he took a bag back to the family's small apartment. Mrs. Brandhurst fried them, making po' boys on whole wheat buns because the New Orleans bakeries that bake the classic crisp-shell French po' boy bread weren't back in business yet. The children, age 4 to 13, went crazy for them. "They want it every night now," she said. Shrimping, at least the way Mr. Brandhurst does it, is pretty straightforward. Running his boat slow, he eases his net off the back of the boat. Two platforms of wood and metal drag it along the bottom, stretching it out to about 50 feet wide. A little more than an hour later, Mr. Brandhurst winches in the net, dangling it over the deck like a seven-foot-high provolone cheese. Along with the shrimp, it is filled with marsh grass, stumps and a by-catch of things like ribbonfish, flounder, and blue crabs. They used to sell the crabs and fillet some of the fish. But not today: everything that isn't a shrimp is thrown back into the water. "What I'm going for is volume," Mr. Brandhurst said. On this day, he would pull in about 4,000 pounds of shrimp over 10 hours. "Before, if you even got 1,000 pounds you'd say you had a good day," said Dustin Locascio, 28, who, after losing his own shrimp boat, is working as Mr. Brandhurst's deckhand. With so many processors closed and most of his customers in New Orleans gone, Mr. Brandhurst's only hope is to sell enough to the few remaining buyers within driving distance. They sell the shrimp to processors, who resell some of them whole but peel and freeze most. The biggest shrimp he can find now bring as much as $1.25 a pound. In a New York neighborhood fish market, the same size shrimp - from Ecuador - sell for $9.99 a pound without the head on. The smaller ones, which Mr. Brandhurst catches toward the end of the day, might bring him as little as 80 cents a pound. By mixing his catches, he calculates that he will average $1 a pound, maybe a nickel more. On days with a haul this big, a difference of 25 cents a pound can translate to $1,000. In his post-Katrina world, that's a small fortune. It's Mrs. Brandhurst's job to get the shrimp to the buyers, and it's some of the most exhausting work she's done. Her day starts before dawn, when she gets Mr. Brandhurst off to the boat. One daughter is on an academic scholarship at the University of Miami, but she has three other children to run to their new schools. She drives them in a truck filled with ice and the shrimp Mr. Brandhurst caught the day before, then goes and sells shrimp until they are out of school. "You've got to do what you've got to do, girl," she said. "You work for 20 years on a business, and you wake up the next day and all you've got is two changes of clothes and four dependents and not even a pan to fry an egg in." Two days a week she sells her shrimp at farmers' markets that have reopened in less damaged areas in and around New Orleans. On a recent Tuesday at the Crescent City market in the relatively intact and upscale Uptown neighborhood, she used a rusty scale to weigh out medium-size shrimp at $3 a pound. Some customers, looking much more put-together than Mrs. Brandhurst, complained about their small size and asked if she was peeling them for customers. "No, darlin'," Mrs. Brandhurst said, exhausted but still polite. "We're not peeling yet." When they walked away, Mrs. Brandhurst muttered, "Uptown people." The bulk of the shrimp, and the real money, come from the buyers who sell to the factories. The one who was an hour and a half away closed up shop Saturday. The one three hours away plans to stop selling on Wednesday. That means Mr. Brandhurst will be off the water until after Christmas, when the factories might reopen. He's hoping the Bubba Gump moment lasts that long. "It's killing me," he said. For the long term, Mr. Brandhurst thinks that the upscale shoppers, not the factories, might be the family's only hope. His figures his shrimp will get the best price from cooks who increasingly want wild and natural foods from small producers. He holds up a big shrimp - what a creative menu writer might call a wild hand-caught Louisiana jumbo Gulf prawn - and asks how much people in New York might pay for it. A lot. Maybe $12 or $14 a pound, really fresh. He shakes his head. The Brandhursts will get a dollar or so a pound for shrimp that size. But these days, a dollar a pound is a dollar a pound. With nothing left but a failing shrimp boat, a couple of trucks and the promise of a little insurance money, surviving has meant taking charity from people the Brandhursts never thought they'd have to turn to. First there was the large fleet of Vietnamese shrimpers, whom Mr. Brandhurst used to view as competition until they let him live on their boats while he rebuilt his. ("You realize what's really inside people," he said.) Then he had to sign his family up for food stamps. ("That was humbling, let me tell you," he said.) And finally he got $2,450 from the Carmel, Calif., chapter of the culinary organization Slow Food. That happened after Poppy Tooker, who runs the Slow Food chapter in New Orleans, saw a newspaper photograph of Mr. Brandhurst trying to save his boat at the same time Gabriela Forte, who runs the Carmel chapter, was looking for a family to help with proceeds from a gumbo fund-raiser. The Brandhursts, though still puzzled about what Slow Food might be, are in awe of that simple gesture of transcontinental generosity. Without that cash, to repair an engine, they would have missed much of the post-hurricane harvest. And Ms. Forte is planning another fund-raiser for Jan. 27. Still, the Brandhursts don't know if they will be able to keep shrimping. The coming winter, with no shrimp to catch and no other income, will be a long one. They could look for jobs gutting people's houses or cooking for work crews, but the pay isn't enough to justify the hours. And they don't want to move their children into what would be their fourth school of the year. Shrimping is all they know. Still, the truth creeps in. It might be time to move on. "I say I'm going to rebuild, but I won't have any customers," Mr. Brandhurst said. "It's gone." REBEL SEAFOOD Chalmette 504-271-7404

This discussion about shrimp was such an amazing coincidence, because I was debating where in eGullet to post this rather sad article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/dining/2...?pagewanted=all December 21, 2005 A Brighter View Astern Than Over the Bow By KIM SEVERSON Perhaps eGulleteers already know of this or similar cases, but I was hoping that some of our members with restaurant connections could give these folks a hand. Especially, gourmet Chinese and Japanese establishments with their emphasis on top quality fresh shrimp might find small fishing families like the ones mentioned here to handily meet their needs. These top restaurants need not necessarily be in New York or points far removed from Louisiana; I am sure there are places in Texas or in the South that could take advantage of the wild shrimp and excellent sizes offered by these folk. Even with the smaller sizes, i know that the shell-on wild shrimp would enjoy a premium in certain Indian regional cuisines, but doubt that these are as yet well-developed enough in the US to offer the requisite prices. OTOH, there must now exist a critical mass of sophisticated lovers of Chinese foods, including an affluent Chinese community. who might enjoy these smaller shell-on shrimp in precisely such dishes as are being discussed here.

I may be quite wrong, but I believe Trillium and Milagai are referring to two quite distinct spices. The former may be thinking of Nigella sativum seeds, small black sort of teardrop shaped seeds vaguely similar to onion seeds. They have been mistakenly called onion seeds in many an Indian cookbook. These are also known as kalonji, and the Bengalis call it kalo jeerey. It is these seeds that are used in tandoor breads, and in Bengali cookery, amongst other things. The other kala jeera is a longer, thin, somewhat crescent shaped dark seed, with brownish highlights and often confused with caraway. It does come from a caraway-like plant growing in the mountainous areas of Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, etc. in India, and perhaps in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well. This other kala jeera is used in North Indian garam masalas, tandoori pastes, pilafs etc. It is possible that kala jeera is sometimes referred to as Shahzeera, perhaps intending to convey that this relatively expensive spice is associated with royalty or is a noble spice. Compounding the problem is the Persian word 'Siah" meaning black. Siah zeera can be used for caraway, and in the tongues of the Indian plains and bazaars, Shahzeera and Siahzeera can become confused, although the spices are not. Hence the perennial perplexity about kala zeera, shahzeera and siah zeera among many Indian foodwriters. The link below has a lively debate about the subject: http://www.anothersubcontinent.com/forums/...=30entry35789

"And if you are asking why the statement is there at all, read upthread and you should get the answer. It is not being equated with turmeric, chilli, or vindaloo, it that is what you are implying." I have read upthread, and am puzzled as to what you believe the composition of Panch Phoron to be.

Here is a foolish 2 cents: With chicken breasts, take the skinless whole breasts, turn them ragged side up, and pound them with the back of a cleaver or meat pounder, not too hard, but not lightly either. Dont slice thinly, just slice lengthwise in half. Make sure your marinade has plenty of oil, and only a small quantity of vinegar or lemon juice, preferably the latter. With the carefully pounded meat, you will find the breast absorbs oil as it should, and remains juicier. Give this a small try, and see for yourself. In the US, the law says that after slaughter, the chicken carcass has to be brouht down to below 30 degrees F in roughly an hour or so; the processors dump the carcass in ice water; if cooled by air, rigor would develop and then release, and a better quality chicken would ensue. Cooling in ice water and machine deboning creates textural problems. Try this judicious pounding, followed by marination in an oil rich, acidpoor marinade, keep the breasts whole or halved lengthwise, and please report your findings. Pound the beef fillet judiciously, and pound in suet fat, at least 20%, marinate.

Are people who want to be Korean, specifically from Hadong, in the next life included?

Come again: "Panch Poran [sic] is the same spice mixture, different spelling" ?

From a review in the NY Times of Sabry's 24-25 Steinway Street (25th Avenue), Astoria, Queens; (718) 721-9010. "The seafood is baked in a long-simmered but brightly flavored tomato sauce spiked with cooked cilantro and whole coriander seeds. Biting down on the occasional coriander seed releases a surge of peppery heat and the seed's floral perfumed flavor. The kitchen has mastered baking the tagines so that the topmost layer of tomato sauce is seared to a tomato pastelike sweetness but the seafood below is never overcooked." Any comments about this technique? [did reprise 'cooking with paula wolfert' thread and chefzadi's response about browning chickens, in the COOKING forum]

I have heard so much praise for the Hami melons and the grapes from the arid west of China; are any of these imported and sold in Japan? Torakris, Hiroyuki, and others, When you have the time, please do continue telling us more about specific exquisite fruit varieties in Japan. For example, Torakris mentions an apple with a syrupy interior; what is its variety name? where is it grown? etc. Japanese strawberries like "Akihime" have been bred for 12-14% sugar, far greater than the 8% found in the sweetest commercial European cultivars. Plus there is the painstaking cultivation of these. It is so wonderful to learn new horticultural details of a land as fascinating as Japan. The link on the melons would be the type of information I would appreciate very much. I have seen pictures of meticulously trained figs and peaches, and hope someone will be tell us more about these and specialty grapes. There are even mangoes being grown in greenhouses in Japan!

Try Silver Tips Tea Room, Anupa Mueller Proprietor; she imports the Makaibari range of organic teas; first flush as well as the special silver tips are excellent

Are Persian cukes another name for 'Armenian' cukes or 'Serpent melons'? if so, these latter are the same, and Cucumis melo. Try Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

The yellow kroeung: Stalk of lemon grass Galangal Turmeric Garlic Shallot Prahok (optional) This kroeung uses stalk of lemon grass only to cook the Samla Mchou Kroeung, which is a sour soup. It is also used in stir-fries of frogs, chicken and beef. It is also mixed into the stuffing for frogs, adding roasted and ground peanuts, and julienned cubanelle peppers, and seasoning http://dmoz.org/Home/Cooking/World_Cuisines/Asian/Cambodian/

The sajj bread you write about is known as rumali roti [rumal = handkerchief] in northern India, and is made with chapati flour. Traditional varieties of chapati flour wheat matured as temperatures were rising in late spring. A small percentage [6-8] of the starch grains in the wheat is damaged by the high temperatures. Such damage is conducive to a type of hydration that makes particularly toothsome rumali rotis, as wll as soft, puffy chapatis.

could it be something like balushahi, rather than til laddoo? b is dough fried at varying temperatures to cause layering in the short pastry, including a hollow center; it is then soaked in syrup.