Chris Amirault

Ooh. Recipe please.

When I want minimalism, I go for a version of the slaw that I used to get at a Greek deli in Meredith NH: cabbage, onion, olive oil, a lot of vinegar, oregano, S&P. Tart stuff. Love it. When I want something more expressive and expressionist, I go with Jean Anderson's barbecue slaw from Love Affair with Southern Cooking: cabbage, sweet onion, oil, vinegar, sugar, barbecue sauce (I use =Mark's SC sauce), mustard, and paprika. Sweet stuff. Love it. I have a som tam mortar that I haven't used for a while. Maybe it's time....

Works with cucumber, mango and other slaws as well.

I'm in Providence RI. Here's a new one, from a place I liked, too: various iterations on "Buy something with alcohol in it now": "Care to start with a cocktail?" "The Magic Hat goes very well with that appetizer." "Glass of wine with your main course?" "Some brandy to close?"

One of the perils of being both a guest and a helper in the kitchen is that you often are called upon to eat copious amounts of food for a variety of reasons: to taste for seasoning or doneness; for sustenance; to show good manners. To wit, on Friday morning, I had at least four distinct breakfasts: leftover chicken curry with rice; fruit and yogurt; dosai filled with a bunch of stuff; and upma. Ami described upma as "South Indian cream of wheat." That's a little like saying that Handel's "Messiah" is "German 'Happy Birthday.'" Here's an annotated, illustrated recipe: Upma Toast 2 1/2 c of sooji/rabai (coarse farina) in the microwave for a couple of minutes until it starts to color a bit. For your mise, get your sous chef to grate, chop, and mince, as appropriate, carrots, zucchini, red onion, ginger, green chili and make sure he puts them on the appropriate plates. (If he puts the onion on something other than the onion plate, just explain his error and get him to fix it pronto. He'll learn.) Get your other ingredients ready to go as well: a handful of cilantro, a few julienned curry leaves, butter, oil, asofoetida. Warm up twice as much water by volume as your farina (5c here). Juice a lemon. Open up your handy, stoveside stainless container of mustard seeds, chana dal, and urad dal. Melt a knob of butter in the pan with some canola oil over high heat and toss in your mustard seeds. When they pop, toss in a few dal (either or both), and sauté them until the dal picks up some color and gives the oil a nutty fragrance. Add the almonds and then the onions, sautéing each briefly to bring them to temperature and give a bit more color. Add each of the following ingredients and taste to adjust at each step: chili, curry leaves, asofoetida, salt, ginger, cilantro, lemon juice. ETA: be sure to overseason, remembering that you're going to add a boatload of farina soon. It should be salty, piquant, and acidic, strong but balanced. Add the carrot & zucchini all at once, and cook them to warm them through, being careful neither to brown them or to let the zucchini overcook and give off its juice. Think texture; the crunch is important. When you're ready, add most of the water and bring it to a boil. Stir or whisk in the farina by sprinkling it over the top; if it clots, break up the clot before adding more. Heat the upma through, stirring constantly and turning down the heat if it's sticking, and cook for 3-5 minutes. Take it off when it has a sufficiently stick-to-the-ribs quality; you're not looking for creamy porridge here. Serve with green mango chutney, peanut & coconut chutney, or whatever else you'd like. Eat four servings and hope the guests never arrive to discover your hoard.

One thing that you must understand is that the house was absolutely, positively packed with food. Sitting around for most of the weekend was this rather bland looking stuff: That stuff is in fact delectable peanut and coconut chutney, which singlehandedly accounts for at least a pound of my weight gain. I found that it is good on chapatis, dosas, rice, chicken, eggplant, yogurt, tortilla chips, fingers, and even your breath. Then we have these spectacular mangoes: Baby mango pickles on the left, green mango chutney on the right. The mango chutney is the best I've ever had. I was told repeatedly by Jith and others that I was using "inauthentic" amounts on my dishes, to which I would blurt, "Screw authenticity," and inadvertently spit chili oil into their eyes. Need a snack? Perhaps a sweet? Let's see... somewhere around here... oh, wait, found 'em: If it's made of rice, dal, or anything else that can be ground and fried, it's on that table.

So no aromatics at all? Just the salt?

Here's that chicken curry dish:

Oh, I'll bet you can find a way to reveal a brief glimpse behind the curtain, dude.

Craigie on Main in Boston is serving house-cured sardines. Does anyone do this? What method do you use? I'm eager to learn.

Interesting. It never happened to me, and I'm fascinated to wonder why it happens. What exactly is the compound that browns in a roux?

We arrived very late in the evening to an already bustling house. Our friends had arrived along with a few members of the family, with many, many more to come over the next two days. We were really hungry from the travel and sat down to devour several dishes that Ami had prepared in anticipation of our arrival: some rice, an eggplant dish, and a chicken curry. Everything was delicious. The eggplant was tender but pleasantly toothy, and not at all mushy or oily; my wife Andrea, who "hates eggplant," had at least three servings of it. The chicken curry was similarly expert. As I tried to guess the ingredients, Ami walked me through several techniques I'd later learn and do: the use of dal as a textural and flavoring element in sautéed foods; modifications in the order of ingredient additions depending on the dish; the avoidance of garam masala, thick sauces, and other spice mixtures. I started to think that Southern Indian cooking may have the same relationship to Northern Indian cooking as Italian cooking has to French: the cooks in the south try to avoid too much frou-frou in order to let the flavors of product shine through. Too tired to work that comparison out, though, and I figured that I would have a busy day ahead. Little did I know....

Dave, how are you deciding what to include and exclude? I've a keen appreciation for your skills as a researcher and archivist, but I can well imagine you have several orders of magnitude more stuff than you need! What are you aiming for with these pieces?

Decided that I wanted to get a better sense of the Friday food, and so I emailed Ami, who wrote: I love home cooks, find them often more interesting than professional chefs, and the thought of following along as Ami made up recipes seemed exciting to me. So, when I saw her online, I pinged her: I decided not to do ask (gulp again). Packed up the knives and a bit more Zantac than usual, and off I went to Chicagoland.

Five bucks at Meijer; someone thought we'd need matching unis, I guess. Though I brought it with me (I wrap my knives in it when I travel), I chose not to wear my Yoko Ono's ass apron. When I told Jith I had brought it and asked him whether I should wear it, he was speechless for a while, which I took as a "No."

To have any chance at functioning at a non-toddler level in Ami's kitchen, it was clear that I needed to do some homework. Let's start with "South Indian," which of course indicates a bunch of different regions and cuisines. To be more specific, Jith's family is from Coimbatore in the state of Tamil Nadu. (Google map here.) Tamil Nadu is as far south as you can get without jumping over the Gulf of Mannar to Sri Lanka, and Coimbatore is just east of the Kerala border. It's about as far away from Delhi, both geographically and culturally, as Providence is from New Orleans. Of course, as ex-eGullet staff member and cookbook author Monica Bhide tells us in her new, excellent Modern Spice, the search for pure authenticity is a fool's errand, for "Local Is as Local Does." Cuisine Meganathan doesn't just mean the carefully maintained dishes of Tamil Nadu but also includes the sorts of adjustments that everyone makes when they transplant their cooking from one place to another. Still, there are some things one can expect. Here's Jith's very quick prediction of likely offerings: Reading around, I saw a few other things that would make an appearance: liberal use of coconut, peanuts, and almonds; lemon and tamarind as acids; an emphasis on vegetable dishes without heavy sauces; thick soups and thin stews served with rice; idli and dosai; liberal use of chilis; a variety of chutneys and crunchy fried things. In addition, several US party staples made appearances over the four days, including crudites, chips & salsa, and percolator coffee. But the bulk of the food -- and there was a lot of it -- was South Indian through and through, and the gathered guests were enthusiastic eaters, helpers, critics, and students. As a result, I left with a solid introduction to a type of Indian food I had known little about, a stack of recipes, and lots of interesting tips that I'll share here.

One of my dearest friends, Jith, is the only son of a South Indian family, and his wife, Laurel, is seven months pregnant. This is a big deal. So, a few weeks ago, we got invited to the the Valaikappu blessing ceremony, a multiday affair celebrating the kiddo to take place in the western suburbs of Chicago. (Sadly, this Heartland gathering overlapped directly with this year's eGullet Heartland gathering.) When normal people are invited to these sorts of events, their thoughts turn to family bonds, traditional rituals, love, all that. My thoughts turn to the food. Not just my thoughts, mind you. Laurel's always been appreciative of my cooking, but Jith is one of my favorite guests. He eats with his entire head: not just tongue, nose, eyes but also ears and, I swear, the skin of his face itself. The first meal I remember making for him was gumbo, in Laurel's family house sprawled across the beach in Jacksonville FL. When I placed the 12" bowls in front of most people, they joked about how the serving was too large. Jith, meanwhile, was basking in the steam; it looked like he was getting a facial. While they struggled to eat most of their bowls, Jith ate two and grabbed Laurel's to finish it off. I think he snuck downstairs in the night to have more, but I can't be sure. Soon after my wife and I determined we'd be able to go, I wrote to ask Jith what the food situation would be. Turns out that the big Valaikappu shindig Saturday would be catered -- more on that later -- but Jith's mom Ami would be making food all day Friday for an "intimate family affair" for 30 or 40 people, maybe more. Now, I may be wrong, but I get the sense that Jith got his foodie genes from his momma's side of the family, so the idea of getting there a bit early to lend a hand seemed like just the thing. Learn a little, eat a little: what could be better? So, when we rsvp'ed for the event, I let Ami know I'd be happy to be her sous chef Friday. I got second thoughts about whether I'd be in over my head when she responded by saying, "Chris, don't worry. I will put you to work in my kitchen! I love to cook and I accept only expert help. I am kidding!" Kidding. Ha ha. Gulp. Yes, that's what terror looks like when wrapped in a Grilla Gear apron.

Using Gary Regan's receipt with a tweak, the best Martinez Cocktail I've ever had: 2 oz Hayman's Old Tom gin 1 oz Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth 1 t Luxardo Maraschino 1/2 t Boker's bitters Stir, strain, lemon twist. These bitters absolutely adore sweet vermouth. And, as above, the tail on this is amazing. I don't know what substance accounts for it, but after the initial rush of flavor there's a second wave that's entirely from the bitters. The only thing I can compare it to is the combination of green bird chiles and roasted red chiles that you see in many Thai dishes like a mushroom salad I like to make, where the birds play with the acid and herbs up front while the roasted chiles commingle with the protein and umami for a big, round back-end mouthful. Adam, what accounts for that ridiculous tail?

Any advice for those seeking entrance on, say, a Monday night?

Rhode Island is me. Got mine and have tried only two things (it is, after all, a work day). This morning, a drop on the palms was terrific, with lots of teaky cocoa & spice. It has a depth that's hard to explain, especially on the tongue. When I put a few dashes into soda water this morning, I got the cocoa, spice, and much more expanding through my mouth with each taste; it has a tail like a really good cognac or scotch, several seconds long when I counted. I'll give it a go in mixed drinks tonight: I'm thinking I'll start with a Martinez. Adam, have you ever tried a Pink Gin?

I agree, Margaret: Phyllis is a terrific writer and showed us all how to host with class. We're grateful for her service. Thanks, Phyllis!

I am out in Chicagoland (St Charles, to be specific) for a big family event and spent yesterday in the kitchen as sous to the host and cook. When I went to pack a knife, I grabbed the Gekko nakiri, slid it along the ceramic steel a bit, and took it with. It performed fantastically -- the heavily vegetarian South Indian meal required a lot of nakiri-perfect prep -- and in so doing probably will be inducing several of the cooking-mad people here to order it. The thin, light blade and keen edge were show-stoppers. (You can learn more about the South Indian meal itself by clicking here.)

Sad I can't be there -- I'm in the western Chicago burbs at another sort of Heartland gathering (more later). Edsel, do you know the ratios? I've fiddled around with St. G in that and found that you could go with four equal parts. Curious to hear. Kerry, they fat-wash their bourbon there, I'm quite sure. Simple technique here. Not sure you can pull it off in a hotel fridge, though!

That's what it costs to Providence (I paid it last week): $6.43. Cheaper than a flight, though I'm incapable of a rational cost/benefit analysis....

Is it minty with the FB, or is that Branca Menta?