Gastropod Thursday

Gastropod Friday has come early this week!

Porcini stock cubes are a girl’s best friend (Thanks, dogpossum).

I can’t believe it’s not porcini!

More truthfully, I suppose, this Gastropod Day has been quite a long time arriving, considering I made a commitment to do it every week.

I did mention that I was going to cook an Indian banquet for everyone the night before my sister’s wedding, but, alas, it did not come to pass. I had premonitions of getting upset with people, who would almost certainly offer to assist me, if they happened to cut the carrots the wrong way. In the spirit of avoiding unnecessary distress, I thought that if I wouldn’t be able to easily overcome my frustration with inept vegetable preparations, then it would be better to do away with even the thought of my over-zealous catering proposal. Since the bride-to-be’s motto had become ‘avoid stress at all costs’, she happily agreed that we would go ahead and order Thai take-away.

The take-away turned out to be very nice. I had wondered whether Thai was as readily available in the UK as it seems to be in Australia, and we found out from H and S that it isn’t; they’d never had it before. I was reminded that I had read somewhere that there are a disproportionately large number of Thai restaurants in Australia in relation to a small Thai population.

Even if I didn’t end up making the Indian banquet, I thought I might redeem myself a bit in this forum by providing the potato recipe that dogpossum mentioned in her comment on my first (only) Gastropod Friday post. The recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian, which is one of the best cook books I own. When I first bought it, I don’t think I cooked from anything else for at least 6 months. And I discovered okra, but that’s for another day.

Potatoes cooked in a Punjabi village style

3 tbsp oil, 180g finely chopped onions, 1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger, 3 cloves crushed garlic, 115g finely chopped tomatoes, 1 finely chopped green chilli, ¼ tsp turmeric, ¼ tsp of cayenne pepper, 1 tsp salt, 450g peeled and diced potatoes, 1 tsp garam masala.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Stir fry onions until medium brown. Add garlic and ginger, cooking for one minute. Add tomatoes, chilli, turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt to pan. Cook for two minutes.

Add potatoes and 350ml of water. Bring to the boil, then turn heat to low and cover. Simmer for 20mins or until potatoes are tender.

Remove the cover and turn heat to medium, cooking for another 10 minutes or until sauce has reduced and is thick. Mix in garam masala.

Serve hot with green vegetables.

Bon Appétit!