cook the book – Beyond Umami

Steph’s Bakewell Tart from Baking with Dorie

Beyond Umami — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 05:59:00 +0000

When I looked through the chosen recipes for January for Tuesdays with Dorie I saw that the Bakewell Tart was on the list. After looking through the recipe I realized it sounded familiar. In fact, I had seen this once before, on the CBC Great Canadian Baking Show (Season 4, pastry) for one of the technical bakes!

But, what is a Bakewell Tart? The Bakewell tart is a British classic dessert and usually has a short crust pastry, frangipane and jam (typically raspberry). From what I have read, there can actually be different variations.

To me, it feels like you you are mixing the essence of a pie and cake together. Perhaps that simplifies it a bit, but let’s go into how it went for me.

To make the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie you first make a pie crust. Hers is a pate sucree (mixture of cold butter, flour, egg and sugar). The dough is then rolled out into an 11inch circle, then partially blind baked (where you add pie weights onto the crust – to keep it from bubbling up in the oven).

Blind baked pie crust cooling

This ended up being a baking project spread over two time periods as I started making my pie crust a bit too late. By the time it finished cooling it was too late to make the rest of the pie. So I waited until the next day. Once the pie crust has cooled, add a layer of jam to the bottom. Traditionally it is raspberry jam. I used Haskap Jam as I am making an effort to use what I have in our pantry. Haskap berries are similar in taste to saskatoon berries. But if you don’t have saksatoon berries in your area, think of haskap tasting like blueberries, raspberries, with some flavours of black current. My friend Carmen had gifted me this for Christmas so thought this would work nicely for the Bakewell Tart. After the layer of jam, the rest of the filling is added on top. It is a bit difficult to spread but not impossible.

Once the tart is fully baked (around 45 min at 375F), allow it to cool.

At this point, you can decorate with just a drizzle of icing (icing sugar mixed with water). However the first time I decorated my Bakewell Tart it turned out terrible. So in an effort to make it more aesthetically pleasing (for myself) I added icing all over the tart and then attempted to make some pink lines for a feathering effect. That didn’t go nearly as well as I had hoped but it looks decent!

In all honesty, if this was a real technical bake in a real baking challenge I would have failed on the presentation alone. My feathering (for the lines) did not go very well as I was trying to work fast as the icing was starting to set!

I love how tasty this Bakewell Tart is. It isn’t too sweet, despite the icing on top and the haskap jam went very well with the rest of the tart. The cake part of the tart has a nice almond flavour from the almond extract as well as the addition of almond meal and flour. I personally also love the nice crispy pate sucree crust at the bottom as it is my favourite part about pies. So, there you have it, my experience of baking up my first Bakewell Tart!

You can get the recipe for Steph’s Bakewell Tart on pg.298 of Baking with Dorie or here.

Apple Pandowdy from Baking with Dorie

Beyond Umami — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 03:55:00 +0000

All right everyone! We are back with another recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie. Of the two options for those month I chose to do the Apple Pandowdy first. We were going over to a friends’ place so bringing a warm dessert seemed to fit the occasion nicely. We happened to just have enough ambrosia apples in the fridge to make the dessert so it was meant to be. The main difference for this dessert is that usually when you see a dessert with apples you think of cinnamon. Dorie Greenspan highly suggests keeping it simple and just having a lemon forward dessert for this apple pandowdy. The apples are simply dressed with sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. The reason why its called a “Pandowdy” is because typically this dessert is made with the scrap pieces of dough you may have around after baking a pie. It isn’t about perfection but just random scraps of dough.

In our case, since we were using fresh dough, we decided to make it fun and cut out some heart shapes. I must admit that this might be the first time I even used our heart shaped cutter! I have also been fairly busy prepping for my first ever pottery sale and keeping Luna (our pup) busy that Dan actually did everything for this dessert. He blended the pie dough in the food processor, made the flat dough, peeled and cut the apples and even assembled the Apple Pandowdy. I think the most I did was mix the ingredients together and put the Pandowdy in the oven! Thanks hubby for being such a great sous chef/baker.

The top of the apple pandowdy is topped with ample amounts of sugar

Would we make this again? Most definitely. The lemon forwardness of the dessert didn’t make us miss the cinnamon at all. Dorie Greenspan also gives ideas on how to change up the dessert; more spice for a warmer dessert and/or adding in different fruits depending on the season.

Clearly it must have smelled amazing as Luna (our own pup) made an attempt to hop up onto the bench at our friend’s place to get a taste. Don’t worry, she wasn’t able to. But you can definitely see in the picture how much she wanted to while Lovey (her sister from another litter) looks on.

You can find the recipe for this Apple Pandowdy on page 257 of Baking with Dorie or here.

Feel free to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie page to see what everyone else ended up cooking up (you had the choice to make either Apple Pandowdy or English Muffins).

Baking with Dorie – Maple Miso Loaf

Beyond Umami — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 21:16:00 +0000

Baking with Dorie: Sweet Salty & Simple

Side profile of the Maple Miso Loaf

Yes it is true! Dorie Greenspan wrote another amazing cookbook – Baking with Dorie. I have honestly learned so much in the past few years cooking through Every Day Dorie with the Cookthebookfridays group. When I received the initial PDF of Baking with Dorie I was so excited for the glorious pictures that it would hold and was even more pleased upon receiving the real cookbook. The pictures are excellent as always (read: mouthwatering), all the directions are easy to follow and Dorie writes in a way that you feel like you are baking in the kitchen with her.

This newest cookbook – Baking with Dorie: Sweet Salty & Simple has now launched into the world. To celebrate some of us baked up her Maple Miso Loaf (page 69-70). I know it is interesting to think about baking with miso. Not miso soup but the paste is used to create this sweet yet savoury loaf.

I love that there is ample time spent rubbing the orange zest (or lemon if that is what you have) with the sugar so it becomes infused with the orange flavour.

Sugar and orange zest rubbed together

Then all the ingredients are whipped together (sugar, butter, miso paste, maple syrup) and finally the dry ingredients.

As the maple miso loaf bakes in the oven our entire place filled with a lovely zesty savoury smell.

Before the bake

We actually served the Maple Miso Loaf during Luna (our pup’s first birthday) party. Don’t worry the pups had beet pupcakes with yogurt icing, while the adults had slices of maple miso loaf. Everyone enjoyed the loaf. It is a coarse-crumbed cake, but still super soft. Certainly made for a different sort of dessert.

Typically you should not post the recipes straight from cookbooks but in this case we have permission. Definitely check out the Tuesdays with Dorie group to see how everyone else did. If you want to join the group all you have to do is bake and then post your link to the group (under the LYL post/comments). This cookbook is baked on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month.

Maple Miso Loaf Recipe

from Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan

4 ounces/113 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ cups/238 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
finely grated zest of 1 orange or tangerine
¼ cup/70 grams white or yellow miso
¼ cup/60 milliliters pure maple syrup (I used dark)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup/80 milliliters buttermilk (well shaken before measuring)
¼ cup/80 grams orange marmalade or apricot jam (for the glaze, optional)

Directions

Center a rack in the oven and heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 1/2-inch loaf pan and dust with flour, or use baker’s spray.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Put the sugar, salt and zest in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl that you can use with a hand mixer. Reach in and rub the ingredients together until the sugar is moist and fragrant; it may even turn orange. Add the butter, miso and maple syrup to the sugar. If using a stand mixer, attach the bowl and fit it with the paddle attachment.

Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beater(s) as needed, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. One by one, add the eggs, beating for a minute after each goes in. Beat in the vanilla. The mixture might curdle, but this is a temporary condition. Turn off the mixer, add the dry ingredients all at once and pulse to begin the blending, turning the mixer on and off in very short spurts on the lowest speed. Then, beat on low speed until the dry ingredients are almost incorporated. With the mixer still on low, pour in the buttermilk and blend well. Scrape the batter into the pan, working it into the corners and smoothing the top.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, checking the loaf after 40 minutes and covering the top loosely with a foil or tented parchment if it’s browning too fast. The loaf is properly baked when it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the bread rest for 5 minutes, then run a table knife around the edges of the loaf and unmold onto the rack; turn it right side up.

If you’d like to glaze the loaf, stir the marmalade or jam with 1 tablespoon water and heat the mixture in the microwave or over low heat until it comes just to a boil. Using a pastry brush or a spoon, cover the top of the loaf with the glaze. Allow the loaf to cool to room temperature before slicing.

Wrapped well, the cake will keep for about 4 days at room temperature. If it becomes stale — and maybe even if it doesn’t — toast it lightly before serving. If you haven’t glazed the cake, you can wrap it airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months; defrost, still wrapped, at room temperature.

Umami Burger – Dorie Greenspan’s Everyday Dorie

Beyond Umami — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 03:39:00 +0000

Umami Burgers from Every Day Dorie

When I saw that the Cook the book fridays for today was the Umami Burger from Dorie Greenspan’s Every Day Dorie, I knew I had to make it. We subbed out our original Friday night cooking plan of bulgogi with rice cakes in favour of Dorie’s Umami burgers. This recipe has the name umami in it, how could I not make it? A quick look in the fridge indicated that we had a pack of mushrooms (clearly waiting to be used for this exact purpose) and some spinach. No gochujang sauce, but we had a bottle of spicy chili crisps. Frozen ground beef was found in the freezer, so we just had to defrost the meat and we were set!

Brioche Buns in the Oven

Seeing that we were having burgers for dinner, the hubby decided to make his own brioche buns. He started the baking process last night (Thursday) so he could bake them up after work for dinner.

The beginnings of the mushroom mix for Umami Burgers

The recipe is fairly simple with the bulk of the umami flavour coming from the 10-12 chopped mushrooms. We had brown crimini mushrooms so that is what I used for our Umami burgers.

Cooked down mushroom mix with sauce added

After the chopped mushrooms and red onion (vidalia) has cooked down (about 6 minutes), a sauce is added. Simply mix oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and in my case spicy chili crisp sauce. Go easy on the oyster sauce, as the sauce tends to be fairly salty for my taste. I also did not add more salt to the cooked mushrooms and onions as it felt adequately salted already. When the mushroom mix is cooked, place in a bowl and let it cool.

Forming the Umami Burger Patties

After our acupuncture appointment we came home and finished assembling the rest of dinner. Dorie does suggest that if you want additional mushroom flavour, you can mix the mushroom mix with the beef and let it sit in the fridge for a day. For us, we just mixed the beef and mushroom mix together and allowed it to marinate for around 10 minutes.

Cooking 4 Umami Burger Patties on a Cast Iron Pan

We did not make our burger patties as big as the ones in the cookbook; mainly because we wanted to match our patties to the brioche buns that Dan had made. We were surprised that there was no binder needed to keep the patties together. In the end that was not needed as long as we followed Dorie’s directions. Dorie suggests cooking the patties (on each side) for 4 minutes without moving them. Doing so provides a nice char and after 4 minutes you will be able to flip them. We cooked ours on medium to high heat on a cast iron pan.

Fresh Brioche Buns

The brioche buns that Dan made fit perfectly with the burgers. They were soft and fluffy and perfect for our Umami Burgers. We topped our burgers with a slice of smoked Balderson cheddar and spinach. So good! Later on I did add some mayo and grainy mustard to see how different flavours

Again a great savoury recipe from Dorie. We also really loved her Easy Salmon Burgers that we made a few years ago too!

I would highly recommend that make these Umami Burgers. They are found on page 140 of Every Day Dorie by Dorie Greenspan or here.

Cheesecake from Dorie Greenspan’s Every Day Dorie

Beyond Umami — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 22:23:00 +0000

Let’s continue following along with Cook the Book Fridays and cooking from Dorie Greenspan’s “Every Day Dorie”. This week’s was a Cheesecake. We had the option of using mandarin, tangerine or another citrus if we couldn’t find tangerines. I loved how quick it was for this cheesecake to come together. I must admit that I have never made a tangerine or mandarin flavour cheesecake before so this was a first. I was a bit sad that the cheesecake dropped a bit as it cooled in the oven and then the fridge (over 8 hours) but overall the cheesecake came out of the pan so well. I loved that the cheese cake was so simple. The flavour came mainly from the zesting of the mandarins into sugar and then slowly whisking together cream cheese, ricotta and eggs.

A slight layer of melted honey is slathered on top to give the cheesecake a shiny glaze. As you can see this cheesecake was quite large! Good thing there are many neighbours around us to help us eat all the food we experiment and create! We gave away a solid half of the cheesecake as Dorie says it feeds up to 16 servings!

Go check out the Cook the Book Fridays page to see how everyone else did! If you want to make this yourself, check out Dorie’s cookbook “Every Day Dorie” from amazon, chapters or wherever cookbooks can be purchased.

oh and before I forget here is a picture of the short ribs I made a few months ago for Cook the Book fridays and forgot to post it!!

Moroccan Spiced Chickpea and Noodle soup – Everyday Dorie Cookbook

Beyond Umami — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 03:16:00 +0000

This week it has been a whole host of cooking from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook Everyday Dorie. I was super impressed how fast this recipe came together considering the fact that I only got home at 6pm but managed to prep, cook and have the soup done by 7pm. One way I sped up the cooking process was through using the Instant Pot (pressure cooker function).

We really loved this soup. I was a bit worried initially that the ground ginger would be too much as it calls for 3.5 tablespoons of ground ginger. Since we only had about 2 tablespoons worth we put that amount in.

The one interesting part is that Dorie’s recipes indicates that you can include meatballs in the recipe. Since I was in a slight rush, I put the Instant Pot in saute mode and then starting forming about 500g of ground beef into meatballs. Okay, I realize this picture below does not look super appetizing but I just wanted to show that I seared the meatballs a bit prior to putting them into the soup. After some slight searing I took out the meatballs and started making the rest of the soup. I sauteed the onions, garlic, spices, and the can of diced tomatoes. Then I added the meatballs back in and continued stirring and cooking for a few more minutes.

Once the meat had some time to cook further, I added in the rest of the ingredients (chicken stock, water, lentils, chick peas). Finally, I pressure cooked the soup for 10 minutes.

We ended up with a good almost 6-7 litres of soup (we have a 8 quart instant pot)! We had so much soup we shared some with our neighbours as well as friends. We really enjoyed the flavours of the soup. Dorie also suggests adding a pinch of lemon juice at the end for additional flavour. The recipe also calls for noodles, but we felt that there was plenty of ingredients in the soup already without the noodles.

I did find that by pressure cooking our soup, the meatballs were able to absorb some of the flavours. However, next time I would season the meat. Perhaps, I would season the ground beef with some chopped garlic, salt, pepper and some of the spices from the soup. I am also not sure if I needed the saffron for the recipe. The soup also tasted great 2 days later. It certainly added more flavour and body to the soup over time.

I has been cold where I am in Edmonton, so this soup was perfect. You can find it on Page 66 of Dorie Greenspan’s Everyday Dorie. You can also check the Cook the Book Fridays website to see how everyone else did with this week’s recipe.

Bean & Tortilla Soup – Every Day Dorie AND Blueberry-Buttermilk Bundt Cake

Beyond Umami — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 19:14:00 +0000

Hello, it has been a while! I have been updating my instagram, but between work starting again end of August, attending to all new COVID-protocols (while still doing my job as a Speech-Language Pathologist), pottery and getting ready for a puppy (YES! we are finally getting one)…life has been a touch busy! So today, I am finally getting back to my blogging and playing catch-up in my cooking through Dorie Greenspan’s Every Day Dorie with the “Cook the Book Fridays” bloggers! This past Friday it was the Bean & Tortilla Soup (Page 60). This soup is super easy to prep! Which was great since we chopped up all of the red onions, peppers, garlic, and carrots before we went for our flu shot, and then upon returning home we just threw it into the instant pot to saute.

In Dorie’s recipe, she suggests just heating up the beans (we used kidney beans), then spooning the amount you want into your bowl and then layering on the soup. Her recipe involves cooking over the stove-top. We sped up the process a touch by using our Instant Pot on the pressure cook mode for 5 minutes. To make the soup base we used the rest of the liquid from the kidney beans and water – as we realized while prepping the soup that we had run out of chicken stock.

Finally, the toppings! Dorie gives lots of great suggestions for toppings. She suggests reserving a bit of the red onions and peppers behind to add to your soup. Then, all the toppings are essentially everything I love about dips, but in soup form! Avocados, shredded cheese, yogurt/sour cream and finally tortillas! I might have over done my toppings a bit but this was such a great meal considering how cold it is getting here in Edmonton!

His (in the background) and Hers versions of the Bean & Tortilla Soup
in my wheel thrown bowls!

One addition is that next time, I would add more than 1tsp of adobo sauce; probably a good tablespoon of adobo sauce. This would add more smokiness to the soup which would help separate this soup from a minestrone soup and more towards a Bean & Tortilla soup. Dan did add in more adobo sauce to his soup later. Overall, a great soup to add to our soup rotations this Winter! Check out the Cook the Book Fridays page to see how everyone else did!

Finally, one more picture to add to my catching up of Every Day Dorie is this Blueberry-Buttermilk Bundt Cake! This one is a keeper! It was so good, I made it twice! Each time, we wisely cut up a good half of the bundt cake and shared it with our neighbours (individually wrapped of course!).

So so moist! The blueberries were so good in combination with the rest of the cake! The second time we made it, I used milkadamia milk using macadamian nuts (instead of buttermilk) and it still turned out great!

Lower East Side Brunch Tart – Everyday Dorie Cookbook

Beyond Umami — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 01:28:00 +0000

This week’s Cook the Book Fridays is in memory of a fellow member Chez Nana/Ro who sadly passed away in June. Nana baked, blogged, commented on all our posts and even learned coding and photography for her blog at the age of 88. How amazing is that? This recipe – Lower East Side Brunch Tart is a recipe that Nana had nominated in the past. So in honour of her, everyone in the Cook the Book Fridays community is baking this recipe for Nana.

Our group has never “met” in person but together we are able to all cook various recipes virtually. Everyday Dorie is actually the first “cook the book” community that I have joined and so far it has been great. I enjoy being able to spend extra time working on my photography skills and picture editing without worrying about the “recipe creation” part. It also adds new ideas and dishes to our meals.

For this recipe, you can choose to make your own pate brisee (buttery pie crust) or buy a store bought one. I opted to make our own pie crust following Dorie’s recipe on page 329 of Everyday Dorie. The pie dough comes together really quickly as a food processor blends the cold butter and flour without really heating up and softening the butter. After you have your disc of dough, chilling it is super important if you aren’t planning on using it right away. Even though I wanted to use it right away, I thought it would be best to put the dough in the fridge given that it was a fairly warm summer day. The tiny chunks of chilled butter will help to give your tart a flaky crust.

The Lower East Side Brunch Tart uses a “half baked” pie crust which means you bake it for 25 minutes. After the pie crust cools, the rest of the ingredients are assembled and the tart is baked again.

Lots of flavourful ingredients are used in the filling of this brunch tart and is reminiscent of a quiche. Smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, and dill are layered into the crust followed by a mixture of heavy cream and eggs.

Because the tart pan that I used was deeper (I don’t have the cute crust one), I ended up using all 250mL of the small carton of cream I bought as well as adding in one more egg (total – 3 large eggs). I also added in a touch more smoked salmon and cream cheese. I skipped any extra salt as I typically find the addition of smoked salmon and capers already quite salty. As I am not a huge fan of red onions, I omitted the onions as well.

After the entire tart is baked for another hour (recipe says 45 minutes) at 350F the tart is done. Topped with additional dill and capers this recipe was perfect for our al fresco dinner outside.

I loved how easy it was put the recipe together. I “half-baked” the pie crust in the morning and let it cool. Within 20 minutes after returning home from the clay studio I layered the ingredients and put the tart in the oven. We actually had this tart for dinner with additional tomatoes, greens and a mojito each. I love how this tart reminds you of “bagels and lox with the works” as Dorie says in her recipe. For the next time I bake this recipe, I would consider putting quiche-like ingredients inside the tart such as spinach or maybe some ham and place the smoked salmon on top after the tart has been baked.

Find the recipe for Everyday Dorie’s Lower East Side Brunch tart here and check out the Cook the Book Fridays page for everyone’s pictures and links.

enjoy!

Summer Vegetable Tian from Every Day Dorie

Beyond Umami — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 04:35:00 +0000

Hello! I am finally back at it with #cookthebookfridays! I missed joining in the fun over the past few months as it has been a bit crazy with us moving back from Ottawa to Edmonton (in the middle of a lockdown pandemic!) and then finding our own place to live again. After a few months it is nice to have our own place again to cook and make desserts.

Dorie’s Summer Vegetable Tian was the main star for tonight’s dinner. It was prepped relatively quickly even though it involved a cornucopia of summer veggies. We put in eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini and mushrooms, a few good tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil on the bottom of the dutch oven, along with fresh herbs, salt and pepper. While it shares the same set of veggies as a ratatouille, Dorie says a good tian has lots of oil and the veggies should be melting and bordering on jam-like consistency.

To make a vegetable tian preheat the oven to 400F. Then coat the bottom of the dutch oven with a few good tablespoons of olive oil. Then generously add salt, cracked pepper, fresh basil and sliced garlic. We also had chopped onions on the bottom of our dish as we had some left over from another dinner dish.

All the veggies are sliced to about 1/4 inch thick. Then the sliced eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and mushrooms are all layered and nestled into each other. Dorie suggests sandwiching the eggplant slices between slices of tomatoes. Ensure that all the veggies are tightly overlapping each other in a spiral.

The hardest part was waiting for the entire vegetable tian to bake! It smelled amazing as it sat bubbling in the oven. It took almost 2 hours in order for the vegetables to be bubbling, tender and juicy.

This recipe turned out really well. I loved how all veggies roasted together creating the most amazing aromas. We were a bit surprised that the two of us finished the entire dish when it was meant for four people. We will definitely make this again as it was so simple and so delicious. Next time, we will have to make sure that Dan has a fresh loaf of sourdough ready so that we can enjoy it with the vegetable tian.

You find find the recipe for Dorie’s Summer Vegetable Tian here. Alternatively, you can also purchase the cookbook yourself and find this recipe on page 234! Go check out the Cook the Book Fridays page to see how everyone else did with this recipe, their thoughts and of course the pictures!

Shrimp Mango Curry – Cooking from Coconut Lagoon’s Cookbook

Beyond Umami — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 21:55:00 +0000

Shrimp Mango Curry – from Coconut Lagoon’s cookbook with basmati rice and pappadams in my wheel thrown bowls.

Finally cooked up this delicious Shrimp Mango Curry from Chef Joe Thottungal’s cookbook Coconut Lagoon. Chef Thottungal’s restaurant, Coconut Lagoon is located in Ottawa – which just so happens to be where we are living at the moment. I first experienced Chef Joe’s delicious cooking when I came to Ottawa for the Food Bloggers Conference in 2018. When I moved here in February, we went to Coconut Lagoon for dinner a few times bringing family and friends. Needless to say, I was excited when I found out that Chef Joe was launching his first cookbook.

Dan and I had the pleasure of attending the Coconut Lagoon cookbook launch party, which of course featured amazing dishes from the cookbook. The cookbook is about Chef Joe’s cooking journey that led him to open a restaurant in Ottawa, which celebrates the food from his homeland, Kerala.

Since I had eaten the Shrimp Mango Curry several times at Coconut Lagoon‘s restaurant, I decided that this would be the recipe I started with first. Most of the spices I found at Bulk Barn, which worked for me as I didn’t want a huge bag of red chili powder, fenugreek seeds or coriander. With the exception of the curry leaves and black mustard seeds, I picked up all my spices from Bulk Barn. For the curry leaves, I made my way to Thana which is a store specializing in South Asian & Caribbean groceries on Bank St. As for the black mustard seeds, since I wasn’t quite ready to commit to a huge bag of that, I picked up about 2 teaspoons worth from the Herb & Spice Store across the street from Thana.

Last but not least, the mango! I have never had green mango before and who would have thought but Farm Boy actually carried them.

The instructions for this Shrimp Mango Curry (page 13) are very straightforward. Once you have your shrimp (about 1 lb), green mango, and all the spices than you are set! Since I had purchased deveined shrimp, all I needed to do was defrost and shell them. Then I marinated them in 1.5 tsp of fresh lime juice and set it in the fridge. After that, I set out to collect the rest of the ingredients I was missing (curry leaves & black mustard seeds).

Shrimp to be marinated in lime juice.

Chef Joe’s recipe relies on using two pans (one for the spices and then later on a deeper skillet for cooking the rest of the curry. In the first pan, he uses a method called tempering for the spices, which is a traditional method to extract optimal flavours from the spices. This involves the pan being at high heat initially and then turning down the heat right before cooking the seeds. First mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds are tempered. Then onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves are added in.

Finally, the rest of the spices – tumeric, coriander, and chili powder.

Next, the shrimp and mango slices are added in and sautéed for a few minutes before the coconut milk is added.

Once the shrimp turns pink, the shrimp mango curry is done! It really does come together quite quickly! Definitely have pan splash guard ready as things will get hot!

We had our shrimp mango curry with basmati rice (following Chef Joe’s recipe – page 156) and some pappadams! Pappadams are essentially lentil crackers and these ones are made super quick! I just take them out of their package (which I also got from Thana), line the microwave with a paper towel and nuke several of them for 40 seconds.

This shrimp mango curry is so tasty! It was surprising how sweet the green mango was, but that added to the flavour of the curry. We did end up adding more coconut milk to our dish as we wanted a slightly saucier curry.

Go check out this cookbook and try this Shrimp Mango Curry for yourself. Or for an easy place to start, the chai is a good one or even the lentils. I am also looking forward to cooking up the Cauliflower Masala and the Eggplant Masala, mainly because I saw yesterday that all of those ingredients were also on sale at Farm Boy. Oh and certainly their Butter Chicken recipe.

Also I now have permission to publish the Shrimp Mango Curry. Here it is!

Shrimp Mango Curry

1 lb medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 1/2 tsp fresh lime juice
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
Pinch of fenugreek seeds
1 Onion, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 (1-inch) piece ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
20 curry leaves
1 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 cup sliced green, unripe mangoes
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tsp salt, plus extra for taste

In a small bowl, combine shrimp and lime juice. Cover and marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.

Have a splash guard and measured spices nearby. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat until nearly smoking. Immediately reduce heat to medium.

You can test the heat of the oil by dropping in a couple of seeds. The oil is at the correct temperature when the seeds crackle, but do not burn.

Add must seeds and temper for a few seconds, until they stop popping (Cover with the splash guard, if needed).

Add fenugreek seeds and temper for another 30 seconds.

Add onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves and sauté for 2 minutes, until fragrant.

Add tumeric, coriander, and chili powder and stir for 1 minute, until the raw smell is cooked off. Transfer to a heavy-bottomed skillet.

Increase heat to high. Add shrimp and mango slices and sauté for 1 minute. Pour in coconut milk, bring to a boil, and cook for 1 minute, or until shrimp turns pink. add salt and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve with rice and parathas.