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The Hirshon South Sudanese Fried Lamb With Spices – Shaiyah

September 6, 2019 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Shaiyah Image Used Under Creative Commons License From tasteofsouthsudan.com

Citizens! Your intrepid and intellectually-astute Pasha – the always verbose TFD! – was disturbed recently to discover that there are still places on the globe that have NEVER heard the clarion call to arms of TFD Nation! Hard to believe, I know – we have had visitors from LITERALLY everywhere on the globe, except for one place that is conspicuous in its absence.

According to our IP address logs, we have never had any visitors from the newest country on the planet – South Sudan – which only just became an independent country in 2011!

My gastronomic Gospel MUST reach every last corner of the planet, and to be fair I have never posted a South Sudanese recipe – this unforgivable omission will be fixed immediately with a recipe for a favored dish of the country – shaiyah!

South Sudan is a multi-lingual country, with over 60 indigenous languages spoken. The official language of the country is English which was introduced in the region during the colonial era. Some of the indigenous languages with the most speakers include Dinka, Nuer, Bari, and Zande.

Both English and Juba Arabic, an Arabic pidgin used by several thousand people especially in the capital city of Juba, serve as lingua francas.

Since South Sudan is such a new country, there is practically nothing online about its cuisine – I did however find this (excerpted) information on the Sudanese (not South Sudanese) Embassy website in the UK, and much of the information is accurate for South Sudan as well:

The external influences on people’s dietary habits in Sudan could be mentioned here, for example, red pepper and other spices like garlic, pepper and others.

They were brought to Sudan by the Syrian traders and Arab settlers from the Mediterranean who came to Sudan during the Turkish rule. They also introduced some dishes e.g. meatballs and pastries. Not only that, they also introduced some vegetables and fruits that were not known in Sudan.

It is of importance to note that the main staple of the Sudanese is a special type of bread called Kissra, which is made of durra or corn, Kissra is taken together with a stew and this has become the main dish in central and Sudan in general.

As for the south, the abundance of rivers, lakes and swamps had made the people in these regions dependent on fish for their food. A popular dish is a stew named (Kajaik), which is cooked of dried fish. It is added to the porridge, which is common throughout Sudan, (Aseeda) made of sorghum. Sometimes natural margarine is added to the mixture.

In Equatoria, (Aseeda) is made of (Bafra) ehich is a plant of the same family of potatoes. To the (Aseeda) is added a green vegetable called (Mouloukhiya) with peanut butter.

As for beverages, the Sudanese have several distinct beverages that are made of some fruits that grow in Sudan like; Tabaldi, Aradaib, Karkadai and Guddaim.

Sudanese people are very hospitable. Meals are eaten around a large, communal tray on which various meat, vegetable, salad, and sauce dishes are placed. These are eaten with the right hand, using flat bread or a stiff millet porridge known as asida or kisra.

The strong Sudanese coffee is served from a special tin ‘jug’ with a long spout, known as a jebena. The coffee is sweet and often spiced with ginger or cinnamon, and is drunk from tiny cups or glasses. Fruit teas and herbal teas such as kakaday (hibiscus tea) are also popular.

Most people seem to have a very sweet tooth, piling several teaspoons of sugar into their cups of tea, and enjoying sugary desserts. Peanuts, known as Ful-Sudani, are a popular snack, and can be made into delicious macaroons.

Now, as for shaiyah, I found this on tasteofsouthsudan.com:

This is a delicious dish of pan-fried meat called Shaiyah. I chose to use lamb for this recipe. In fact, Shaiyah can be made with beef, lamb or goat meat.

Shaiyah is a special occasion food, cooked when the family has slaughtered an animal for a celebration. Part of the meat is reserved to make Shaiyah, and this meat includes bony pieces and fatty pieces, the more to add aroma and flavor.

The meat is boiled with little water in a covered pan with onions, garlic and herbs. After it has cooked half-way, a small amount of oil is added, and the meat is fried in the pan with frequent stirring to get caramelization, that is, even browning of all sides.

This cooking method renders succulent tender pieces of mouth-watering pan fried meat.

Now, since I couldn’t find anything about WHICH cut of lamb is used, I am going to make an educated guess and call for lamb breast riblets as the best cut for this dish. Lamb breast riblets are cut from the breast and contain ribs with meat and fat in layers. The cuts are long and narrow and are usually prepared by braising or by cooking in liquid. Sounds like a perfect cut for this recipe, IMHO!

The typical shaiyah uses water in its recipe, but as TFD, I am calling for lamb or beef stock instead for more flavor. I have also added a hint of cardamom, which is a spice I am very partial to and is used in both Sudanese and South Sudanese cooking. Omit it if you want the original real deal recipe. This recipe gives an example of how all Sudanese can use intricate spicing including cardamom in their recipes.

I have tried to identify the leaves garnishing the dish – but I chose to use mustard green leaves in my version. Again, omit for something truly authentic.

Citizens, I look forward to welcoming new members of TFD Nation from the proud country of South Sudan – I hope you will join me in greeting them as our ranks swell to include people from all over planet Earth! 🙂

Battle on – the Generalissimo

The Hirshon South Sudanese Fried Lamb With Spices - Shaiyah

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1 ratings

Ingredients

3 lbs. Lamb breast riblets, cut into pieces
1 cup homemade lamb stock (strongly preferred) or homemade beef stock
1 jalapeño pepper, slit down one side but left whole
3 bay leaves (preferably fresh, not dried)
5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
½ large red onion or 1 small red onion, sliced
2 celery ribs, de-stringed and cut into long pieces
2 tsp. freshly-ground coriander powder
1 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper
2 tsp. freshly-ground cumin powder
½ tsp. freshly-ground cardamom (cardamom is not in the original recipe, but is used in Sudanese cuisine and I like it in this recipe)
½ fresh lime
Slices of lime
Mustard green leaves as garnish (TFD addition)

Instructions

Wash the lamb, then put it in a cooking pot and add sliced onions, celery ribs, bay leaves, salt, sliced garlic, the seasonings and 1 cup of stock.
Cook for about 30 minutes, just so the meat is cooked but not overdone.
Heat up 1 Tbsp. oil in a frying pan and add the lamb.
Pan-fry on high heat for 15 to 20 minutes. When it starts sticking to the pot, add small amounts of stock to prevent burning.
Squeeze juice from the ½ lime onto the Shaiyah and garnish with the optional mustard green leaves.
Serve with extra raw onions, lime slices, and freshly-ground black pepper.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-south-sudanese-fried-lamb-with-spices-shaiyah/

The Hirshon Indian Parsi Stewed Meat With Apricots – पारसी सैल्ली बोटी

August 27, 2019 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

The Hirshon Indian Parsi Stewed Lamb With Apricots - पारसी सैल्ली बोटी

Jardaloo Salli Boti Image Used Under Creative Commons License From masalaguzarish.com

My Citizens, our recent excursion into the subtle (and not so subtle) pleasures of British Indian Restaurant (BIR) curries has resulted in a huge influx of new citizens from the Indian subcontinent – welcome to you all! In celebration of your new status as members of TFD Nation, I shall share with you today a delicious recipe from the Parsi community of Mumbai – jardaloo salli boti – spiced meat stew with apricots!

The Parsis are one of two Zoroastrian communities (the other being Iranis) primarily located in South Asia. While they are a tiny minority in India, their cuisine is renowned as a fusion of Iranian, Indian and British influences! The very word پارسیان, pronounced “Parsian”, i.e. “Parsi” in the Persian language literally means Persian. The use of jardaloo (apricots) is both a Persian and a British influence upon this dish.

Persian is the official language of modern Iran, which was formerly known as Persia, and the Persian language’s endonym is Farsi, an arabization of the word Parsi.

Zoroaster taught that good and evil were opposite forces and that it was a person’s duty to make a choice between the two. The two paths are of asha or righteousness and of druj, the lie. Good is represented by Ahura Mazda and evil by Angra Mainyu. The Zoroastrian holy book, called the Avesta, was written in the Avestan language, which is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit.

The long presence of the Parsis in the Gujarat and Sindh areas of India distinguishes them from the smaller Zoroastrian Indian community of Iranis, who are much more recent arrivals, mostly descended from Zoroastrians fleeing the repression of the Qajar dynasty and the general social and political tumult of late 19th- and early 20th-century Iran.

Parsis live chiefly in Mumbai and in a few towns and villages mostly to the north of Mumbai, but also a few minorities near by in Karachi (Pakistan) and Bangalore (Karnataka, India). There is a sizable Parsi population in Pune as well in Hyderabad. A few Parsi families also reside in Kolkata and Chennai.

Although they are not, strictly speaking, a caste, since they are not Hindus, they form a well-defined community. The exact date of the Parsi migration is unknown. According to tradition, the Parsis initially settled at Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, but finding themselves still persecuted they set sail for India, arriving in the 8th century. The migration may in fact have taken place as late as the 10th century, or in both. They settled first at Diu in Kathiawar but soon moved to south Gujarāt, where they remained for about 800 years as a small agricultural community.

The Qissa-i Sanjan is a tale of the journey of the Parsis to India from Iran. It says they fled for reasons of religious freedom and they were allowed to settle in India thanks to the goodwill of a local Hindu prince. When the Parsis first arrived, the story goes that the prince sent them a glass of milk filled to the brim, meaning there was no room for them in his kingdom. The Parsis sent the glass back, but sweetened with sugar, demonstrating they would add much to the kingdom – delighted with their answer, he agreed to let them stay.

However, the Parsi community had to abide by three rules: they had to speak the local language, follow local marriage customs, and not carry any weapons. After showing the many similarities between their faith and local beliefs, the early community was granted a plot of land on which to build a fire temple.

Parsis have a very distinct cuisine – as noted in a great article on shubh-yatra.in:

The Parsi kitchen is headed by a woman with an extremely well-stocked and well-labelled pantry. In the spice box, other than the regular staples like turmeric, red chilli and cumin powder, you will also find home-ground mixes, like the famous dhansak masala (a mix of coriander, cumin and 10 other spices) and the commonly thrown in sambhar masala.

The latter is not the one generally found in most South Indian kitchens, but a special one pronounced as sam-bhaar. These two are used in dishes like sali marghi (a chicken dish), sali ma gos (a mutton recipe), patia (made with shrimps) and even a simple dal (pulses).

While the older generation still grinds these spices at home, they are also available in shops. In Mumbai, most Parsis flock to M Motilal Masalawala at Grant Road to stock up their pantries. Other special spices that you’d spot in the refrigerator include marchu-lasan (a red paste of garlic, red chillies and cumin seeds) and lellu-lasan (a green-hued paste of garlic, green chillies and cumin seeds), to be used in a variety of curries.

The kitchen will also have bottles of sugarcane vinegar, manufactured by
EF Kolah in Navsari, Gujarat; jars of jaggery; sali (potato matchsticks) and salty potato wafers. Also found are dry fruits such as charoli or chironji (Buchanania lanzan), almond (sometimes slivered and fried), dried coconut flakes and, not to forget, the humble but popular egg! You may also spot home-made apple and brinjal chutney and some boomla (Bombay duck), a type of fish!

Citizens, my version of jardaloo salli boti is ruthlessly authentic (with one exception – I use boneless meat instead of bone-in) and is sublimely delicious in all of its flavor complexities. Yes, there are many spice blends in this recipe, but fear not, you’ll make enough of the blends to keep for many servings of this and other Parsi dishes in the future.

The key flavor profile for many Parsi dishes is achieved by the use of a local sugarcane vinegar that is simply not available in the States. Fortunately, I have found an excellent substitute here – you can learn more about the unique sugarcane vinegar of the Parsis here. This vinegar is also key to the Parsi shrimp dish found here.

Apricot (jardaloo) is obviously critical in this recipe – you can also find the best-quality Turkish dried apricots here – sadly, Indian dried apricots that still have their kernel intact are near-impossible to find in the United States. Untoasted sesame oil is NOT the same thing as Asian sesame oil – DON’T SUBSTITUTE ONE FOR THE OTHER! Fortunately, the correct oil may be easily purchased here.

Indian spices are indeed resplendent in this recipe – some of the more unusual ones may be purchased at their respective links. These include asafoetida, Ceylon cinnamon, Jaggery sugar, ajwain, and Kashmiri chili powder.

Citizens, near and far – revel in the intricate flavors found in this delightful recipe for jardaloo salli boti – please try it and help to preserve the vanishing Parsi food culture today!

Battle on – the Generalissimo

The Hirshon Indian Parsi Stewed Lamb With Apricots - पारसी सैल्ली बोटी

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7 ratings

Ingredients

1 lb. boneless chicken breast, boneless lamb or mutton
1 Tbsp. ginger garlic paste (4-5 garlic cloves & ½ inch ginger, grated)
½ teaspoon each of salt & cracked black pepper
***
2 Tbsp. canola oil
½ tsp. star anise points
8 green cardamoms, husks removed
2 Ceylon cinnamon sticks
***
Salt to taste
2 cups finely-chopped onion
3 medium heirloom tomatoes, finely chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
2 cups homemade chicken broth
½ tsp. salt (to taste)
2 Tbsp. kolah vinegar (preferred) or sugarcane vinegar or if neither are available, cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
5 dried Indian apricots (preferably with pits) or pitted dried Turkish apricots
1 tsp. jaggery (or more to taste) - if unavailable, use 1 ½ tsp. light brown sugar
1 ½ tsp. freshly-ground coriander powder
1 tsp. freshly-ground cumin powder
½ tsp. mace
½ tsp. freshly-ground ajwain seeds
½ tsp. turmeric powder
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
***
1 ½ tsp. Parsi sambhar masala, made as per Niloufer Ichaporia King’s recipe from ‘My Bombay Kitchen’:
⅜ cup Kashmiri chili powder
1 Tbsp. Salt
½ Tbsp. turmeric
1 tsp. freshly-ground asafoetida
¼ cup fenugreek seeds
1 Tbsp. brown mustard seeds
½ tsp. black peppercorns
½. tsp. star anise points
½ tsp. cloves
½ 3"-long Ceylon cinnamon stick
½. Tbsp. untoasted sesame oil (teel oil) – TFD note - untoasted sesame oil is not the same as the sesame oil found in Asian stores - that’s toasted. Don’t try to substitute one for the other. If you can’t find teel oil, I’d put a ½ tsp. of white sesame seeds in the spice grinder along with the whole spices, and use canola oil for the mix.
***
Salli or shoestring potatoes or crushed potato chips, as a topping / garnish

Instructions

For the Parsi masala: mix the chili, salt, turmeric and asafoetida together in a bowl.
In your spice grinder, grind the rest of the whole spices together. Mix the ground spices with the chili-salt mixture.
In a small pan, heat the sesame oil until it shimmers.
Take the oil off the heat and pour into the center of the ground spices. Mix together with a fork until the oil is swirled in thoroughly and the spice mix loses its powdery look. Reserve 1 ½ tsp. and put unused portion in a ziploc bag or spice jar.
In a bowl, bring the cubes of boneless meat together with grated ginger and garlic (ginger garlic paste) and salt/pepper. Let the meat marinade refrigerated for at least 2 hours or even overnight, especially if using mutton or lamb.
Heat the oil with the star anise points, cinnamon sticks and cardamom seeds until very fragrant, remove whole spices and discard.
Heat canola oil again in a large pan over medium heat and add the chopped onions. Fry to a light brown.
Mix the marinated meat into the onions, and sauté together until the meat is coated with the aromatics.
Next, sprinkle in all the dry spices and jaggery and sauté for 5-7 minutes. If you feel the spices sticking to the bottom of the pan, add a few Tbsp, of broth to help it cook.
Add the diced tomatoes, apricots, salt and chicken broth (you can adjust the broth to the desired consistency of the gravy.) Bring this mixture to a boil and cook covered for 10-12 minutes until the broth is absorbed, and the meat and tomatoes are cooked through.
Taste for salt and add vinegar, chopped cilantro to the preparation, simmer for another 3-4 minutes for the flavors to blend together.
Serve Jardaloo Salli Boti hot, topped with Salli or shoestring potatoes (a handful of crushed potatoes chips will work as a substitute) alongside warm Indian bread like roti-chapati, naan or steaming basmati rice.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-indian-parsi-stewed-meat-with-apricots-%e0%a4%aa%e0%a4%be%e0%a4%b0%e0%a4%b8%e0%a5%80-%e0%a4%b8%e0%a5%88%e0%a4%b2%e0%a5%8d%e0%a4%b2%e0%a5%80-%e0%a4%ac%e0%a5%8b%e0%a4%9f%e0%a5%80/

The Hirshon British Indian Restaurant Madras Curry

August 17, 2019 by The Generalissimo Leave a Comment

Madras Curry Image Used Under Creative Commons License From youtube.com

My Citizens, I am honored to share your journey as you follow my lead – like Dante walking in the steps of Virgil – into the subtleties of preparing British Indian Restaurant (BIR) curries! We have already learned how to make the mandatory curry base and the deadly phall – the most lethally spicy curry on the planet! – and now we move on to the middle-of-the-road Madras Curry! 🙂

Madras curry or Madras sauce is a fairly hot curry sauce, red in color and said to have originated from the south of India. It received its name from the city known as Madras when English merchants arrived there in 1640 (now Chennai).

However, the name ‘Madras Curry’ is not used in India, but was actually invented by restaurants in Britain. The spicy Madras curry served in British restaurants is quite different from authentic Madras curries, with the British variation originating from British Bangladeshi restaurants in the 1970s.

Learning to achieve that proper BIR flavor is what this series is all about, and you can do no better than to start with this tutorial – it is authentic in every way! 🙂

Madras curry powder is not an Indian spice blend, although it does use Indian ingredients. It is a formulation of ingredients designed to suit English tastes and differs significantly from the spice blends used in Madras. My version of this curry powder is almost exactly based on one I found at food52.com, although I have made a few small tweaks.

As noted in an interesting article on Quartz India:

Victorian cookbooks served a particularly important purpose in the colonisation process. Susan Zlotnick, in a fantastic essay, describes how the cookbook became the way India was assimilated into the Empire. British women were given the task of bringing imperialism home in an easy-to-swallow manner. They used the medium of cookbooks and “incorporated Indian food, which functioned metonymically for India, into the national diet and made it culturally British”.

Acton does this quite clearly in her Modern Cookery for Private Families. She begins by bemoaning how English food is “far inferior to that of nations much less advanced in civilisation”, and thus provides easy curry recipes to make it more exciting.

The key to making curry for her is “curry powder”—a British concoction that blends large amounts of turmeric with mainly cumin, chilli and fenugreek, and has little resemblance to anything you would get in India. All of Acton’s dishes use it—a curry powder-infused mulligatawny soup, which she says is “much recommended by persons who have been long resident in India”, veal cutlets à l’Indienne that are to “have a good currie sauce ready prepared to send to the table” and fried chicken à la Malabar, which is fried chicken coated in—you guessed it—curry powder.

This use of curry powder as the ingredient that makes a dish Indian is a common feature in many other British recipes of the time. The bestselling Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1888) uses this strategy to make curried beef. An Indian recipe from a Victorian manor in 1890, discovered in early 2015 at the East Riding College, reveals the same idea—chopped onions, lamb and a heap of curry powder.

Subsequently, by the time the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, curry and curry powder became established signifiers for Indian food, but on entirely British terms. Walk into a grocery store in India and you find that the singular curry powder does not exist, neither as material nor idea. In India, we use endless varieties of spice mixes instead. Uma Narayanan writes that British curry powder replaced varied local masalas and distinctive eating cultures and fabricated a homogenous notion of Indian food, in much the same way that the British rule fabricated a unified India.

Citizens, while this Madras curry can be quickly made once you have prepared all the spice powders, you will have to take some time – just once! – to make these spice blends. You can store them afterwards and make this recipe in a flash!

You can buy excellent ghee here, Kashmiri chili powder here, whole Kashmiri chilis here, fresh curry leaves here, dried fenugreek leaves here, Maharaja-style curry powder here, and Ceylon cinnamon sticks here. This recipe is also a bit unusual in that it calls for sweet and sour Mango Chutney in the curry itself – another Anglicized change to the classic Indian Madras recipe.

This is one of my all-time favorite BIR curries, my Citizens – it is a deserved classic for a good reason and I hope you discover its unique gastronomic charms! Just grab some naan from the grocery store, freeze the curry base and you can easily whip this up anytime you’re in the mood for a proper curry feast!

Battle on – the Generalissimo

The Hirshon British Indian Restaurant Madras Curry

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6 ratings

Ingredients

3 ¼ cups pre-cooked boneless meat (TFD prefers chicken breast, but thigh is more traditional)
2 Tbsp. ghee (clarified butter)
5 green cardamom pods, outer husks removed
1 Tbsp. garlic paste
1 Tbsp. ginger paste
4 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 green jalapeño peppers, de-seeded and finely chopped
***
1 ½ tsp. Indian restaurant spice mix made from:
4 Tbsp. coriander powder
2 Tbsp. cumin powder
4 Tbsp. turmeric powder
3 Tbsp. paprika
2 Tbsp. mild curry powder
1 tsp. Kashmiri chili powder
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. coarse-cracked black pepper
***
2 tsp. hot madras curry powder (or more to taste), made from:
2 Tbsp. whole coriander seeds
1 Tbsp. whole cumin seeds
1 tsp. powdered fenugreek
3-inch piece Ceylon Cinnamon bark
12 whole green cardamom pods, outer pods removed
1 tsp. whole black pepper
5 Kashmiri chiles, dried
25 small fresh (not dried) curry leaves
2 Tbsp. ground turmeric
***
1 tsp. Kashmiri chili powder
½ tsp. kasoor methi - dried fenugreek leaves
½ tsp. kosher salt
***
3 cups heated curry base sauce
1 Tbsp. coconut milk (or more to your taste)
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
***
3 Tbsp. mango chutney
Fresh coriander to garnish
A pinch of garam masala to garnish
Naan bread

Instructions

Make the spice mix and the Madras curry powder.
For the Madras curry powder:
Toast the first 7 spices, one at a time, in a hot, heavy pan until fragrant. This can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute per spice. Place each in the same bowl and let them cool completely.
To toast curry leaves, place in the same hot pan. Shake the pan to crisp up and toast the leaves, about 1 minute. When they are fragrant, brown around the edges, and crumbly, remove them from the pan and let cool in the bowl.
Place the toasted spices, curry leaves, and ground turmeric in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Sieve if necessary.
Dilute the tomato paste with enough water to get to the consistency of thick tomato juice and reserve.
Heat the curry base to warm in a separate pot and reserve.
Heat your frying pan (don't use non-stick) briefly over medium heat. Add the ghee.
When the ghee starts to shimmer add the garlic ginger paste, the minced jalapeño and the cardamom pods. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture stops sputtering.
Turn down the heat and add the Indian spice mix, the Madras curry powder and all the remaining powdered spices – this is the critical step. Stir it constantly for 30 seconds. If it starts to darken, lift the pan off the heat. You want the spice mix to cook in the oil but not burn.
Turn the heat up to medium high. This is important. The heat is what caramelizes the onions in the curry base and gives the curry its Indian restaurant flavor.
Add the diluted tomato paste and stir until bubbles form (the oil will likely separate). This takes around 30 seconds to one minute depending on the heat.
Add 3 oz. of curry base. Stir until bubbles form (little craters really), around 30 seconds. Think lively boil. Watch the edges of the pan. The curry can stick here. Sticking is OK. Just scrape it back into the base. Burning is bad.
Now add 6 oz. of curry base and stir briefly. Let it cook until the bubbles form again. This takes 1-2 minutes.
Add the rest of the curry base and let it cook until the bubbles form. Add the lemon juice, mango chutney and coconut milk. Turn the heat down to low and add the pre-cooked chicken.
Let the curry simmer for about 5 minutes. If it gets too thick, add a bit more curry base. Don't add water. Taste and adjust heat levels to your preference - it should be spicy but not devastatingly so.
Garnish with a bit of chopped fresh cilantro and a bit of garam masala and serve with naan bread.

https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-british-indian-restaurant-madras-curry/