I still relish the memory of the first time I ate an authentic curry while summering in the north of Connecticut as a precocious child. Wait, never mind. That's bullshit. Sorry, I read a couple other food blogs this week and forgot that this is supposed to be about food, not being a pretentious dipshit who tries to assert my own superiority over everyone else due to my family's wealth. We did okay, but we weren't any of those rich assholes who thinks that authentic anything comes from northern Connecticut. Fuck that shit. This is a place for real food.
Well, the pasta-making bug has bitten my ass in spades. After my pre-seasoned spaghetti and meatballs experiment, I started thinking about what other weird shit I could do. The first idea I had, for better or worse, was making my own curry powder and mixing it into some noodle dough. I also wanted to make some vegan noodles for my vegan friends, so I mixed water with flour and extra virgin olive oil to make the dough. I just mixed some of that curry powder into the water beforehand.My "curry powder" was made up of cumin, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne, and nutmeg. If you want the ratios, too fucking bad. I couldn't tell you. All I know is that there was more cumin and turmeric than anything else. Just mix it up to match your taste, and it ought to be fine. The noodles were made the same as before, except I used the wide cutter instead of the narrow cutter I used for the spaghetti.
One issue I did run into was having too much fucking moisture in my dough. A lot of the noodles didn't quite cut all the way through, so I had to peel them apart. Just something to keep in mind if you try this. Still, having to pull apart noodles is a better result than having to add more moisture, at least in my opinion. Either way, make sure your noodles are looking good and are separated.
For this meal, I also breaded some pork chops. I dredged them in flour seasoned with salt, gave them an egg wash, then covered them in bread crumbs mixed with the rest of my curry powder. Once they were coated well, I pan fried them in butter and olive oil.
Once the pork chops were cooked, I removed them from the pan, then added in some sliced garlic and diced onion and let them simmer until they started to get brown around the edges. Next, I added in some chopped red bell pepper and let it soften a touch, then added in some sliced mushrooms and seasoned it all with some salt. Somewhere during this time, I started heating a pot of salted water and waited for it to boil.
When the mushrooms were about cooked, I poured in a bit of white wine vinegar and a couple dashes of red wine for a "sauce." I wasn't looking for anything too saucy; I just wanted to give the noodles a little bit of a coating once they were done boiling. REMEMBER: if you're cooking fresh noodles, they only need, like, 30-90 seconds to cook depending on how big the noodles are. I guess they can go longer if you've got bigger noodles, but the spaghetti took about 30 and the fettucine took somewhere in the 60-90 second range.
Once the noodles were cooked, I drained them (I also dumped a couple splashes of the noodle water into the veggie pan), then finished the noodles in the sauce. For plating, I just scooped about half of the curry fettucine (aka "currycine") into the middle of my plate. No spinning, no fancy bullshit. Just dump it and make sure it's not too much.
After my pork chop had sat for a bit, I sliced it thinly. I st it across the top of the past and figured that looked pretty fucking good. However, I wasn't done yet.
Since I'm me, I don't like to waste anything if I can help it. As a result, I fried the remaining egg from the egg wash I gave the pork chop. When it was cooked, I dropped a bit of shredded Asiago that I had prepared and not used for the spaghetti into my small non-stick pan for a nice Asiago crisp. I stuck the egg onto the noodles in the little gap I left in the pork chop, then placed the crisp on top for a nice, pretty, tasty touch.
Honestly, I was pretty proud of how this all looked together, but I think some green onion or something like that would have given this a little more pop. Flavorwise, though...this was so fucking good, y'all. The curry flavor was pervasive but not overpowering which is important to me. The egg and cheese crisp gave a nice little bit of a refresh to my mouth when I needed a break from the curry. Not that I really needed breaks. Just a nice little touch. So, just in case you were wondering: fucking make this. If you're vegan, leave out the butter, pork, egg, and cheese; the noodles by themselves are just so fucking good. They're even better after reheating them, which is a goddamn miracle in and of itself. You're welcome.
Comments
Post a Comment