I would love one day to take an Indian cooking class. I love curries in all different colors and spice variations and I appreciate how quick it can be to cook up a flavorful, mouthwatering meal in a relatively short amount of time–from scratch. As it is, I learned one recipe a long time ago, and basically make it over and over again with different ingredients and I am positive I would probably insult an actual South Asian with my complete ignorance of which spices go with which to make curries that have names and distinct and particular flavors. All of my curries are the same color of yellowish brown. Nonetheless, it does seem to work for me to keep this simple spice mix in my repertoire.
We had a small piece of cod in the freezer that was probably just one adult portion if served as a entree, but could serve all of us if made into a fish curry. So last night I did my usual Indian spice mix (I hesitate to reveal it as I’m sure this is as inauthentic as it could be but I use various proportions of turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala plus whole seeds of cumin and mustard) fried with onions, garlic scapes (from our CSA — otherwise I would use garlic and if I had more energy, some minced ginger too) and olive oil (I know! but we are mostly non-dairy so ghee is out of the question) until it formed a paste. Then, because I wanted to make a soupy fish curry, I emptied an entire can of diced tomatoes and hoped for the best.

Once the mixture had simmered for a few minutes I added yellow squash, then green peas, then the cod, cut into bite-size chunks. Covered, simmered on low. And ready to eat!

Oh! So here’s where it gets weird again. I didn’t think I had time to make rice and anyway, I didn’t want to eat rice so I whipped up a quick soft polenta and served the fish curry over a large dollop of it on each plate. It was delicious, I must say.

The best part was that my three-and-three-quarters-years-old daughter stopped mid-bite and said, Oma, you’re a good cooker!

I had a smile on my face the entire night!

This is the ordinary aftermath of dinner at the Kimelias

these days.