Week 2: Food

Marisol

Indian cusine/Curry

Indian cusine is known worldwide given its reputation as being one of the most delicious and elaborated. This kind of food is based on the use of variety of species on its preparation.  One of the most important ingredients in Indian food is curry. Curry is the name provided by occident to the group of food that includes in its preparation spicy species developed in Asia. These dishes were spread over Europe through United Kingdom and the Netherlands by transferring the knowledge acquired in the colonies during the XVIII century.

Curry is a mixture based on different spices used to make sauces, stewed, casserole and to season meat and vegetables. The name curry comes from the word kari (Tamil, India) that is used to describe any kind of dish accompanied with rice. This term means stewed and was adopted by the English language before the arrival of the English merchant to the continent.  Now curry is world known.

There are commercial mixtures such as curry powder denominated garam masala (Hindi). It is used with the majority of dishes that included dry lentils. The mixture of curry usually contains the following species: chili, basil, saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, dry onion, celery, coriander, cumin, curcuma, ginger, mustard, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, pepper and tamarind. The recipe of curry changes from region to region, and its color depends on the ingredients of the mixture.  In the north of India and Pakistan, curry means gravy. 

One of the most famous recipes of curry is: Thai red curry. The recipe is below.

Ingredients:

Oil/ 3-4 tbsp red curry paste/ 400ml coconut milk , plus 250ml milk/ 2 large potatoes, peeled and cubed/ 300g butternut squash , cubed/ 150g green beans/ 12 button mushrooms , halved/ 250g cherry tomatoes/ 4 boneless and skinless chicken thighs, cut into cubes or 200g raw peeled prawns/ handful coriander/ fish sauce.

Method:

1. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok or large saucepan and fry 3-4 tbsp curry paste (depending on how hot you want the curry to be) for a minute until fragrant. Add the coconut milk and milk, stir well and bring to a simmer.
2. Add the potato and butternut squash and cook for about 10 minutes until it is almost tender, add the rest of the veg and thin the sauce with a little water if you need to. Simmer for 5 minutes.
3. For the veggies, transfer half the curry to another pan. For the non-veggies, add the chicken or prawns to the remaining half. Simmer for 3-5 minutes until the chicken or prawns are cooked through and season with fish sauce.
4. Serve both curries with the coriander sprinkled over and steamed jasmine rice.

Carolina


Laura

Much of the food we eat is made from animals, for example chicken and beef, or is product of animals, like milk or eggs. Tipically, we eat meat from animals like cow, lamb or chicken, but there are many cultures which take other animals for food, a famous example is the chinese culture, where there are many animals that are eaten, some of those are shown below.


The Guangzhou Restaurant will be used as example.

Snakes, small, medium or large, with which soup is made.

Beetles, turtles, rabbits, or birds are just a few examples of animals that can be ordered for lunch in China.

Generally speaking exotic Chinese food includes insects, invertabrates, reptiles.