I wanted to use my pomegranate seeds. I’ve had an air-tight box of pomegranate seeds sitting in my cupboard for a few months now, waiting to be made into a delicious Indian meal, along with my mango powder. Unfortunately, Madhur Jaffrey doesn’t have a single recipe in her “Indian Cooking” using pomegranate. Maybe one with mango (amchoor powder). Maybe.
So I googled, and then I went and bought green chilies and tomatoes. That and eggplant were all I needed to make chaat masala for masala puri, garam masala (because I used the last of my first garam masala to make the chaat masala) for baigan bhartha (my favourite eggplant dish ever, that kind of came out as a delicious mix between the best tomato sauce ever, bruschetta, and Indian ratatouille), mint chutney (because I had mint and what DOESN’T mint chutney go with? What it does go with is my first Sancerre bottle of white wine that I finally opened), and calamari curry (because it’s the only affordable fish at that God-forsaken Poissonerie Atwater. I got the same woman again, the one I fought with about bellyfish, and she started off calling me “ma belle” again, and then remembered me. It went downhill from there…but she DID give me just the 1 1/2 lbs of squid I asked for. No tricks to get me to buy 2 lbs. Apparently even mean people can learn their lessons.
I would have bought these things at the Verdun Fermer’s Market that I biked to today, but it wasn’t open yet. Poor reporting in the Montreal Mirror, it seems. No, not really. They said it would be open in “June” so I can’t really blame them. The article was really lovely.
Anyway, needless to say, I’m exhausted, and importing photos is time-consuming. So until then, use your imagination. Layers of chickpeas with home-made bread, tomatoes, cumin, nutmeg, turmeric, coriander, cloves, cinnamon, mango, pomegranate, asafoetida, fennel, star anise, ginger, garlic, chili powder, cayenne, salt, paprika, sugar, black pepper, and “curry” (oh, internet…curry is a spice blend, not a spice…though I suppose it could have meant curry leaves which are a real, single thing). This is the list of spices. Ridiculous, I know, and I didn’t have to buy a single one of them. I left out lovage because it was optional, and used regular cumin when it called for black cumin seed once. All in all, a very efficient use of my spice cupboard, and oh, the flavour…pomegranate and mango are wonderful. My tongue is still spinning from the overload. The heat of the chilies! Mmm…just enough for me. 5 in total. A little bit of mango sorbet when I got over-heated from the hot liquid of the squid. Absolutely divine. 5 hours of cooking distraction from life. Can someone please pay me to do this?
“Will adjust chili heat for money”…or under duress.
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