Spice Girl: Malaysian Wild Boar Curry

Now if THAT title didn't get your attention, take your pulse. Annalena is a Spice Girl over the next few days. In fact, as you go through the last month of so of entries, you will see more and more use of chilis, and non-Italian: indeed, Asian, spices in Annalena's cooking. This may just be a trend, it may be a result of the weather, who knows? In any event, the recipes I have been interested in cooking lately have gone this way, and why fight it, when they're good?
In connection with these recipes, I mention the concept of "fusion cooking," because Annalena seems to have gotten involved in it, big time, as this, and the entry to follow, will show. The recipe in question today, was "Malaysian Beef Curry." Annalena, however, had a 3 pound bag of frozen boar stew meat, and decided she'd substitute one for the other. It worked. But not everyone has access to wild boar meat, so go back to regular beef if that's what you got. Or try something else. Lamb, maybe? And I bet duck legs would be superb with this too.

One of the lessons of this recipe, too, is knowing when you MUST use an ingredient, when you can substitute, and when you can leave something out. I will concede, this comes with experience. There are some disasters in your future , there are some dishes that will just taste "so/so" and some where you won't miss the ingredients. Honestly, I like how this dish tastes, and I made a number of substitutions and omissions. But of course, now I don't know what the real deal would have tasted like. It is a trade off. As I go through this recipe, I will talk about the ingredients that I changed or left out , and why.

This is said to be a Malyasian dish. How would I know? I will take it on faith. It tasted like Thai food to me, which is not a bad thing. Annalena has never been to a Malaysian restaurant, so if there is anyone out there who knows, tell me, if you will.

We start by making a spice paste. THe first ingredient called for in the recipe was "8 large, dried New Mexico chilies." OK, now let's raise some eyebrows: it's a "Malaysian" dish, and it calls for New Mexico chilies. What's going on here?

I dunno. Annalena has about 24 different varieties of dried chili in her home. None of them are New Mexico. She DOES know what New Mexico chilies are, however. You will see them called "Hatch" chilies at times, or "Anaheims." And you have seen the dried ones in the long streams of them, looking almost like a big bunch of grapes, called "ristras." But if you don't have them?

Well, here's what I did. I always have canned green New Mexico chilies in the house. They come in little tiny cans and you can get them at your grocer. And I know that these are relatively mild chilies. I have lots of dried ancho chilies, and they are milder, with a bit of sting. So, I decided I would use a substitution of a can of the green chilies and the anchos. These are larger than New Mexico chilies, so I reduced the number to four. Cover them with hot water, and put them to the side.

The recipe continues by calling for a half cup of shallots, chopped. If you have the patience to chop a half cup of shallots, do not let me stop you. I gave up after three, and just added the rest in plain onion.

The ESSENTIAL ingredient here, was lemon grass . You need four large stalks of it. Let Annalena explain what to do with this, because it's not self evident. When you get a stalk of lemon grass, there's a solid, light base, and then the thing streams off, like, well, grass. You don't want the grass part for this portion of the recipe, so make a cut where the grass blades start coming out of the plant. Then, cut off the root base. You will have a 3-4 inch segment. Take the outer layer off. Now, starting at the end that was closer to the grass blades, start chopping. Keep chopping until you start getting resistance. There is a firm, hard, woody center to the plant, and it will destroy your knife. Toss the base of the lemon grass away, but keep the blades of grass. We'll come back to that.

Put the green chilies, the lemon grass, the onion/shallot together, and add 6 peeld cloves of garlic, 2 teaspoons of ground coriander, 1.5 teaspoons of ground cumin a half teaspoon of dried ginger, and (my addition here), a few slices of peeled, chopped, fresh ginger. YOu also add 3 tablespoons of fish sauce (you could use soy sauce if you had to), and a tablespoon of "golden brown sugar."

What the hell is golden brown sugar? Think I know? I had turbinado sugar in the house, and that's what I used. Use brown sugar, light or dark, if you don't have this. Put all of this stuff into a blender.

Now, go and get those chilies out of the hot water, tear them up and put them in with everything else. Put in half a cup of water and puree this for about two minutes. It will not be smooth, and that's just fine. Put it aside for a minute.

Now, in a big pot, put three pounds of stew meat. You don't have to brown this. Add a can of coconut milk, be it regular or low fat, 2 star anises and a cinnamon stick. I think these are all essential. Now, to the stuff I changed and left out.

The recipe called for 8 kaffir lime leaves. Citrus Bomb provides me with these from time to time. I didn't know I was going to need them for this recipe, so I didn't ask for them in my latest shipment. Now "CB" is fast, but even the combined powers of the Wicked Witch of the East (moi), and the Wicked Witch of the West (CB), could not get kaffir lime leaves to Annalena in a day.

So I used a lime instead. Cut in quarters. This went into the pot. The recipe called for a tablespoon of tamarind.

I SWEAR that this is true. I used to have a can of tamarind paste in the kitchen. I had it for five years and never opened it. So I tossed it. No tamarind paste.

One tablespoon? We'll do without.

Remember those lemon grass stalks? Get something heavy and POUND them to break the fibers. Now, bend them, tie them together with a string, and put them int the middle of the pot.

Ok, so everything goes into the pot, with the spice paste. Stir it up. Put it , either into a slow cooker, at low heat, for five hours, or bake it, at 325, for about 3 hours.

Your home will smell exotic as this cooks, and the sauce will take on a rich orange red color.

If you use a pork product, or even a beef or lamb product for that matter, I would suggest that you let this cool, refrigerate it, and pull the solidified fat out at the end, to make it a lighter dish.

There is nothing I can think of to serve with this other than plain, white rice.

It ain't that hard to do, and you will be considered amazing for your command of non-western food. And you can smile. And of course, say a prayer to the Wicked Witch of the East.