In The Gourmet’s Recession Cookbook in which I promised no dinner would
cost more than a small pizza, I wrote about chicken tenders, “I’m not giving
them up!”
The chicken tender is a strip of pectoral muscle that
runs along the inside of the breast, closest to the bone. If there is a
membrane left, a little white strip, cut it out carefully with a paring knife.
Allow 3 tenders per
person. If you are a single chef, it is an
ultra-special treat. James Beard wrote
in his memoir, Delights & Prejudices, “Somehow I have never minded
dining alone. Instead, I have always made it something of a ceremony.” He
means, I think, in cooking for oneself, one is not only the cook but the
shopper/meal planner, sommelier and diner.
3 chicken tenders
per person
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon curry
powder
½ teaspoon kosher
salt
1.
Quickly rinse the tenders in cold
water. Pat dry.
2.
In the skillet, mix the coconut
milk, curry powder and salt.
3.
Use low heat to bring to the point
where bubbles start to appear. Slip the chicken in, cover the skillet and poach
for 2 minutes. Turn and cook for about 3 more minutes. “Tender” means delicate
and they need babysitting. The result should have a “silky” texture.
For an Indian-style
dinner, use quick-cooking couscous. The directions on the box are pretty
good. Boil one cup water, with 2 tablespoons olive oil and ½ teaspoon salt
in a 1-quart saucepan. Take the pot off
the heat, cover it and steam for 5 minutes.
Fluff up with a fork. I like to
add 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Makes
about 2 cups couscous.
Excerpt from my "The Easiest Cookbook", hard cover, for curried fish.
The Bluehaven Hotel
was painted cotton-candy pink, bordered by turquoise sea and white sugar-spun
sand, and set on a Caribbean island with zero
restaurants. One ate at ones hotel, or
didn’t eat. We listened to the hot rhythms of the steel band and stared at our
plates of lukewarm slices of roast pork, the thin gravy slowly heading for the applesauce. The catering, we found out, was in tune with
the tastes of the guests, most of whom were British.
Every now and then,
during the next dreamlike days, shell searching along the shore or wandering
back to our room at night, we caught a whiff of curry on the air—a mirage of
scent, it seemed, since nothing resembling a spice had appeared on the hotel’s
dining table.
“The British like
spices,” I whined. The
British East India Company practically owned Bombay
in the seventeenth century. Queen Victoria
was crowned Empress of India in eighteen hundred seventy something...
On our last
afternoon, as we waited for the sunset, the smell of curry was unmistakably
wafted along with the sea breeze.
Determined to
discover the source, we followed our noses toward a far side of the hotel, to a
separate building hidden behind a green splash of thick foliage. It was the kitchen where food was prepared
for the hotel’s help.
An Alice
in Wonderland door opened, and we saw Tomas, his tall, starched white chef’s hat
launched firmly on his black head.
“Have you got the
curry?” I asked, not meaning to sound frantic.
“Ah, we are
cooking de big fish my brother William caught on his boat.”
That evening,
our last, while the hotel’s other guests sipped consommé and cut into well-done
roast lamb, a platter of curried fish was set before us.
The room was
suddenly scented with coriander and tumeric.
Heads turned, noses lifted toward the pungent smell.
The steel band played. We ate. When we profusely thanked Tomas, he
said, “We are proud of our native cooking.”
The next year
we read of strife on the island. The
hotel was closed.
For “de fish curry” follow the recipe for chicken tenders,
but instead slip in fish such as two thick fish fillets of cod or mahi-mahi or
whatever looks good at the fish counter. Shrimp works, too. If you use thin filet of sole or any other
thin filets, cook only 2 minutes, turning the fish after 1 minute.
I like a cucumber salad with this. Allow one peeled and diagonally sliced
persian cucumber per person, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and a sprinkling of sugar,
about ¼ teaspoon. Mix in a bowl large enough to hold and marinate the
cukes. Add salt to taste just before
eating, as salt draws out the water and the cukes will seem to shrink before
your eyes.
