I don’t know about you, but I clip and collect recipes from many sources and store them in a file folder, in the drawer where I keep my cookbooks. Sometimes I never look at a recipe again for years and it never makes it to the “cutting board.” That’s what happened to a recipe for Goan style curried meat that I got from Peter D’Cruz over 25 years ago when he was my insurance agent. I asked him for a curry recipe, then, and he gave me his mother’s. Helen, my wife, recently suggested we have a curry dish for dinner, and I finally gave Peter’s mother’s recipe a try. Now I’m kicking myself for not having tried it many years ago. Peter, wherever you are, thank you. Goa, by the way, is a state on the west coast of India. Now, let’s get cooking!

Curried Meat, Goan Style

Ingredients

- 1 lb. beef, cut into 1 1/2 pieces

- 1 lb. pork, cut into 1 1/2 pieces

- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 6 cloves or 1/2 teaspoon ground clove

- 2 large onions, sliced thin (not chopped)

- 1 dessert spoon black pepper

- 1 teaspoon (heaped) ground cumin

- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric

- 4-5 cloves garlic

- fresh ginger (a 1-inch piece)

Preparation

Chop the garlic and ginger into the smallest size possible. Mix them with the other spicy ingredients and then make a paste with 1⁄8 cup of vinegar. Apply this paste to the cut pieces of meat. Place two tablespoons vegetable oil in a pot, heat and add the sliced onions. When the onions start to become translucent, add the meat. If you want the dish to have a particularly Goan flavour, add a whole, green, hot cayenne chili. (If you can’t find this, add 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne.) Add salt to taste, approximately 1 1/2 teaspoons. Cover and simmer slowly on low, turning the meat occasionally and allow to cook gently until the meat is tender (about 1 1/2 hours).

For something extra, I added one diced tomato to the recipe after I got the onions and meat simmering, and I added one large diced potato to the pot in the last thirty minutes of cooking. Serve with chutney or pepper jelly and rice. Makes four to six servings.

Olives with Orange and Lemon.

If you like olives as part of a dish or appetizer, you’ll like this Spanish style that comes from a tapas book one of my daughters gave me after my recent trip to Portugal and Spain. Tapas, by the way, is the Spanish name for a wide variety of appetizers.

Ingredients

- 2 tsp. fennel seeds

- 2 tsp. cumin seeds

- 1 1/2 cups green olives

- 1 1/2 cups black olives

- 2 tsp. grated orange rind

- 2 tsp. grated lemon rind

- 3 shallots, finely chopped

pinch of ground cinnamon

- 4 tbsp. white wine vinegar

- 5 tbsp. olive oil

- 2 tbsp. orange juice

- 1 tbsp. chopped fresh mint

- 1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Dry the fennel seeds and cumin seeds in a small heavy-bottom skillet, shaking the skillet frequently until the seeds begin to pop and give off their aroma. Remove the skillet from the heat and let cool. Place the olives, orange and lemon rind, shallots, cinnamon, and toasted seeds in a bowl. Whisk the vinegar, olive oil, orange juice, mint and parsley together in a bowl and pour over the olives. Toss well; then cover and let chill for one to two days before serving. Great with cheese, crackers, cold cuts, etc. Now, let’s get cooking!

tombutkovich@cogeco.ca