Hungry in Berlin

Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m a lazy cook a lot of the time. The main reason for this is that I’m nearly always cooking just for myself, but although I don’t tolerate bad food from me any more than I tolerate it from a restaurant or another cook (although Ward’s Rule does apply: any dish made by someone else automatically tastes 20% better than it really is), I do make a lot of stuff I generally won’t make for guests.

One of my favorite solo dishes is chicken curry. It’s so totally inauthentic — but, when I’m in the mood, so totally delicious — that I generally wind up making it once a month. It’s also so simple that any idiot can do it, and thus I figured I’d share it here — especially because this week I finally figured out an equally inauthentic and equally delicious vegetable dish to pair with it.

The curry goes like this: cut up about a pound of skinless, boneless chicken breast into bite-sized morsels. Then cut up an onion and fry it in vegetable oil until it starts to get brown around the edges. This’ll impart a nice undercurrent of sweetness to the dish. When the onion’s ready, toss in the chicken cubes and fry them until they’ve started to barely brown. Then you take curry powder and sprinkle it over the chicken — it’ll take around a tablespoon, maybe a little more, but be careful not to use too much or the end result will be bitter. Let this all fry, stirring it around, until all the curry powder’s changed color and is fragrant. Then douse the whole thing with around a cup of chicken broth (you’ll likely have to use Fond, since they haven’t discovered canned chicken broth in Germany yet, so dilute it in half), shake in some Tabasco for heat, scrape the pan to loosen up any curry powder that’s stuck to the bottom, lower the heat, and let it cook for about 20 minutes. Don’t cover it: the idea is to let the sauce cook down slowly and get thick. Stir occasionally, too, just to make sure nothing is sticking. About a minute before you serve it, sprinkle a teaspoon, or maybe a little more, of garam masala over it, stir until that’s integrated, and it’s ready to serve over some basmati rice.

Now, the key here is ingredients. You’ll want to get the best curry powder your Asiamarkt has, preferably imported from India (where they never use it), preferably labelled “Madras curry powder.” The German variety of “curry” is way too sweet and mild. Some of the herb-and-spice stands at local markets have good blends, and if you have a Vietnamese market you frequent, look for Vietnamese curry powder: look at the ingredient list and if it’s got a whole bunch of odd ingredients (mine has dried orange peel in it), that’s a nice substitute for the regular curry powder. The garam masala should be one of the better mixtures (unless you’ve previously mixed some up while preparing a fancier dish). This is a “finishing spice,” whose flavors lie on top of the curry powder’s flavors, and its sharper notes (cinnamon, cloves) work with the earthier and sweeter ones in the curry powder. You’ll also note it’ll thicken the sauce somewhat.

Okay, I said I’d finally come up with a complement for this. Only took me about 40 years to do it, too. There’s a seed mixture Indian stores (and Asia stores here) sell under a number of similar names: panch phora, punch pfura, and so on. It’s used for seasoning complex dishes with leaf vegetables. So what you’ll need here is quite simple: some of that frozen spinach they sell here that’s broken down into cubes so you can regulate the portion size. So you cut up an onion and fry it in some vegetable oil, and when it’s soft, sprinkle in about half a teaspoon of your panch phora and let it sizzle for about 30 seconds. Then dump in five or six cubes of frozen spinach and watch it carefully. As it starts to melt, stir it. It’ll take about ten minutes to defrost, at which point add some salt to taste, lower the heat, and let it warm up, stirring it occasionally. (While I was typing all of this out, it occurred to me that this might also work with Grünkohl.)

And there you go: a totally inauthentic, utterly delicious dinner for one. You’ll have leftovers of the chicken, so put that away and eat it later. Or, if you’re doing this for two, you’ll want to double the spinach.

Don’t thank me, though: instead, help me out. The other night I went over to Gneisenaustrasse to visit my favorite ultra-cheap southern Indian/Sri Lankan vegetarian restaurant, visions of dosai masala dancing in my overheated brain and…it was gone!

So…does anyone know where this great, inexpensive, nutritious, and exotic cuisine is available here in the City of Pink Glop? There’s no problem finding “Indian” restaurants here, but I’m looking for one with Indian food — and specifically the kind from the south, not the north, where Indian restaurateurs generally come from. And once I find one, I promise to let everyone here know.

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