Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Curry Salmon, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

Once upon a time I used to eat curry salmon and roti.
But just like tuna sandwiches, before we go on vacation I used to tell mom to ease up on it. Being muslim and eating halaal while on vacation in the USA meant that we were pseudo-ovo-lacto-pescatarian with occasional meat if a masjid had some kind of share programme.

Since I’m not a fish-lover (the smell of baking fish really made me sick and mom seemed to do a lot of it when I was young…now it’s mostly curry and fry), I didn’t want to eat a whole lot of it just before we went away when I would have no choice.

After I broiled a salmon steak in my apartment in Amherst unsuccessfully and lived with the smell in everything for weeks (so it seemed), I wasn’t really able to eat salmon any more (not that I loved it to begin with).

Mom curried salmon for dad yesterday which is what inspired this post.

In March 2001, I was in Amherst and was snowed in. Not only was this my first encounter with snow and a blizzard to boot, but also The Food Network. I happened to be watching an episode of Cooking Live with Sara Moulton which seemed really interesting (a live call-in show? whoa! pity it got cancelled). I don’t recall if it was pre-recorded (as in a rerun or not) but she had a Caribbean woman (or maybe just a Caribbean cook) on it making some Caribbean recipes¹.

Anyway, someone called in to ask about curry salmon (because I guess they were currying something¹). She said her Trinidadian stepfather used to cook curry salmon and wanted to know if they had a recipe for it. He had said it was an authentic trini dish.

This completely baffled the guest (and maybe Sara Moulton). The guest said that that’s strange, are you sure it’s salmon? Salmon isn’t native to T&T so how would it be a typical dish.

Silly people.
If it were live and if I had phone privileges in my room I should’ve called in and told them…easy! Curry salmon from a tin! Geez. We live on an island yes but we have no problem cooking (even fish) from a tin. And seriously, if you want a quick meal better to curry from a tin than say wait overnight for the dry channa² to soak!

Actually at that point I probably knew how to cook it and might have helped cook it on the sly before. Now I’ve forgotten.

And although I liked the show I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to know who the lady was and her qualifications or Caribbean experience because how could she not know of Curry Salmon and the widespread use of tinned foods in Trinidad and Tobago.

When mom cooked it yesterday I had to run out of the kitchen at some point because the smell was bothering me. And we had cooked white rice (parboiled and jasmine) in the fridge so he could either eat it with that or some roti.

Mom says whenever visitors stopped by her mom would curry a tin of salmon (and stretch it…potatoes!) so they’d have food to offer.

Dad says whenever visitors stopped by somebody would have to make a quick run to the parlour³ to get sweetdrink.

This is mom’s recipe for Curry Salmon. Even dad can make it:

Ingredients:

• 1 large tin of salmon
• 1 1/2 tbsp curry powder
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• chives
• celery
• 2 small pimentos
• potato (optional)
• pinch of ground geera
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/8 cup water

Directions:

• Slice tomatoes, onion, garlic, celery, chives and pimento (and potato) thinly
• Heat oil in pot
• Mix curry and geera with water
• Add onions to hot oil and cook until translucent.
• Add curry powder mixture to pot and let it thicken or fry up.
• When curry is fried up, add rest of veggies and seasonings (garlic, chives, celery, tomatoes, pimentos, potato) and let them cook a bit. You may add more water if you like and let it fry up.
• Add salmon (with water from tin) and turn and mix and mash it up
• It’ll be done when the salmon water is all dried up.

Serve with rice or roti or however you wish.

Footnotes:

1. I found this Caribbean episode of Cooking Live. Not sure if this is it however. Hmm Tomato Choka, Dhaal and Curry Chicken – things we make at home.
2. channa – chick peas, garbanzo beans
3. parlour – a little shop, called a parlour because traditionally sold out of your parlour i think

Did you see Bolt?
I wonder if his parents will boff him for coasting at the end :-)

Ooo…we got a silver medal (Richard Thompson).

Back to sleep…

She is envious that Chennette has a name and I have a name.
But whenever we were online, Chennette and I always had pseudonyms.
She always used her real name.
What we were supposed to refer to her as?
Mother of our niece and nephew?
Her first name?
Guyanese?
She is both Chennette’s and my sister.
We have no other sister left after we count off each other.
Hmph.
She has no blogging/website identity so she’s defined by her relationship to us.

But Chennette thinks we should sign her up for a wordpress account so….

I know, you know her even less than we do so you have no idea.
If you’re even reading this.
If anybody is even reading this.

White Velvet Butter Cake , originally uploaded by Lilandra.

I bought Rose Levy Beranbaum‘s The Cake Bible along with a host of books I got recently. I did wonder why I was buying a Cake Book. I was a bit bolstered by the lack of much of them in our shelves but me? cakes? Anywayz, that story is for another day.

I’m here to tell you about the epitome of my cake desires…the jam layer cake.

And before I go any further:

Disclaimer: Today is not my birthday. My birthday does not fall around this day. In fact, August is certainly not my birthday month.

My family doesn’t really celebrate birthdays. (For the record, strict practising muslims, don’t celebrate birthdays at all). Even before we knew this, or tried to keep this, we never had birthday parties. For the most part birthdays were celebrated en famille with cake and ice-cream and no chores for the day. Since I wasn’t into cake (I didn’t think it was anything special), my “cake” was always Lemon Meringue Pie.

In fact, I think quite a lot of my (older) birthdays were spent sleeping. And you may not believe it, but those weren’t even the worst or most depressing of my birthdays.

Despite this, my first birthday memory was of a party. I think I was four. I think it was a birthday party. And I think it was mine. I remember thinking ooo! I’m celebrating my birthday and my cousin is being born. I think that was the most enthralling of my thoughts. Was it a real memory? I don’t know. When I ask mom she says it sounds about right. Where were my parents? At the hospital? But I think I really do remember this. It’s weird, huh?

Anywayz, once when I was older (twelve?), we went by my aunt and there was a birthday party. Details about why only Sister the Elder and I were there are sketchy. I’m not even sure if it was at my aunt’s house or if we went somewhere else from there. But I sort of remember two birthdays…or two birthday cakes all for the birthday girl (my cousin! and if she ever reads this, there’s no hard feelings). I don’t think my aunt was in control of this party…I mean I doubt it because I doubt I would’ve felt like … left out? side-lined? unimportant? I remember there was a cake all covered with a white buttercream (I think? or was it eggwhite frosting?) and m&m’s (or smarties?) stuck all over it as decoration. And I was a bit envious or … if not quite envious, depressed but very polite. There was nothing about it being my birthday. This is why I really think we were at a friend of my cousin’s house…or some of my cousin’s family…and somehow my sister and I were there. And you have to understand, I’m really sensitive. I cry easily. And alienation…well…that’s my good friend. Basically my memories of this are just me being sad, depressed, polite and not saying anything. (Why do people do this? Thankfully the next time this happened I was 21, and the third birthday girl was…10! and although all parties involved were family, I was smart and older and worried about other things).

Of course, my sister knew what was going on with me.
Maybe I said something to her or she saw my face or knew how a (was I about 12??)-year old would feel on her birthday when her little cousin has a birthday cake and birthday gifts and she doesn’t. I mean she would’ve been 17 (if I was 12…hmmm maybe I was younger…she could’ve been 14-16). Of course, maybe she just knew me!

And she promised me to make me a birthday cake.

A layered cake! Which is what I wanted and with jam spread between the layers.

And I was so happy.

She was the greatest sister ever.

I don’t remember the cake precisely. I’m not even sure when the cake was made (our family is all about 11 months after the fact gifts).

But I remember taking out mom’s three layer pans and my sister making a cake. Or that’s all I remember about the cake.

And so, nice jam layered cakes have always been something I want. Something I like. Of course, it helps when the cake is soooooo moist and delicious and paired with guava jam…Yum!

Have a slice of White Velvet Butter Cake , originally uploaded by Lilandra.

Because this is the first cake I made in a long time (not counting Chocolate Heart of Darkness), I posted a whole set on Flickr. Heh.

With this long baking spree from which I’ve been suffering, I’ve realized more and more (with ever increasing frustration) that I need a scale. We have an old spring scale that I don’t trust.

And I’ve been struggling to figure out what to get.
I’ve finally settled on MyWeigh scales but which.

They even have an article, comparing three of their scales but it’s not really helping me narrow down the decision between the kd7000 and the i5000.

I’m thinking of buying these specific ones from Old Will Knott Scales:

• MyWeight 400-Z with calibration weight
• My Weigh KD-7000 with AC Adapter
• MyWeigh i5000 with AC Adapter

Decisions Decisions
Maybe sick Chennette will come online and read my links and contribute to my dilemma.

Edit: (12-Sep-2008): I realized I never did update. I bought the i5000 as mentioned in my comment…received it and am quite happy with it.

Lilandra’s Bagel Dough, originally uploaded by Chennette.

I mean, look at me kneading … ;-)

I thought this a funny picture.

Chennette took four pictures of me while I was making bagels.

Somebody please remind.
I’m terrible.
Can’t keep track of days at all.
And can’t trust that the computer clock is right.