Comments on: A Fragrant Chicken and Coconut Curry from Mangalore

By: renu

renu — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:03:38 +0000

dear barbara,
get well soon ! i read about your surgery, but then my eyes fell upon the ‘coconut’ post. which true-blooded malayali can resist something that refers to coconut ! i could tell you a hundred and one ways to cook with coconut. you know that malayalis are addicted to coconut and some people, like my father, do not consider a curry as a curry unless it has coconut in it. for them, the biggest culinaty tragedy is to run out of coconuts. it equals to famine !
more on coconut later, or through my blog. meanwhile, take rest and get well soon !

By: Barbara

Barbara — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:37:16 +0000

Roxana–I adore goat meat. In fact, I almost made a goat curry for tonight, but Zak talked me into lamb.

I can get frozen coconut that is nicer than the fresh coconut I get here in Ohio, so I may try the Tamil goat curry you described.

I don’t cook seafood much for two reasons–good seafood is hard to get in Ohio, and when it is available, it is usually godawfully expensive.

And the worst is this–I developed an allergy to shrimp, and have reacted slightly to clams, which means all shellfish is now off-limits to me.

Which is sad, because crab is one of my favorite foods in all the world. I absolutely love it. Scallops were a close second with shrimp coming in third….and now, I can have none of them.

At least I no longer live on the East Coast so it isn’t as torturous as it otherwise might be!

By: roxana

roxana — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:07:08 +0000

Commenting here after a long time. You promised to cook South Indian and you did
In a number of Tamil households, we make a spicier version of this with goat’s meat (mutton). We use ground coconut instead of coconut milk, so the texture is slightly grainy and it is spicy, but the base masala remains the same.
I just noticed that you dont make too much seafood. There is a recipe for crabs that i have been meaning to pass on to you, i will mail you the same soon. You continue to delight with your writing
Wishing and praying for your good health.

By: Diane

Diane — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:15:49 +0000

The very best coconut milk “convenience product” I have ever seen was at a street market in Thailand.

The vendor carefully washed a Rupe Goldberg-like machine for what must have been 5 minutes. Then he pushed through many pieces of coconut meat, yielding several cups of grated coconut. He set a bit of this aside, washed the machine again for a while, then put the meat through another part of the machine, yielding fresh coconut cream which went into a baggie, tied with a rubber band and handed to customer. He again washed the machine, pressed the meat again, yielding several cups of coconut milk – again with the baggie and rubber band. He then handed off the cream, milk and the leftover bit of grated coconut to the woman, who went about completing her shopping. All she had to do was buy one of the many freshly-made curry pastes available in the market, the aromatics, some meat or fish and she would have a tasty Thai curry that she could prepare in a few minutes.

I WISH I had a video camera to capture it – it was amazing.

I’ve tried to make coconut milk from cocnuts here in CA, but they don’t work well. I don’t know if they are a different variety, too old or what, but they yield little cream and taste thin.

By: Maureen

Maureen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:25:32 +0000

While born in Minnesota, I grew up in Brazil and Africa. One could not go to the store and buy grated coconut. We got the real thing and it was my job to crack, drain, peel and shred the coconut. We made our own coconut cream and milk by soaking the shreds in hot milk. My mother’s curry recipe, which she developed over the years, is still a family favorite and a must on Christmas eve. Her recipe was an Indian/African version of groundnut stew – groundnut being peanut butter – added to the curry. We still do it the old way by starting with a fresh coconut.