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rushthatspeaksI seem to be in a food mood.
Ismail Merchant is widely known as the Merchant of Merchant-Ivory Productions; along with his lover, the director James Ivory, and their friend and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, he made more than forty movies, including A Room with A View and other famous adaptations of E.M. Forster. (I've always thought Merchant and Ivory showed great sense in putting their names that way round...)
Apparently cooking was a great passion of his life, and he seems to have enjoyed food and hospitality both for their own sake and for their uses in discussions with the artistic, temperamental, or financially necessary-- many of his recipes are annotated with the names of the actors he bribed with them. Merchant, a Muslim from Bombay, also seems to have been at the forefront of the introduction of Indian cooking to America, along with Madhur Jaffrey (a friend of his). He mentions cheerfully that when he started serving Indian food to New York City theatre circles there were two Indian restaurants in Manhattan, both of which were terrible.
His book is not incredibly well-written in its prose interludes, though it has its moments (one recipe notes 'This is what you should have for lunch while arguing about what to make for dinner'), and it has the celebrity cookbook nature in that it is very name-droppy and does not give much context for the names it drops. He is also very proud of having managed to learn to cook despite it being a thing men in his family Did Not Do, which is a reasonable thing to be proud of, except that he mentions it so frequently that it becomes a tad annoying.
But the recipes, which are primarily Indian but with strong French and American influences, are obviously and beautifully sound. He really thinks in both Indian and French idioms, and suggests seasonings that can be tipped toward one nationality or another by changing the ratio of the spices. I have never seen anyone quite so fond of mustard, or remotely so original with it, nor have I met other curries containing tarragon vinegar. He also highly values quick preparation, and if you are fast at your knifework and can keep up with the chopping, you can make most recipes in this book within half an hour, including the gigantic ten-person special-occasion expensive-meal productions like lobster tails in coconut sauce. It's not a terrible book for vegetarians, either, though not spectacular, but if you can't handle capsicum steer clear, because Mr. Merchant is incapable of making tuna salad without throwing in both diced green and red chilies (a mindset I sympathize with but do not consider workable on a day-to-day basis).
This is not a cookbook for reading, really; it's a cookbook for use and inspiration, one of those books that winds up tattered and covered in sauce, adding a few things to your regular repertoire and a few to special occasions and several to the list of things that if you ever go totally crazy you'll devote a week to. In short, it's neither a revelation nor a disaster, but a good workmanlike solid thing.
Ismail Merchant is widely known as the Merchant of Merchant-Ivory Productions; along with his lover, the director James Ivory, and their friend and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, he made more than forty movies, including A Room with A View and other famous adaptations of E.M. Forster. (I've always thought Merchant and Ivory showed great sense in putting their names that way round...)
Apparently cooking was a great passion of his life, and he seems to have enjoyed food and hospitality both for their own sake and for their uses in discussions with the artistic, temperamental, or financially necessary-- many of his recipes are annotated with the names of the actors he bribed with them. Merchant, a Muslim from Bombay, also seems to have been at the forefront of the introduction of Indian cooking to America, along with Madhur Jaffrey (a friend of his). He mentions cheerfully that when he started serving Indian food to New York City theatre circles there were two Indian restaurants in Manhattan, both of which were terrible.
His book is not incredibly well-written in its prose interludes, though it has its moments (one recipe notes 'This is what you should have for lunch while arguing about what to make for dinner'), and it has the celebrity cookbook nature in that it is very name-droppy and does not give much context for the names it drops. He is also very proud of having managed to learn to cook despite it being a thing men in his family Did Not Do, which is a reasonable thing to be proud of, except that he mentions it so frequently that it becomes a tad annoying.
But the recipes, which are primarily Indian but with strong French and American influences, are obviously and beautifully sound. He really thinks in both Indian and French idioms, and suggests seasonings that can be tipped toward one nationality or another by changing the ratio of the spices. I have never seen anyone quite so fond of mustard, or remotely so original with it, nor have I met other curries containing tarragon vinegar. He also highly values quick preparation, and if you are fast at your knifework and can keep up with the chopping, you can make most recipes in this book within half an hour, including the gigantic ten-person special-occasion expensive-meal productions like lobster tails in coconut sauce. It's not a terrible book for vegetarians, either, though not spectacular, but if you can't handle capsicum steer clear, because Mr. Merchant is incapable of making tuna salad without throwing in both diced green and red chilies (a mindset I sympathize with but do not consider workable on a day-to-day basis).
This is not a cookbook for reading, really; it's a cookbook for use and inspiration, one of those books that winds up tattered and covered in sauce, adding a few things to your regular repertoire and a few to special occasions and several to the list of things that if you ever go totally crazy you'll devote a week to. In short, it's neither a revelation nor a disaster, but a good workmanlike solid thing.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 05:39 pm (UTC)That's lovely.
He also highly values quick preparation, and if you are fast at your knifework and can keep up with the chopping, you can make most recipes in this book within half an hour, including the gigantic ten-person special-occasion expensive-meal productions like lobster tails in coconut sauce.
. . . also I'm borrowing this book from you.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 06:35 pm (UTC)Well, at least that implies I'll be able to find it.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 07:22 pm (UTC)That said, have a recipe for lobster tails in coconut sauce, because I cannot imagine that in several years I will not want to look back at this recipe and know that it is what I will make if I can ever afford lobster tails.
Spicy Coconut Sauce (Masaledar Naryal Salan)
Preparation and cooking time about 50 minutes; makes about 5 cups
1 coconut
1 medium-sized red chili pepper, seeded, cored, and chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
6 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Bake coconut for fifteen minutes. Place hot coconut on concrete or another hard surface and smash it open with a hammer. When the coconut pieces are cool enough to handle, peel away the brown papery skin from the white meat with a vegetable peeler. Chop any large pieces into smaller ones.
Put the coconut meat, the rest of the ingredients, and 3/4 cup water in a food processor or blender, working in batches if necessary and adding extra water if needed, and liquefy. Thin with about 4 cups water.
If you can find unsugared preshelled coconut meat, the preparation time for this drops significantly.
Lobster in Spicy Coconut Sauce (Seepdar Machli aur Naryal ka Salan)
Preparation and cooking time: making the coconut sauce, plus twenty minutes. Serves four. You can cook up to eight lobster tails in the same amount of sauce by adding a little more hot water with the bay leaves.
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
4 bay leaves
2/12 cups Spicy Coconut Sauce
4 lobster tails
Heat the oil in a large, deep saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the mustard seeds and let them cook for 1 minute.
Add the bay leaves and coconut sauce and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Add the lobster tails and simmer gently for 5 minutes, until the flesh is firm but not overcooked. If bought already cooked, just heat them through.
Serve with basmati pilaf or a pilaf made with saffron.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 04:02 am (UTC)Yay.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 08:32 pm (UTC)