Curry According to Al

First, my girls are safely in Sydney and will hopefully complete the final leg of their trip home tomorrow. To give you a perspective of how far from here Queensland is, it's two long days or three comfortable days driving. And the girls have paused a few times on their way.

Tonight I am going to present something totally different to my usual fare (pardon the pun).
Quite some time ago I talked about the curries I cook. A couple of people expressed an interest in the recipe. I am cooking curry tonight so I thought I’d bring you along for the ride.
I have written out a rather long winded recipe and taken a few very bad photos as I have progressed to go with my descriptions. It is surprisingly hard to cook and take photos at the same time.
I would say this is not a curry in any particular tradition, rather it is something like the dishes my Indian Granny used to cook. I’ve modified it a bit for ease and to suit local ingredients (the spices are much easier to get here in Oz than they once were).

Curry According to Al.
1 kg (2lb) Cubed meat
2 Large onions chopped
6 – 8 crushed cloves of garlic
1 – 2 inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and grated
4 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
4 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
4 teaspoons of ground turmeric
Ground Cayenne chilli or equivalent
2 cinnamon sticks
12 whole black peppercorns
10 whole cardamom pods
6 whole cloves
Salt to taste
8 tablespoons of plain (natural) yoghurt (alternately a tin of light coconut milk)
8-10 tablespoons good quality cooking oil (I use olive oil which is not at all authentic but any good oil will work)
1 tin diced tomatoes (you can use fresh if you wish)

First a word about the meat: I usually use lamb or beef, but goat or kangaroo both work well. In fact goat meat is my favourite for this dish but I have to go out of my way to get it.
You could use chicken, but I would dial the spices back a little (except the chilli).

Method:
Grind the coriander and cumin seeds. I usually use a mortar and pestle which takes a bit of time (you can use a coffee grinder but don’t expect your coffee to taste right again).

If you have never ground coriander seed take a moment to enjoy the fresh lemony scent when they are cracked, it is simply heavenly. You can substitute pre-ground spices but I would not recommend them. Pre-ground spices very quickly lose much of their flavour and smell. Fresh is best.

Combine with the turmeric and chilli.
With the chilli the trick is to make the amount to suit you palate. If you are a total chilli-wimp half a teaspoon would suit.If I am feeding curry novices I would usually add around a teaspoon of chilli. If you like chilli and are used to hot food two, or three teaspoons would be fine. However I would see this as a fairly mild curry so I wouldn’t go overboard.
To the ground spices add the whole cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, cardamom pods and cloves (you can chuck in a couple of bay leaves as well if you wish).Set this spice mix aside.

Heat the oil in a large heavy pot that you can cover with a lid (DO NOT use a non-stick pan).
Keep the heat high - add the onions and begin to fry.As the onions begin to soften and change colour chuck in the spice mix.
Stir them on a high heat for maybe 60 seconds. Don’t worry if they stick to the pan that is pretty much what you want. Throw in the garlic and ginger and continue to stir.

About this time you will “think this is a real mess”.
Don’t worry, it is meant to be sticky, even caked on to the pan. It should smell really good as the heat activates the spices.

Keeping the heat high, add the meat. Keep it turning as you brown it.
Then as the juices start to come out of the meat use them to help scrape gunk off the pan (I use a heavy wood or bamboo spoon for this).The above piccie shows just how gunky the pan will get

By the time the meat is browned you should have the bulk of the spices scraped off the pan.Add the tomatoes and stir well, keep the heat high until they are well mixed.


Turn the heat down and stir in the yoghurt, one tablespoon at a time.
Alternatively you can use coconut milk. Yoghurt is nicer coconut milk is a bit quicker.

Now add some water (about a cup). If you have used coconut milk you will need less water.
Turn the heat back up slightly and bring the pot to a boil. Then turn it right down to a gentle simmer and cover.
Cook for at least an hour (until the meat is tender), stirring the pot well every ten minutes or so. The longer you cook the meat the more the flavours will infuse the meat. Some people will cook a curry for over 20 hours! I usually cook this dish for between 1 and 2 hours.

When the meat is tender remove the lid and turn up the heat to reduce the mixture a little until the sauce is somewhat thickened.
Add salt to taste and stir in.

Remove from heat and serve with rice.

A word about rice. An Indian style curry should be served with long-grain rice like Basmati.
Add the rice to rapidly boiling water and stir back to the boil.
Rice should not be overcooked 10 – 15 minutes at the boil will usually be heaps. As it gets close keep tasting it until it is just tender.
Then drain and serve, the rice should be light and fluffy and not at all sticky.

So there you go. Curry according to Al.
Hopefully my Indian readers aren’t laughing too hard.

Sarah, India and Dawn Starts

No it is not quite déjà vu.

But oddly my post tonight shares a great deal with a similarly titled post of a month ago.

Like last month, and despite the heat of the day, there is a curry simmering on the stove.
Like last time I am going to ramble about my Indian heritage.
And like last month I am going to finish by talking about some graves.

As I have said before, one of the pleasures of early starts, is early finishes. This means that I have time to cook properly before the evening meal. Assuming that is, I am in the mood.

Well tonight I have taken the time to grind the spices (the lemony smell of fresh ground coriander seed is heavenly) and make a proper curry.
I don’t use a recipe but if anyone is interested I could write one out and post it another time.

With the curry simmering I have time to write this post.

As I said last time my Russell ancestors used to live in Jabalpur, MP, India. The world really is small and blogging seems to make it a whole lot smaller.
As a result of my previous post I was contacted by a gentleman by the name of Byram.

Byram lives in Canada but like me he has family ties to Jabalpur and he has an interest in genealogy. He asked If I had heard of Valmay Young’s Indian ancestry website and if I had any relatives left in Jabalpur.

I responded to Byram that my family (the Russells) were in Jabalpur by the 1850s but that if we were related to Russells still living there it was distantly. My Father left Madhya Pradesh in the 1950s (he came to Australia).
My Aunt also left in the 1950s initially to Calcutta, then Bombay and finally Australia in 1980.
The last direct tie my family had with Jabalpur and Madhya Pradesh was when my Grandparents left there in 1967 (also for Australia).
My Grandfather was fairly unusual in that he did not leave India at the time of independence (1947). Although he thought of himself as British he had no other home but India (he was born in Jabalpur, as were his father and grandfather) and he stayed there until after he retired.

The next email from Byram was fairly brief and I quote it in full:
“Hi Allan,
Does this grave in Jabalpur belong to one of your ancestors? Regards Byram”

Byram attached these photos:I responded to Byram - “I don’t know for certain, I would guess that it is very likely to be my Great-Great-Grandfather’s grave.”

William and Anley are family names (which fit the initials). I don’t remember my G-G-Grandfather’s name, but I do I know he was killed outside Jabalpur in a hunting accident at around that time. {As a by the by I posted about my ancestor William Anley who liked playing with matches a while ago }

My Great Grand-Father William Anley Postance Russell, was made an orphan by his father’s death, he was raised by his Grandmother. Interestingly our family has had a strong tradition of including both William and Anley in their names.

My Great uncle was William Anley Rupert Russell. My Grandfather was Arthur Anley Rupert Russell and my dad is Rupert Anley William Russell.

Anley and Postance are surnames from other British families that married into mine, that habit of including relations names is a real boon when tracing family histories.

But the plot (please excuse the pun) deepened.
Spotting the name Postance.
Byram shot back this email.

“Hi Allan.
Very interesting. I wonder if the enclosed grave of Sarah Postance is an ancestor of yours. Regards Byram”
And finally Byram posted:

Hi Allan.
The W A Russell and Sarah Postance graves have the same pattern. They are the only two graves that have this pattern. I photographed the other side of SP's grave but the writing is not visible.

So it seems that, by rambling about curries, India and graves I have more than likely found my distant ancestors.

What a small world.

Emma, India, and Dawn Starts

You are going to have to excuse me but I am in a rambling mood tonight.

One of the things that is nice about the work I do is that there are early starts. And no before you all say “is he mad?” I do not enjoy getting up at 5:00am any more than the next person (except of course this has the big plus that my commute time is less than half what it would be if I was going in at more normal hours).

The nice thing is the early finish and time in the afternoon and evening, this gives me the opportunity for all sorts of pursuits.

Often they are mundane, like hanging out a load of washing or mowing the lawn.
But as often as not I am able to use the time more creatively. Last week for example I went exploring with my youngest.

Yesterday, I worked on formatting my book before the house got busy in the evening.
Tonight I am in a culinary frame of mind. I am putting the time to cooking a decent curry. Oddly (or perhaps not oddly in this day and age) although I am an Aussie I also have a large chunk of Indian Heritage . My father’s family took a rather long (over 150 years) detour via India on the way to Australia.

As a total by-the-by, if you ever walk through Russell Chowk in Jabalpur a city in Madhya Pradesh India, you are close to some of my family history. If you do a Google you might discover that the Chowk (square) is named after Bertrand Russell, but in fact it isn’t. It was named for one of my ancestors considerably before Bertrand was famous. But that is another story, one I might put into a book… someday.

In the spirit of rambling I am going to jump to an entirely different topic. On Saturday as is our wont we went for a drive. This time we struck out along a road we haven’t used before though Arthur’s Creek. Up on a hill before you reach the village is an old cemetery.
I love cemeteries, they are such a vivid store of the culture of their time. Such a prompt for imagination.

This grave for example speaks of a tragedy, a young woman burying a much loved husband. Clearly at the time Emma, no doubt in love and grief stricken at the loss of her Harry could not imagine resting anywhere else. She has bought a double plot so one day she could sleep alongside her dear one.
Yet a hundred years later there is no sign that she was laid here. No headstone for Emma here.
What happened, the writer in me wonders. As her grief passed did she come to love another? Does she now rest alongside a second husband?
Who knows, but my mind races away across the valley below, thinking of other stories that perhaps one day I could write.Too many books not enough years.

Bless you Emma, I hope the rest of your years were joy filled.