Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
688
I’m doing a lamb dish from Madhur Jaffrey’s “Curry Easy”. She calls it “Rajasthani Red Meat”, which I’m guessing will be her version of Lal Maas, which I think is probably the best known lamb dish from the area.
Lovely! I made chicken satay last night too, using a recipe my mom got from an Indonesian (I think) student of hers back in the 80s. It was impossibly exotic to me as a kid and I still love the flavor of this particular version, which is a bit different from any others I have had. The meat is marinated in a paste of garlic, onion, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, peanuts and oil, all ground up in the food processor. The sauce is coarsely ground peanuts (a LOT of them), sauteed garlic, sambal oelek, a little sugar, peanut butter and lemon juice, plus quite a bit of water - you simmer it for a good long while, adding more water if necessary, until the nuts are crisp-tender and the sauce is thick (like the consistency of a good Bolognese). Since we don’t eat much rice, I serve this with a pile of sauteed broccoli as a vehicle for shoveling in as much of the sauce as possible.
Nice skewers? Also done on the grill pan? I might have to get one of those for our induction top out on the porch. (We can’t do actual bbq either, and our inside cooking ventilation is nonexistent.) Is there a recipe for the satay sauce?
Yes, it’s whatever the Campfire marinade is. Not enough of it for me to discern what the ingredients were, however. (I did try!) And the butcher store is reticent to give the ingredients to their marinated meats marinades. Some are easy to figure out, so I can add more ingredients to make a reasonable facsimile of their marinade, and others I have to guess or just leave as-is. I hadn’t yet tried this marinade, so went with it as-is.
Yours is definitely more authentic than what my Dad came up with in the 70s after a film trip to Indonesia. He used ingredients we could readily buy in a North Jersey suburban supermarket (no coconut milk, coriander or turmeric, but he does have curry powder in there, along with ketchup and dry sherry!), and after several iterations, came up with I use to this day. Although I have made a few tweaks here and there.
A memory is of friends coming over for dinner and Dad making satay of beef, chicken and vegetables. They were a bit wary of trying something with a peanut sauce, but once they tried it, they loved it!
Me to. I couldn’t decide between Lebovitz and the one from the August cover of Food & Wine. I went with F&W, does it look like it? No, but it sure tasted good.
I have a lot of cherry tomatoes, I roast them using the Slater recipe and run them through the food mill. I call it tomato jam and freeze it in small jars. Oh, and don’t forget about fried green tomatoes
Glad you found this place. We live very close to it and get takeout from there on occasion, or go for lunch. Haven’t been for dinner, but based on your writeup will make it a point to do so.
I only heard about this place from a writeup in the table hopping section of NJ monthly. The menu sounded very intriguing. We live about 45 minutes away but it was well worth the trip. I recommend the crispy betel leaves and crab dip appetizers, as well as the crab curry.