Hei, români, feel like cooking some delicious foreign food? I think most French cuisine is highly over-rated and terribly boring, so let’s take our bucatarie virtuala a bit est. In fact, let’s take our tastebuds on a travel above the Tropic of Cancer to the Punjabi region of northern India. (It’s the same place the Roma come from, but don’t allow your racism get in the way, mmkay? Cool.)

Surprisingly, I’ve seen almost no indian restaurants outside of Bucureşti. That’s a crime! A national tragedy, in fact. Lemme tell ya, Indian food is damn good. Now, you could spend around 24 RON or 25 RON for a 200 gr entreé with all the ambience and none of the work. But if all you crave is that magic flavor, then you could make substantially more food at home for that price. Plus, you get bragging rights.

Incidental Musing: I’ve yet to figure out why iaurt is called sos indian in restaurants. Must be a simple exercise in marketing the exotic. Still, it bothers me. I find that most other European nations would more quickly identify curry with India before they’d identify iaurt with the subcontinent.

Alright, let’s make with the chefination, shall we?

Pui Curry Iute

• 2 piept de pui, cooked and cubed
• 250 ml chopped ceapa
• 1 clove usteroi
• 60 ml unt
• 60 ml faina
• 375 ml lapte
• 425 ml lapte de cocos
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1 tbsp instant pui bouillon
• 30 ml suc de lamaie
• Hot cooked orez basmati (anume)

In large skillet, simmer ceapa and usteroi in unt until tender; stir in faina. Gradually add lapte a little at a time; stiring until smooth. Add lapte de cocos, curry and bouillon.

Over medium heat, cook and stir until mixture thickens. Add suc de lamaie. Reduce heat and lightly simmer 10 minutes. Add piept de pui; cook 10 minutes longer. Serve over orez basmati. While the stereotype of Romanians is that they don’t like spicy foods, if you happen to be more like myself then you’ll want to add some paprika machinata to taste.

Mulţumesc, Doamna Buzunare.

Take your time savoring each morsel. I heartily recommend a beer to accompany your meal. If you’re entertaining guests, substitute a white wine instead and give strong consideration to a compatible dessert to serve.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 14th, 2006 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.