A little bit of Goan food

An update on the last post: Umesh and Roopa just had a beautiful little girl. Woooho! Thanks much for the baby gift appreciation...the proud parents liked them too!



Last week, knit-friends Katrice, Bitsy, and Shweta were over for lots of knitting and some food. Thank you for a wonderful evening. A big thank you to Shweta—I now own a handknit, designer hat (!). She designed it and the pattern will soon be available online on a new website.

What was for dinner? Dessert first (if you are like me, your primary interest is the "dessert situation”). Sorry for the bad pictures, but those are Chocolate Brownie Cookies—I made enough for the knitting party and as a birthday present for Suketu’s brother. At the knitting dinner, we had warm cookies with vanilla ice-cream, blueberries, and strawberries. I am no baking expert, but I must say that they turned out very good.


Recipe: Chocolate Brownie Cookies from Williams Sonoma Food Made Easy, Baking
Modifications: The recipe calls for chopped walnuts—I chopped half of the walnuts and finely grinded the other half. The ground walnuts lend a subtle, overall nutty flavor to the cookies.

Dinner. I decided it was high time I made the Goan sausages I brought back from my recent India trip. Here is a picture. Goan sausages are made of uncooked pork; the meat is marinated with spices and vinegar and packed into tight “balls”. In Goan markets, a hundred of such balls (which make up a string) cost 200 rupees. I am not sure how long they stay good without refrigeration; I have seen my parents freeze them within a month of buying them.

Recipe for Goan Sausage with Potato and Onions


Notes:
- There are many interesting ways of cooking Goan sausage, and this is just one way my family likes it. I am not sure if this is a Mangalorean take on cooking Goan sausage (?)
- There is no sugar coating this. Goan sausage is NOT made of lean pork…you get my point of how this becomes a greasy dish. I hardly eat or cook meat anymore and strongly dislike greasy food. However this dish is a rare treat especially if you just cannot walk around the corner and land up in a Goan market!
- For this specific recipe, do not add spices like garam masala and meat powders. They might mask the yummy flavor of the sausage.

Ingredients:
- 2.5 strings Goan sausage (this is usually made up of 150 balls). Remove the sausage covering, and put the meat into a bowl.
- 5 medium-sized onions, cut into large cubes
- 5 medium-sized potatoes, boiled, skinned, and cut into large cubes
- 2 tablespoons of ginger-garlic paste
- 2 teaspoons chilli powder
- 4 teaspoons coriander powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin powder
- A pinch of tumeric powder
- 3 teaspoons vinegar
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- Salt to taste

Directions:
1. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a pan under medium flame. Under low heat, add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for about eight minutes (the point being, cook until you lose the “raw” flavor and odor of the paste). Be careful not to burn the paste, as this can happen quite easily. Unfortunately, for this not to happen, the only remedy is to add more oil. Once done, keep aside in a bowl.

2. Heat one tablespoon of oil in the pan under medium flame. Sautee the onions until light yellowish-brown. Add ginger-garlic paste, coriander powder, chilli powder, cumin powder, and turmeric powder and fry for about 30 seconds. Add the meat and two cups of water and cook until the meat is tender. Don’t let the meat dry up while cooking; you will have to keep adding water. I prefer a thick gravy, so I closely moderate the water content so that it will cook the meat but not water-down the dish.
3. The meat has a strong tangy aroma in its uncooked form and this tanginess is the uniqueness of this meat. If you feel some of the tanginess has been lost during the cooking process, add some vinegar half way through step 2.
4. Turn off heat and add potatoes to the meat. Add salt to taste (add with caution—sometimes salt might not be necessary because of the pre-marinated nature of the sausage).
5. Proudly serve with dhal and rice.