Fifty Weeks, Fifty Curries: Week Twelve: Jardaloo Boti

[dorchadas]

So, apricots are really good.

I came home to a delicious smell filling the apartment. As last week showed, the smell isn't necessarily a key to how the finished product tastes, but I had a good feeling about this one. Maybe it's because we decided to use short ribs for the meat, which is one of my favorite cuts due to all the delicious fat, or maybe it's just because of the apricots. I was a bit suspicious when schoolpsychnerd bought a pack of snack-style dried apricots at Urban Orchard, but she assured me that it would work out just fine. And I trusted her, because hey, she's the one cooking all of these curries, so she has a better grip on what goes into them than I do.

Delicious short ribs and apricots on the back right.

My trust was not misplaced. The onions, oil, and fatty meat all blended together into a great, rich curry mixture with a hint of spice on the backend. And while the apricots didn't really blend at all, schoolpsychnerd mentioned that the recipe said to add them in at the last minute, so I suspect that the sweetness of apricot juice was supposed to stand out as much as it did. At first I found it kind of jarring, but after a few bites I really appreciated it. It would have been great with just the initial rich curry flavor, but the apricots provided a great contrast and weren't nearly as syrupy as I was worrying about.

Remember all those photos I used to post of frying onions? Pepperidge FarmI remember.

Words from the Chef

This curry was incredibly easy to make and it just felt like all the curry skills that I had been acquiring came together here. I finally learned to just leave the onions alone and let them brown, how to make the spices sing. Most importantly I learned how to wait, which is funny because this curry doesn't have a long cook time. I loved the addition of the apricots, fruit in savory dishes always interests me. I am not a huge gravy person but this had just enough. I used short ribs for it and I think the extra fat in that cut helped. Also, I used the right amount of oil this time!

Short ribs...

Now that she mentions it, my favorite crepe at La Petite Crêperie back when I was a university student were chicken caesar with added blueberries, maybe for the same reasons I articulate above. I just haven't had that kind of combination for so long that I didn't remember that I liked it. I think there's a bit of a reason for that, too, in that I could relatively quickly grow to dislike the flavor combination. It was amazing this time, especially after the nearly-flavorless disappointment that was seyal gosht, but I can't see myself eating it more than once a month or so.

Well, not counting leftovers. I'll gladly eat the leftovers.

The side of vegetables is suggested in the recipe this time!

We had it with white rice, but the recipe suggested yellow rice, which might be good too. Or I can imagine swapping out the apricots for another fruit, like pineapple (possibly too overpowering), blueberries (possibly too subtle), or figs (I have no idea how this would turn out, but I'd be willing to try it). Since the fruit was added near the end, it'd be easy to use different ingredients and see how the taste changes. I look forward to doing that in the future!

Would I Eat It Again?: Yes!
Do I Prefer It to the Usual Thai Curry?: No. It's not that it's not good, it's that I think the apricot taste would grow really old if I was eating it every week.
What Would I Change?: The fruit! Not that I think we need to, but that I want to try other things and see how it is.