Summer?? Tomatillo Salsa, Sundrops, Coorgi Pork Curry and Gujerati Sem

Solstice? Summer?  What is that?  We have barely seen peaks of the sun in the last 21 days, never mind on the day with the most daylight. Those sundrops are the brightest thing I've seen in days.  They practically scream out in the garden against all the gray skies and greenery.  A friend is in Iceland as we speak, I hope her solstice is going better than ours, I sent her off with a warning to watch Bourdain's episode and not to eat the fermented shark.  It's so cold around here and damp that I was even tempted to light a fire today, but mine would have been to keep warm, not to keep the witches away or the faeries and spirits. 

Instead of lamenting the distinctly English summer we are having here in New England I decided to dream of warmer and sunnier places and cook up some hot Indian for dinner tonight.

First I put a boatload of tomatillo, plum tomato, serrano chile, poblano and garlic under the broiler until they were nicely blistered.

I turned them into a salsa that will get a diced, rinsed white onion and become Mexican rice and something else Monday night, Sunday is all about prep for the week.  I roasted husbands lemon chicken for his sandwiches as well.

Next I popped the spices in my pan to toast them for the curry.

There aren't too many pork recipes in Indian cuisine, as you would imagine, but Goa and Coorg had some leftover Portuguese influence and some Christians kicking around so the occasional recipe crops up.  I could have made a Vindaloo, but husband really hates vinegar, which I could drink by the quart, so I made this one instead with tamarind and a bit of coconut milk, garlic, onion, ginger paste and those nice spices all ground up.  I'll make his favourite green beans (Gujerati sem) with loads of mustard seeds, garlic and chile and I have a bunch of diced potatoes kicking around upstairs so I'm trying to find a dry aloo recipe to put them to use, maybe sookhe aloo.  I'm hoping that we can at least generate a sweat on this 60oddF day in "summer". 

Remind me of this day in august when I'm bitching about the unbearable heat would you?

Comments

[Zahavah]

Stunning pictures and great idea to not succumb to the weather!