Good morning everyone,
Happy Memorial day weekend.
Sports wise today we’ve got a promotion to the Premier League play in game and in the NBA we’ve got a game 7 where the winner gets the ignominious glory of getting their asses kicked by Golden State in the finals. If you’re a sports fan you could do a heck of a lot worse.
Got a damn solid Sunday Gravy menu for all y’all too.
Quick narrative time. While this may sound a bit odd considering how much I’ve expanded my culinary horizons when I was younger I was not the most adventurous eater out there. In fact I was a fucking moron who stuck with the same familiar cuisines and rarely ventured out of my comfort zone.
I wish I could slap the piss out of my younger self. I didn’t even try sushi until I was in my mid 40’s. You stupid, stupid man.
Another cuisine I was very late to the game for was Thai food. Which we are experimenting with today.
Speaking of needing a fucking slap. All those years I missed out on the flat-out deliciousness of Thai food. Now? I could eat that shit every damn week. No fucking lie I fucking love it. The spicier the better too.
We’ve got a local joint here in Pedro that can stand tall with any LA Thai place. It’s called Sirinat and holy fucking shitbiscuits kids, it’s a goddamn winner.
They tend to run a little pricey or maybe that’s just me ordering 5 different dishes off the menu every time I order.
I regret nothing!
They make a fantastic pad see ew and all of their curries are banging. In fact that’s the very inspiration for our menu today.
The green beans will look very familiar and they should, having been featured here a couple of times before.
The curry will be a brand new main dish on Sunday Gravy though. I have made yellow curry several times in the past and it’s really simple to do as long as you use the best ingredients. That’s the key.
Use the real shit too don’t be buying the Trader Joes curry either, dammit. Use the authentic stuff.
This stuff!
As always these can be found online.
Let’s get this shit going already.
We’ve done the green beans before. Recipe and original post here.
[editor’s note: there’s a killer pork tenderloin recipe in there too]
Thai Style green beans!
You will need:
1 pound or so of fresh green beans.
1 tablespoon of minced shallot.
4-5 cloves of minced garlic.
1 tablespoon of minced ginger.
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1/4 cup of chicken stock.
1/4 cup of chili sauce – use sambal olek if possible. No you aren’t allowed to substitute with sriracha.
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flake.
Salt to finish.
Start by preparing your green beans.
After a nice rinse, go ahead and trim up the ends.
Full disclosure: I bought these green beans and the curry fixings a couple of weeks ago but ran out of steam from exercise, walking, grocery store and cooking my weekly vegan soup the day I planned to cook everything and just didn’t feel like cooking dinner too.
It does happen!
So I froze these beans for when I was ready to cook them.
Don’t do that. These fuckers really, really need to be fresh. Freezing them totally fucked with their composition and this batch came out a little too soggy for my taste. Use fresh, it’s a huge difference.
Anyway.
Drop them in boiling water for 3-5 minutes then put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking.
Let the green beans rest at this point and we can get started on the curry.
Yellow Curry!
todays inspiration from
1 tablespoon oil
Half of one yellow onion – chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic – minced
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/3 cup yellow curry paste
2 Medium gold potatoes or 1 large russet potato, cut into bite-sized pieces
One 14-ounce can coconut cream – Note: Coconut CREAM not milk. Just trust me.
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1–2 tablespoons brown sugar (optional)
Rice for serving.
We begin the curry proceedings by sautéing the onion. Add in the oil to a good sized pot over medium heat. Sweat the onion down for 5-7 minutes.
While the onion is cooking cube up the chicken.
Been awhile since I’ve used boneless-skinless chicken breast. Between my vegetarian weekday meals and my simple preference of thighs and legs to chicken breast I just hadn’t had much occasion to buy any lately.
Tell you what, that shit used to be expensive and I bought over 3 pounds of it every damn week! Kind of nice saving a few weekly bucks too.
Let’s get a look at that curry paste.
Well that is indeed one horrible-ass photo. That’s the bag of curry paste next to its container. Sorry about it looking like a goddamn crime scene photo.
Here’s the Amazon link for the curry paste if you have an interest. It’s a dynamite curry paste.
Time to add the chicken and the curry paste to the onions.
Give everything a good stir to fully coat the chicken with the curry paste. It’s right about NOW when your sinuses will be hog-walloped by the curry paste.
Oh fucking MY that is delightful! You’re neighbors will be notified of your culinary intent as well. Sure as shit.
Cook for 3-5 minutes to remove the pink edges from the chicken.
Add in the minced garlic and cook for just a few seconds until you begin weeping tears of olfactory joy.
Mother FUCKER that smells amazing!
Potatoes go in next. Coat everything up well.
Time to add in the coconut cream and the water. Give everything a proper stir and lid this fucker up. Everything will cook on a low simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
This will give us plenty enough time to cook the rice and finish cooking the green beans.
After about 15 minutes I started to notice that my yellow curry just wasn’t well, yellow enough. Huh?
[mental gears engage – recent memory recall disk pack enabled]
Wait a minute!
That’s fucking right!
Now if anybody can make food yellow it’s this here motherfucker!
Remember this?
SEE!
Yep, that’s our saffron halibut and rice from a few weeks back.
My secret trick? See those little threads in there? Yep, that’s the leftover saffron. That worked so goddamn well on the halibut that I felt sure it would assist us here also.
Now is the perfect time to start your rice. Simple plain rice is perfect but I did a little something-something special that I’ll show in a bit.
Next we get back to work on the beans.
Shallots, ginger and garlic. You can use these 3 ingredients as a springboard to about a hundred different Thai/Asian food dishes in this current minced state.
Now get the sauté pan ready. Add in the peanut oil and get this over a medium-high heat. We’re kind of “wokking” this bastard today.
Drain the iced-down beans and get them in the skillet along with the shallot.
Safety note! Make sure the beans are thoroughly drained and dried OK? Hot pan + hot oil + water = Bad!
Since we precooked the beans earlier these will only need 3-5 minutes or so at this stage.
Add the garlic and the ginger to the beans. Stir, stir, mix, mix.
Cook hot and fast for a couple of minutes. We finish the beans up with the addition of the soy sauce, the chicken stock and the chili paste.
One final last sprinkle of the red chilies flakes and final light sprinkling of salt and you are done!
Times up!
Flames off!
No more cooking!
Let’s take a quick look at our rice today. Simple prep but I used homemade chicken stock instead of water.
This gave the rice a nice depth and richness that you don’t get by using water alone. A seasoned rice would play well here also.
Curry looks ready. Last thing though is adding in the fish sauce and the brown sugar. The fish sauce just fucking works here.
While I do prefer my curry a tad bit thicker for the most part, this is just fine.
Let’s plate it up!
Grab a bowl since the curry is a little looser than we intended. Scoop in some rice, ladle some curry over the top. Be sure to get plenty of chicken and potato in there.
I used a plate for the green beans for a little contrast action with the serving dishes
That’s real nice. If I had a little more effort/energy or foresight, an egg roll or two would most definitely not have sucked here. Oh well. Next time.
Shall we get a look at the obligatory close-ups.
Curry?
Oh shit! That looks good doesn’t it? The curry has a low-level heat more of a background note but it’s the curry flavor that stands out. It’s deep, it’s rich, it’s creamy, it’s complex, it’s fucking delicious is what it is.
And those beans.
Oh hell yes. We got the crisp crunch and the heat from the chili paste and the pepper flake plus the rounded herbal notes of the garlic and ginger.
When these are served in tandem?
That is one goddamn delicious duo right there.
Most importantly this is not hard to make! At all. It’s simple prep totally belies the depth of flavors and textures. You can blow some damn minds with this stuff and it’s not terribly expensive to do either!
That’s a rock solid combination of factors right there!
There you go everyone.
A proper beauty of a meal that can be made quickly and will absolutely make you look like a fucking culinary magician!
Win win.
As always thanks for being here. I’ve really tried to just dial in to the “just stick to the recipe” thing and hopefully I can provide a distraction and escape for everyone in this stupid fucking world we live in.
Thanks for riding along.
Until next week…
PEACE!
I’ve been doing my part for the Memorial Day weekend. Yesterday I watched “Zero Dark Thirty” and if this Cubs game ever ends it’s “Saving Private Ryan” today.
It’s cool I’ve already eaten.
Jesus Christ. That opening.
Did you mean to post this as a pornhub comment?
Gaping Private Ryan
Saving Ryan’s Privates
*Shaving
I think NASCAR would be even better if half the cars started the race going clockwise, with the other half going counterclockwise. At the midpoint, they switch.
There is such a thing as a Figure 8 race…
https://youtu.be/MR5V4tXTG7Q
Figure-8 and Clockwise-Counterclockwise are two different things.
I want to see 400mph closing speeds.
I think they call that Demolition Derby.
Throw a box of Schrodinger’s cats in there driven by Snidely Whiplash and you’ve got a serious race brewing!
.
Gumby sez he’s starting a new business teaching math to short people. The name? Making the Little Things Count.
“Why bother?” — Randy Newman
WHO’S READY FOR THE COCA COLA 600???
Fuck and yes!
*pounds coffee*
*snorts a YUGE line*
*smokes crack*
Haha, just kidding. I’m only sipping my coffee.
[sad face]
-Freezer vodka
Fixed.
Totally unrelated, coffee vodka should not be a thing.
Several hippos in the jungles of Columbia?
Related to Ayo’s post below (sorta). I’ve always liked “How Long” by Ace and then covered by Rod Stewart. The line-
“But I can’t help my suspicions
Because I’m not quite as dumb as I seem”
now makes me laugh
Anyone have this reaction to a lyric to a tune that they liked?
This would be a good Request Line topic.
I’ve always shunned YouTube’s closed captioning.
HOWEVAH! Follow me along this fun ride.
1/x
Spot the lie!
Absolute lesson in lyric writing.
Just nailing that song writing.
I’ve studied the periodic table and this is not a recognized gas.
I’m not sure that’s the correct caption of this lyric. But they suck enough at lyrics it might be.
Aah, more master lyric writing on display here.
They started good and just gave all the way up at the end on this one.
[off in the far distance, a moose penis becomes turgid-he has no idea why its happening]
Someone needs to find Moose and drag his ass back here, Cousin Eddie style.
Who could have possibly known that a Moose would be stubborn? Not me.
Medals are being handed out by Tuomo Heikkila-Kuusisto. Prime Minister Sauna Paakaala plaanned to aatend but was incoonviienced.
Saahaaameee
The current Finnish prime minister is, uh, kind of a hottie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanna_Marin
Absolute scenes!
https://twitter.com/GFFN/status/1531003458421243905
Welp, when does the NFL season start?
102 days.
Too Soon!
/wait…
Ok, that will FINNISH it.
¡These Finnish lasses are muy bonita!
Sourry.
Down vote me all the way to hell! Just don’t ban me.
I’ll never ban you Ayo. Why? Because you’re too important to this site. You always bring great jokes and commentary. Also, I don’t have the ability to ban anyone.
This comment is all cart before the horse.
Me when Canada wins the world hockey championship: “Yay! We’re the best!”
Me when Canada doesn’t win: “Eh, it’s a kind of random competition based on which players have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs and are willing to go.”
“This game has been a beauty.”*
*never change, Canadian announcers, never change…
“Sorry.”
Y’all know my preference but I’m good with the Finns winning-this game delivered on all fronts.
It’s not like they’re playing the dirty gun-loving, massacre-ignoring Americans after all.
Indy 500 is going to be a two-lap free-for-all for the win.
I’m betting it all on O’ward. Hopefully he can use the money to excise that extraneous apostrophe in his name.
N’ope.
Thankfully betting isn’t legal here.
NEVER A DOUBT!
Free international ice period!
HOLY FUCKBALLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/two goals scored with a pulled goalie
//3-3
THIS GAME I CALL IT A DESSERT EDITION OF SUNDAY GRAVY BECAUSE IT IS A RECIPE FOR BANANACAKES!
Finns challenging the Canucks no-goal? There’s a new definition to “hospitality” and it’s spelled “Stupid Finnish Coach”. Unbelievable.
Finns up 3-1-enjoy your endless accumulations of dirt and rocks, Moraines!
NOT SO FAST!
Unless ice VAR changes things.
Now tied.
What’s Finnish for bananacakes?
Banaanikakut, of course.
It has a lot of umlauts and those circle things above the vowels.
Well that should FINNISH it.
[hovers over minus button…remembers countless bad puns I’ve posted on the site, lifts finger off mouse]
Checking into the big race that’s going on, I’m reminded of the worst PPV movie I ever watched-The Mindy (Cohn) 500.
THIS SCOTT DIXON I CALL HIM HOUSTON BECAUSE HE BLEW THE 500!
I CALL THESE FINNS A SCARED TURTLE BECAUSE THEY’RE GOING INTO A DEFENSIVE SHELL
Finns up 2-1. But that shouldn’t deter from the fact that Helsinki has a huge Fraankkensteiin problem due to the fact that Finland has a.) a large amount of mad scientists and b.) some of the lowest electricity rates in the EU.
Refs did their job-currently tied 1-1. Jesuus Chriist!
I mean, yeah, a complete dumbass Canadian player slew-footed the Finn goalie right in front of the ref. But still.
This game I call it a migratory bird because its headed south!
The 3rd period is underway-the Cantankerous Canucks are up 1-0.
A) The Canucks didn’t make the playoffs
2) There are no NHL games today
#) What are you on about?
Are you being a silly Billy? Canada (often called Canucks) are playing Finland for hockey glory.
My name’s not Billy, but otherwise you’re correct.
Gotcha, William.
That’s Mr. William to you, sir.
UConn wins the Big East Tournament in baseball. This is good, because the Big East is considered so bad at baseball that, even though UConn won 45 or so games this year, they probably wouldn’t go to the NCAAs if they didn’t win the tourney.
This has been DFO’s complete coverage of NCAA baseball for the year.
Here’s the coverage of NCAA softball. The other day we went to a Mexican resto and Ok St was playing another school wearing orange. It might have been Clemson, but I don’t know and don’t care.
Another Curious Finnish Tidbit: North Karelia, a province that borders Russia, is world-renowned for its reindeer jerky. The current governor is Kiim Joong-Uun-the very first time he ever tried curling he drew his stone right to the button 15 straight times!
Curious Finnish Tidbit: There are no stripper bars in Lapland.
Man, is that EVAR a false advertising suit just waiting to happen.
I’m gonna open my own strip bar and call it ‘Lapland’
Reasonably sure I can avoid the Anti-Sami Defamation League here in CT.
I recently learned that ‘Lap’ is considered a slur for the Sami people.
Fortunately I learned that before ever having the chance to run into a Sami and create an international incident.
A novel taught me that! Within the past year, so maybe OUR cycles are ALSO synching up.
Was it that one about women being burned as witches in northern Norway?
I can’t remember the name now; my brother “borrowed” it and I haven’t seen it since.
Fun fact: Rex Ryan calls it Lapband in honoUr of his procedure there.
Yellow curry is the best curry, I say! I would toss a carrot or two in there for sweetness. And I would totally mix cultures and have that with naan, because I’m crazy like that.
Finnish History Part Kaksi (2):Back in 1909 Finland was the first country to grant women the right to vote. As everyone knows, women didn’t achieve complete sentience until around or about 1920. So that meant that uninformed females were mucking up the democratic process for a full 11 years! Way to go, Finland. [rolls eyes]
They kind of needed to give women the vote, because the men were almost all too drunk to show up to the polls.
The Finnish are a weird people.
A little Finnish history for you-Way back when, Finland’s main exports were furs, the anal glands of beavers and slaves. You read that right. Slaves. In Glorious Canada, we welcomed escaped slaves via The Underground Railroad and according to my grade school history classes, nothing bad ever happened again. The End.
/stupid Finns
Did they export slaves or the anal glands of slaves?
Slaves. But the anal glands were thrown in for free-goodwill and all that.
Hunky Dory
Ellen has the strangest ladyboner rite now
Death, taxes and Ferrari fucking up their strategy to hell and back in Monaco.
I imagine Wheel of Fortune wouldn’t go over well in Finland because if you buy a vowel or two, most of the word or phrase has been filled in.
Welsh WoF: “Is there a ‘W’?
Host: Yes
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
I assume that Welsh Scrabble involves a 100x 100 board and a ten-pound bag of letter tiles, 50% of which are Ls and Ws.
It’s Canada vs. Finland for gold. My Prediction? Finnish suicide rates will climb even higher after the game ends.
Got to cheer for Forest here based on their stadium alone.
Hopefully when the XI are sluggish, the home support also shouts Run, Foe-rest. Run!!
Happy for them. Looking forward to beating them for our small handful of points next year.
Their win was very good for the competition as a whole. All three promotions were, really. I wouldn’t be shocked if 2 of 3 (or maybe even all 3) stay up. Leeds are doomed.
I know this guy fairly well and lets just say sometimes he exaggerates a touch, but this shit right here was madness! Who even knew you could serve a rice and potato dish? Excellent start to finish. Almost popped a boner.
lol at “almost”.
The guy has to try harder in the future.
Clearly the rice isn’t the only thing that needs fluffing, amiright?
… I’ll show myself out.
I do the chicken stock/rice thing too! Every time I make a batch of homemade.
It amuses and pleases me that the Robins Hood have a soccer point (especially since I bet on them), but neither side has an official shot on target.
LOL
Taylor Twellman just will not shut the fuck up
Who is worse? Him or the read head loud mouth Lala?
They should absolutely fight to the death, With the winner then shot in the fucking head.
Tough, but fair.
Lalas is the worst.
As soon as I hear the American voice, teevee go mutey.
Cut that mic!
Note, tonight’s wine goes perfectly with this dish. WE DID NOT PLAN IT.
Your cycles have synched up!!
Christ, I don’t need another kid.
Don’t point fingers at me, blame teh Moon Goddess smh
Around the time I started taking cooking more seriously (I’ve cooked most of my own meals my entire adulthood, but it was mostly pretty dull stuff and I didn’t put much thought into technique), I was also planning a trip that included some time in Thailand, so I was given a really excellent cookbook “Thai Food” by David Thompson.
It was way more hardcore than any cookbook I’d ever had before — the first chunk of the book is all about ingredients and techniques, before you get into the recipes. This is now something I look for in cookbooks generally; you can find recipes for free on the internet easily, the real value add is in explaining the concepts.
Anyway, over the next year or two, I got really into Thai cooking. I tracked down ingredients like kaffir lime leaves, ground my own chili pastes in a mortar and pestle, and had a few parties where I did huge meals with a whole bunch of different dishes. I’m always a sucker for a really spicy green chicken curry, but there was this sour orange fish curry that was pretty popular, and the raw beef salad was good. (Confession: I have always found pad Thai to be pretty boring, whether it was my own or a restaurant’s.)
I kind of drifted away from it, but I really should pick it up again.
I’ve only eaten pad thai once. It was fine but there are so many new things that I want to try. The selection of appetizers alone at my local place is delightful. I try to have 2 new dishes each time I order.
They have a honey duck that’s ridiculous.
I’ve been eating Thai food for over 30 years and I’ve only ever ordered Pad Thai. Every single time.
Pad thai is boring-don’t know why it’s so popular.
I’m sure there are some good versions around, but I think it’s become the “safe” thing that unadventurous eaters order that most Thai places now cater to that taste.
Dude could jump like no one else and he could cook Thai? Very impressive!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6OsKy1c5A0&ab_channel=NBA
My diet can be described as mostly Pad Thigh.
So much yellow!
Coach Parcells has left the chat.
That looks really good. Curry opens the sinuses up nicely too. Important pro tip during this peak allergy season. Certain foods as ailments treatment sounds like a future topic… what say you Sir Yeah Right? (apologies in advance if you’ve covered it and I was just asleep at the wheel).
I’ve touched on the curative properties of some foods, especially chicken soup but just wait until next week. I’ve found a permanent cure for allergies.
There is sinus activity involved.
I look forward to that.
You won’t.
The cure is a lengthy drought on the West Coast that kills all the plant life.
I’m thinking of a colab between Maestro and yeah right on this
-sleazy producer trying to feed the content monster
He has talked to me about a spicy steak sandwich which now that I think about it sounds fucking awesome.
Found a funny;
wife: [pointing gun at me and my evil twin] say something only the real you would say
me: the weinermobile means there must be a weinerman
wife: no it doesn’t
evil twin: it doesn’t mean that