“As long as I’m back for make-your-own-taco night, I’m in.” Spoiler: they are not back for make-your-own-taco night.
The Ruins (2008), directed by Carter Smith and written by Scott Smith (writer of the novel of the same name) is bleak. Really bleak. There is no point that we believe the Greeks or a “world phone” will come through. It’s a long, slow demise into the killer plants.
As unlikely as the premise sounds, The Ruins is legitimately terrifying. It’s frightening how quickly the characters slip from the safety of their mundane vacation and into the wild unknown. The film does some excellent work playing with body horror, a creeping, vining sense of dread, and the psychology of imminent doom.
It’s not the way you want your Mexican vacation to end. Mexican vacation is for pools, beaches, and tacos.
So of course we are making tacos inspired by The Ruins. These are spicy, green, and entirely plant based. Traditionally, tinga is made with shredded chicken, beef or pork. Jackfruit is an excellent stand in for any type of shredded meat, and as it doesn’t have a strong flavor, it can absorb the flavor of whatever sauce you simmer it in. We often have it BBQ style in sandwiches or tacos.
For The Ruins however, I made a smokey green sauce. It’s very simple and made from few ingredients, but they balance each other out well. It’s tangy from tomatillos, spicy from jalapeños, herby from oregano. Garnish with anything lucious and green – avocado, green cabbage, lime. Cherry tomato flowers, optional.
Jackfruit Green Tinga Tacos
1 pound tomatillos, quartered
1 onion, sliced into 1 inch chunks
2 jalapeños, halved long ways
6 cloves garlic, peeled
olive oil
2 20 ounce cans jackfruit, drained and trimmed
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon oregano
salt to taste
2 cups vegetable broth
Corn tortillas for serving. Avocado, shredded cabbage, lime to garnish. Quartered and seeded cherry tomatoes if you dare!
Toss the tomatillos, onion, jalapeños, and garlic with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, and and roast at 400 for 40-45 minutes, stirring and scraping every 10 minutes or so, until mushy and charred. Transfer to a food processor and grind until smooth. The tomatillos are quite tangy, so add enough sugar to mellow and balance, about 2 tablespoons. Salt to taste.
Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan or wok, and sauté jackfruit until it is starting to brown. Add tomatillo mixture, oregano, and 2 cups vegetable broth. Mix well. Cook until stewy, stirring often, and gently mashing the jackfruit until stringy.
Serve with warm tortillas, lovely garnishes, Mexican-style red rice, and refried beans!
Samosas are one of those foods that are easy to buy but fun to make at home, even if they are a little labor intensive. You just have to put yourself in the mindset of it being a compliment that the dish you spent forever working on gets gobbled up in seconds. They’re universally popular, and can be filled with all kinds of yummy ingredients – tandoori chicken, keema, or fluffy potatoes. These particular ones have a mixture of chickpeas, carrots and peas that are lightly spiced and delicious with chutneys.
Since these were for our Ms Marvel menu, I made some very cute little lightning bolts for the outside of some of the samosas. I had no idea how they’d turn out – I’d made samosas before but this part was a pure experiment. I colored the dough for the lightning bolts yellow with turmeric which turned out to be wholly unnecessary as they got nice and toasty brown; they looked great regardless!
1/2 teaspoon nigella seeds (kalonji, or black seed)
2 tablespoons flavorless oil
1/4 cup warm water
Whisk together flour, salt, nigella seeds, and oil to sandy crumbs. Pour in water, and form into a ball. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Set aside in a bowl covered with a damp towel.
For the filling
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 cup peas
1-2 tablespoons flavorless oil
3 green onions, sliced, white and green divided
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon red chili
salt to taste
Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Add chickpeas and carrots and simmer until carrots are soft. Add peas and cook another minute, then drain and rinse with cold water.
Meanwhile, heat oil and gently saute the whites of the onions. Add cumin, coriander, and red chili and cook for a minute until fragrant. Add in the drained chickpeas, carrots, and peas and cook until mixture is fairly dry. Transfer to a food processor and pulse, scraping down the sides, until mixture is combined but not homogenous and still has lots of texture.
To assemble samosas
Several inches of oil for frying
Heat oil on medium in a pot or wok (I like using a wok, you get more surface area and need less oil).
Optional, pinch off a piece of the dough to use for lightning bolts. I colored this with turmeric, but I’ll skip this step next time as it gets browned too much to tell. Divide remaining dough into 12 balls. Keep them on a plate covered with a damp towel so they don’t dry out while you work.
Roll each ball out to about 6 inches and slice down the center so you have two semicircles. Fold the sides of the semicircle to the center of the curved side to form a triangle, and seal with water. Hold the dough in your hand to make a cone, and fill with a spoon or two of the filling. Roll the open side together and seal with water. You can reshape your samosa to a triangle at this point. (And if this all sounds crazy, watch this video at about 9:30 for folding technique).
Fry in batches, turning, until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Serve hot with green chutney, tamarind chutney, yogurt, or ketchup!
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende is a poignant and whimsical story of a family, told in beautiful rolling prose. The story unfolds across generations and across Chile, from Santiago to the countryside at the family’s estate, the Trés Marias, where they spend their summers and the daughter, Blanca, feels most at home.
Their traditional first night dinner is cazuela de ave, consequently the national dish of Chile. It’s a soupy stew, very unfussy with the chicken still on the bone and the corn still on the cob. It’s lightly seasoned and intensely homey and comforting. This version is vegetarian, using cannellini beans in place of chicken. With the white beans, white sweet corn, and potatoes, it’s light and bright, and named for the character that loves it most. Cazuela feels as warm and familiar as curling up with the book.
Cazuela Blanca
olive oil
1 white onion, sliced (halve first, then cut the halves into thirds so the slices aren’t crazy long)
salt and white pepper (black pepper is fine)
3 cloves garlic, grated
8 cups vegetable broth (optional, I create more umami by simmering a piece of kombu with the broth and removing at the end)
2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed
4 ears white corn, peeled, cleaned, and cut into thirds
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 pound butternut squash, peeled and cubed
garnish: hot sauce, cilantro, parsley
Heat a couple tablespoons olive oil, and cook onion with a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper until translucent and just starting to color. Add garlic and cook for a minute or so, then add vegetable broth, stirring to make sure nothing is stuck to the bottom. Add beans and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add corn, potatoes and butternut squash and check seasoning, adding more salt if necessary. Simmer until potatoes and butternut squash are very soft but not falling apart.
Serve hot over rice or with crusty bread, sprinkled with herbs and with a dash of hot sauce.
There are lots of foraged ingredients in the game you can use to create ability-enhancing dishes and elixirs and it’s so much fun to test combinations. I had an idea to make a trail mix, mostly because I was excited to see speed-enhancing fleet lotus seeds as an ingredient. Puffed lotus seeds, or fox nuts (I love that name), you can find in Indian groceries, and by toasting them and tossing them with spices or just sea salt you can make a tasty snack! I thought to make this trail mix even speedier with some speedy carrot; crunchy fried carrots is a fun technique I first experimented with to create a garnish for carrot fennel soup, and their sweetness really rounds out the flavors here. Toasted nuts complete the trail mix, and it’s perfect for you to throw in your pouch and take on an adventure.
Hasty Trail Mix
vegetable oil for frying
5 or 6 medium carrots, peeled and trimmed
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
2 cups puffed lotus seeds (phool makhana)
1/2 teaspoon chaat masala (or a sprinkle of sea salt)
Heat about a half inch of oil in a pan and line a plate with paper towels. Shave carrots into thin strips with the peeler and fry in batches, stirring gently until just turning golden; remove and drain on the plate.
After carrot is done, pour all but about a teaspoon of the oil off the pan. Toast cashews, peanuts and pumpkin seeds until just starting to color, then remove to a bowl. Toast lotus seeds until golden, and add to the bowl as well.
Toss nut and lotus seed mixture with chaat masala, and lastly add in the carrots and gently mix so they don’t crumble. Serve warm for movie night or room temperature for adventuring.
Day-in day-out Sally, #nevernotpoisoning, tries to poison the Evil Scientist using ingredients from her quaint little garden of deadly herbs. On this particular night, she uses her deadly nightshade masked by frog’s breath and worm’s wort.
My version swaps ingredients for each of these – instead of deadly nightshade, an edible nightshade (green pepper), seaweedy dashi for the most pleasant interpretation of frog’s breath, and mirin, a sweet alcohol for the worm’s wort (wormwood is sweet and the main ingredient of absinthe). For the gruesome green shade I added a little matcha.
What was originally a poisonous soup translated to a beautiful restorative broth. Sip on its own or use it to cook a lovely bowl of rice noodles and veggies!
Poisonous Soup
3 cups water
1 2×2 inch square kombu
1/2 a green pepper, cut into large chunks
1 pinch bonito flakes
1 teaspoon mirin
1 teaspoon matcha
Put water in a sauce pan and soak the kombu for at least 30 minutes. Add the green pepper and bring to a boil, then lower to a low simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and add bonito flakes and let stand for 10 minutes.
Strain, and gently warm, stirring in mirin and matcha.
This dish was first posted for Fiction Kitchen Episode 47: THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS in which Carrie and Diana discuss the classic Tim Burton Halloween (or is it Christmas?) movie, and all the rotten goodies within. #NeverNotPoisoning
Boys and ghouls, it’s MAY MONSTER MADNESS hosted by Annie Walls. Find more bloodcurdling blogs with the links below!
My 9 year old, Zoeya, has snapped up all thirteen novels in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and all of us in our family are fans of Netflix’s adaptation which I have dubbed the NPH Show (Neil Patrick Harris’s murderous Count Olaf is exquisite).
Being a bit of a smartypants herself, Zoeya loves the too-clever children Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire and their counterplots to escape Count Olaf’s clutches. I myself love the Victorian gothic undertones, creepier elements, and fun quirky appearances of actors I love. Joan Cusack is an adorable Justice Strauss in the first two episodes which essentially cover the first book in the series, The Bad Beginning.
Justice Strauss lives in the charming and bright house next to Count Olaf’s dark and dilapidated manor. Although she is an example of one of the adults that fail the children over and over again, her flaw being ridiculous and extreme pedanticism, she is kind and has their best interest at heart. She returns from the store at one point saying she has the ingredients for white bean hhhummus (over-enunciated with some hocking from the epiglottis).
Inspired by this, I pulled back my hair Violet Baudelaire-style and made a very lemony (pun intended) version of white bean hhhummus with rosemary as charming and bright as Justice Strauss’s house, served with baguette which we can see in her grocery sack as well as crunchy veggies which biting baby Sunny is partial to. It’s very “festive”, a word which here means “fun” (narrator wink).
Lemony White Bean Hummus
1 1/2 cups cooked white beans (or one can, rinsed)
1/4 cup tahini
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
3 sprigs rosemary, leaves removed and roughly chopped (you could also use other herbs such as parsley or thyme, or a combination)
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil (plus a little for garnish)
In a food processor, combine white beans, tahini, lemon juice and zest, garlic, rosemary, and a generous pinch salt and pepper until well combined. While still running, drizzle in olive oil. Check seasoning and adjust if necessary.
Serve drizzled with a little olive oil with toasted baguette or pita and crunchy veggies.
Recipe for Fiction Kitchen Episode 54: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS in which Carrie and Diana discuss the first four lamentable books in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events in relation to the grievous new Netflix show. We talk putrid puttanesca, crummy coconut cake, cumbersome cucumber soup, and tragic chewing gum. You’ve been warned. We’re sure there are more uplifting things you could be listening to, so feel free to turn away now.
One of my favorite tales spun by Scheherezade in 1001 Arabian Nights is The Prince and the Large and Lonely Tortoise. This story has everything: animal brides, shape shifting, jealous bitches, cooking trickery, and dinner party drama. If, like the sultan you are dying to hear more, and I’m almost certain you are, the full story in all its public domain glory is below the recipe.
In the story, the lonely tortoise, in her lovely human form, attends the feast. She pours rice swollen in butter over her hair, which turns into pearls, and a thick green soup which turns into emeralds.
This reminded me of a delightful Middle Eastern soup I’ve made several times. It’s an elegant soup with split peas and mint. I feel that it’s pretty representative of the region, with the ubiquitous lentils and very common mint.
In a soup pot, heat olive oil on medium heat. Saute onions and garlic until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the chopped butter lettuce and saute until wilted. Add mint, a generous pinch salt, and a sprinkle white pepper, and stir well.
Add split peas and vegetable stock, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer for about 40 minutes or until split peas are soft. Add mint, and cook another 3 or 4 minutes.
Puree in a blender (hold a tea towel over the top so it doesn’t explode) and pour back into the pot. Taste and adjust seasoning (add more salt) if necessary.
Serve hot with a dollop of whipped yogurt and a sprinkle of chopped mint.
This dish was first posted for Fiction Kitchen Episode 9: ARABIAN NIGHTS in which Carrie and Diana Scherezade’s awesomeness, hedonism vs. moderation, random guests, bedouin hospitality and some light shape shifting.
It is related that there was once, in the antiquity of time and the passage of the age and of the moment, a powerful sultan whom Allah had blessed with three sons: Ali, the eldest, Hussein, the second, and Muhammad, the youngest. They were all indomitable males and heroic warriors; but the youngest was the most handsome, the bravest and the most generous. Their father loved them equally and, in the justice of his heart, had resolved to leave to each an equal part of his riches and his kingdom.
Also, when they came to marriageable age, the king called his wise and prudent wazir to him, saying, “O wazir, I wish to find wives for my three sons, and have called you to me that you may give me your advice.”
The wazir reflected for an hour, and then answered, lifting his head, “O king of time, the matter is delicate, for good and evil chance are not to be told beforehand, and against the decree of destiny there is no provision. I suggest that you take the three princes, armed with their bows and arrows, up to the terrace of the palace, and there, after bandaging their eyes, make them each turn round several times, After that, let them fire their arrows straight ahead of them, and let them visit the houses upon which the arrows fall. Have the owners of the houses brought before you and ask of each his daughter in marriage for the marksman of the arrow which fell upon his house. Thus each of your sons will have a bride chosen by destiny.”
“Your advice is excellent, and I shall act upon it!” cried the sultan.
As soon as his sons returned from hunting, he told them of the trial and led them up, with their bows and quivers, to the terrace of his palace. The dignitaries of the court followed and watched with breathless interest while he bandaged the eyes of the young men
The eldest prince was turned about, and then discharged his arrow straight in front of him. It flew through the air with great swiftness and fell upon the dwelling of a most noble lord. In like manner the second prince’s arrow fell upon the terrace of the commander-in-chief of the king’s army.
But, when Muhammad drew his bow, the arrow fell upon a house whose owner was not known. The king, with his retinue, set forth to visit the three houses, and found the great lord’s daughter and the commander-in-chief’s daughter were girls as fair as moons, and that their parents were delighted to marry them to the two princes. But when the king visited the third house, on which Muhammed’s shaft had fallen, he found in it no inhabitant except a large and lonely tortoise.
Therefore, deeming that there could be no thought for a moment of marrying a prince to such an animal, the sultan decided that the test should be made again. The youngest prince mounted again to the terrace and again shot an arrow blindfold, but it fell true upon the house of the large and lonely tortoise.
The king grew angry at this, and cried, “By Allah, your shooting is not fortunate today, my son! Pray for the prophet!”
“Blessing and peace be upon him and upon his companions and those who are faithful to him!” answered Muhammad.
“Now invoke the name of Allah,” exclaimed the king, “and shoot a third arrow.” “In the name of the merciful, the compassionate!” exclaimed Muhammad, as he strongly drew his bow and sent a third shaft onto the roof of the house inhabited by the large and lonely tortoise.
When the Sultan saw, beyond any manner of doubt, that destiny favored the tortoise, he decided that his youngest son should remain a bachelor, and said to him, “My son, as this tortoise is not of our race, or our kind, or our religion, it would be better for you not to marry at all until Allah takes us again into his compassion.”
But young Muhammad cried in dissent from this, “I swear by the virtues of the prophet (upon whom be prayer and peace!) that the time of my celibacy is over! If the large tortoise is written in my destiny I shall assuredly marry her.”
“She is certainly written in your destiny!” cried the astonished sultan. “But it would be a monstrous thing for a human being to wed with a tortoise!”
“I have no predilection for tortoises in general,” cried the prince. “It is this particular one whom I wish to marry.”
The sultan, who loved his son, made no more objections but, though the weddings of Ali and Hussein were celebrated with great splendor for forty days and forty nights and then felicitously consummated, no one at court, neither his two brothers, nor their wives, nor the wives of the amirs and dignitaries, would accept an invitation to Muhammed’s bridal feast, and, instead, they did all in their power to spoil and make it sad.
Poor Muhammad was bitterly humiliated by the mocking smiles and turned backs which everywhere greeted him; but of his marriage night he would say nothing, and only Allah, from whom no secrets are hid, can tell what passed between the two. It is certain, at least, that no one in that kingdom could imagine how a human youth might couple with a tortoise, even though she were as big as a stock jar.
In the time which came after the three weddings, the years and preoccupations of his reign, added to the emotion of his disappointment in Muhammad, bowed the king’s back and thinned his bones. He pined away and became yellow. He lost his appetite and, with his appetite, his vision, so that he became almost completely blind.
The three princes, who loved their father dearly, resolved to leave his health no longer in the ignorant and superstitious care of the harem.
When they had concerted together, they approached the sultan and kissed his hand, saying, “Dear father, your face is becoming yellow, your appetite is weakening, and your sight is failing you. If these things go on, we shall soon be tearing our garments for grief that we have lost the prop of all our life. Therefore you must listen to our counsel and obey it. We have determined that our wives and not the women of the harem shall henceforth prepare your food, for these last are great experts in the kitchen and by their cookery can give you back appetite which shall furnish strength, strength which will furnish health, and health which will restore your vision.”
The sultan was deeply touched by this care on his sons’ part. “May Allah shower his blessings upon you!” he said. “But I am afraid that this will be a great nuisance for your wives.”
“A nuisance to our wives?” they cried. “They are your slaves and have no more urgent object in life than to prepare the food which will restore you to health.”
“We have agreed that each of them shall prepare a separate dish, and that you shall choose your favorite in appearance, odor, and taste. Thus appetite will come back to you, and your eyes be cured.”
“You know better than I do what is for the best,” answered the sultan, as he embraced them.
The three princes went joyfully to their wives and bade them prepare the most admirable dish they could, and each said further, to excite a spirit of emulation, “It is essential that our father should prefer the cooking of our house.”
After they had given their orders, the two elder brothers were for ever mocking Muhammad and asking him how a tortoise cooked, but he met all their jests with a calm smile.
His wife, the large and lonely tortoise,had only been waiting for such an opportunity to show what she could do. At once she set to work, and her first care was to send a confidential servant to her elder sister-in-law, begging her to send back all the rat and mouse dung which she could collect in her house, that the tortoise, who never employed any other condiment, might use these matters for seasoning the rice dishes which she was preparing for the sultan.
“As Allah lives, I will do no such thing!” said Ali’s wife to herself. “If these things make really good seasoning, let the wretched tortoise find her own. I can make all the use of them that is necessary.” Then aloud to the servant she said, “I regret that I have to refuse your mistress’s request, but I have hardly enough rat and mouse dung for my own requirements.”
When the servant returned with this answer, the tortoise laughed happily, and sent her to Hussein’s wife with a request for all the hens’ and pigeon’s droppings which she had by her. The servant returned from this mission empty handed, with a bitter and disobliging message from the second princess. But when the tortoise had caused the words to be repeated to her, she fell into an ecstasy of contentment and laughed so heartily that she fell over on her backside.
As soon as she was a little recovered, she prepared those meats which she could cook best, covered the dish which held them with a wicker cover, and wrapped the whole in a rose-scented napkin. Then she dispatched her servant with the dish to the sultan, at the same moment as his other two daughters-in-law were sending theirs by slaves.
The time of the meal arrived, and the sultan sat down before the three dishes; but, when he had lifted the lid of that sent by the eldest son’s wife, there rose so foul a steam and odor of rat turds that it might well have asphyxiated an elephant.
The sultan was so disagreeably affected by this stench that he fell head over heels in a swoon, and, when his sons succeeded in bringing him to with rose-water and the use of fans, he sat up and cursed his daughter-in-law heartily.
In a little while he became calmer and consented to try the second dish; but, as soon as it was uncovered, a fetid stink of burnt birds’ droppings took him by the throat and eyes so that he thought that the hour of blindness and death was upon him. It was not until the windows had been thrown open and the dish removed and benzoin burnt with incense to purify the air, that the disgusted old man felt himself strong enough to say, “What harm have I done to your wives, my sons, that they should try to dig me a grave before my time?” The two elder princes could only answer that the thing passed their understanding; but young Muhammad kissed his father’s hand and begged him to forget his previous disappointments in the delight of the third dish.
“What is that, Muhammad?” cried the king in an indignant rage. “Do you mock your old father? When women can prepare such frightful foods, do you expect me to touch the cooking of a tortoise? I can see that you have all sworn to destroy me.”
Muhammad went on his knees and swore, by his life and by the verity of the faith, that the third dish would make up for all, and that he himself would eat anything of it which was not to his father’s taste. He urged with such fervor and humility that the sultan at last signed to the slave to lift the third cover, and waited with a set jaw, murmuring, “I seek refuge in the protection of Allah!”
But it was the soul of all fine cooking which rose from the dish that the tortoise had prepared. It exquisitely dilated the fans of the old man’s heart, it nourished the fans of his lungs, it shook the fans of this nostrils, it brought back lost appetite, it opened his eyes and clarified his vision. He ate for an hour without stopping, then drank an excellent sherbet of musk and pounded snow, and finally gurked several times from the very bottom of his satisfied stomach.
In great delight he gave thanks to Allah and praised the cooking of the tortoise. Muhammad accepted his congratulations modestly, in order not to excite the jealousy of his brothers. “That is only one of my wife’s talents, dear father,” he said. “Allah grant that she may some day find a chance really to earn your praises.” Then he begged the king to allow his future nourishment to be entirely in the hands of the tortoise, and his delighted father readily agreed to the arrangement, which in a few weeks entirely reestablished his health and eyesight.
To celebrate his cure the sultan gave a great feast, and bade his three sons attend it with their wives. At once the two elder princesses began to make preparation that they might appear with honor and success before their father-in-law.
The large tortoise also schemed how to whiten her husband’s visage before the people by the beauty of her escorting and the elegance of her clothes.
Her first step was to send her confidential servant to Ali’s wife with a request for the loan of the big goose which she had in her courtyard, that the tortoise might use it as a fitting steed on which to ride to the festivities. The princess gave so peremptory a refusal that the good tortoise fell over on her backside in the convulsions of laughter which it occasioned her.
Then she sent to the second sister to borrow her large he-goat for the same purpose, and never has the tortoise been so convulsed and dilated with pure joy as was this one when she received a second and much ruder refusal.
The hour of the feast came. The old queen’s women were drawn up in good order at the outside door of the harem to receive the three royal brides. As they waited, a cloud of dust rolled towards them. When it dissipated, they saw a gigantic goose waddling forward with the speed of the wind, throwing her legs to left and right, beating her wings, and carrying the first princess of the kingdom clinging to her neck in disordered fright. Almost immediately afterwards, a he-goat, rearing and savagely bleating, came up to the entrance. It bore upon his back the second princess, all stained with dust and dung. The sultan and his wife were deeply offended by this double exhibition. The former cried, “See, they are not content with strangling and poisoning me; they wish to mock me before the people!”
The queen received the two women coldly. An uncomfortable pause was only broken by the arrival of the third princess. The king and his wife were full of apprehension. They said to each other, “If two humans could show so absurdly, what can we expect from a tortoise? There is no power or might save in Allah!” So saying, they waited with caught breath for what might appear.
The first rank of couriers appeared, announcing the arrival of prince Muhammed’s wife. Presently four handsome grooms, dressed in brocade and rich tunics with trailing sleeves, led up the palanquin. It was covered with bright-colored silks, and the black men who carried it set it down by the stairs. An unknown princess of bright splendor stepped from it, and the women, supposing her to be a maid of honor, waited for the alighting of the tortoise. Yet, when the palanquin was borne away, and this delightful vision mounted the steps alone, they recognized her as Muhammed’s bride and received her with honor and effusion. The sultan’s heart rejoiced to see her grace and nobility, her charming manners and musical movements.
At once the sultan bade his sons and their wives be seated by him and by the queen, and, when they had taken their places, the feast was served.
The first dish was, as usual, a profusion of rice swollen in butter. Before anyone could take a mouthful the beautiful princess lifted the dish and poured all its contents over her hair. Immediately each grain of rice turned to a pearl, and the pearls ran down the long strands of hair and tinkled to the floor in a bright cascade.
Before the company could recover its wits after so admirable a prodigy, she also lifted a large tureen, filled with thick green soup, and poured its contents over her head in the same way. The green soup changed to an infinity of emeralds among her hair. These fell about her like green rain, to mingle their sea-tints with the pearls upon the floor. During the delighted confusion which followed, the servants brought other supplies of rice and green soup for the guests to eat. The two elder princesses, now yellow with jealousy, could not leave well alone. The eldest seized on the dish of rice and the second on the tureen of green soup; both poured the contents of these things upon their heads. But the rice remained rice in the hair of the first, horribly daubing her with butter. The soup, remaining soup, ran down in a sticky course over the hair and face and garments of the second, for all the world like cow slop.
The sultan was disgusted at these accidents and commanded his two elder daughters-in-law to withdraw from the feast. Also he proclaimed that he wished never to see them again, or smell them, or hear of them. Their husbands, therefore, led them away in a great rage. You may suppose that all four noses trailed very near the ground. So much for them.
When prince Muhammad and his magic princess were left alone with the sultan, he embraced them and took them to his heart. He said “You alone are my children!” He wrote a will leaving his throne to his youngest son. Calling together his amirs and wazirs, he made his intention known to them. Then to the two young people, he said, “I wish you both to stay with me in my palace until the end.”
“To hear is to obey,” they answered. “Our father’s desire is upon our heads and before our eyes.”
That she might never again be tempted to resume the appearance of a tortoise and so shock the old sultan, the princess ordered her servant to bring the large and lonely shell which she had left at home that day and, when it was fetched, burnt it without compunction. Ever afterwards she remained in her own delightful form. And glory be to Allah who gave her a faultless body, a marvel to the eyes of men!
The giver showered his blessings upon these two and delighted them with numerous children.
As reality and dystopian fiction become closer to indistinguishable, it’s no surprise that it is #DISHTOPIA Month: Eat Like It’s the End of the World, Fandom Foodies theme hosted by the lovely Catherine at The Gluttonous Geek – check out the linkup for more foodpocalypse!
For the Hunger Games, unless you’re really into fried squirrel or nettle tea, the best food is going to be found in The Capitol. Obscene feasts are thrown regularly from the wealth of resources flowing in, which probably include spices, so when I set out to make the creamy pumpkin soup sprinkled with slivered nuts and black seeds that Katniss samples, that’s exactly what I imagined.
I used canned pumpkin (LAZY! Like Capitol people) and a whole can of coconut milk (RICH and DECADENT! Like Capitol people).
Paanch phoran, or five-spice powder, is made from cumin, fenugreek, fennel, mustard, and black seeds called kalonji (or nigella seeds, or onion seeds, or black seeds, etc. It’s the seed of many names), so that’s what I used as the seasoning for my soup. I much recommend seeking out the curry leaves (NOT bay leaves, even though they look similar) at your local Indian market, they will give your soup a delicate and delicious fragrance and really take it to Capitol level fare.
May the soup be EVER in your flavor…
Capitol Pumpkin Soup
2-3 tablespoons coconut oil (or a flavorless cooking oil)
1 onion, diced
1 inch ginger, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon each cumin, fenugreek, fennel, mustard, and kalonji seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon red chili
3 tablespoons ground almonds or almond meal
1 can pumpkin puree
4 cups vegetable broth
1 can coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
4-5 fresh curry leaves
sliced almond and a sprinkle of kalonji for garnish
Heat the oil and saute onion until it just starts to turn golden. Add ginger and garlic and stir for a minute or two, then add all seeds and cook until they start to sizzle (be careful not to burn). Add turmeric and red chili, stir for a minute, then add almond meal, pumpkin puree and a cup of the chicken broth. Heat through.
Blend the mixture thoroughly and return to the pot along with the rest of the chicken broth, the coconut milk, cinnamon stick, and curry leaves. Mix well, gently heat and cook on a low simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve hot, garnished with sliced almonds and kalonji.
This dish was first posted for Fiction Kitchen Episode 25: THE HUNGER GAMES in which Carrie and Diana discuss The Hunger Games books and movies, including from Greek mythological child sacrifices, Katniss’s practical hairstyle, social commentary, and the scarcity of goat milk.
Better late than never for #BattleChefBuffet, Fandom Foodies theme of the (last) month, hosted by the awesome Victoria at Pixelated Provisions – that’s right it’s Battle Chef Brigade!
I haven’t gotten a chance to play the Trinket Studio developed/Adult Swim published game yet, although the kids got a Switch for Christmas so we plan to in the near future – just as soon as our Zelda: Breath of the Wild obsession quells! However, the game looks delightful and innovative and full of intriguing dishes…and…oh, what’s this???
Onion Chopping Ninja Chef has challenged me to a Quarry Cap cook off! Orc smash!! Weird orc horn!! Pew pew pew pew!!
We both received pics of the dishes; she made Mina (the human’s) Quarry Cap dish, which you can find on her site – and full disclosure, it looks delicious and I fully plan on trying her recipe with the leftover wood ear mushrooms I have from my dish.
Her choice to use wood ear mushrooms (or, as I got mine at the Korean market, they are labeled somewhat less charmingly as “black fungus”) was a smart choice to acheive the striking color of the dish, so I decided to use them in mine as well. My dish is Thrash (the orc’s) Quarry Cap soup. I regularly make a sherried cream of mushroom soup, Western style, but decided to try the same dish with a more Asian profile, and was happy with the kickass punch-you-in-the-mouth result!
Orc Rock Mushroom Soup with Corn and Coconut Cream
For the mushroom soup
x ounces dried wood ear mushrooms
4 ounces fresh button mushrooms, sliced
4 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
Vegetable oil
1 small bunch green onions, whites and greens divided, sliced
3 garlic cloves, grated
1 inch ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup shaoxing wine (substitute dry sherry or white wine)
4 cups vegetable broth
Salt to taste
To rehydrate the wood ear mushrooms, pour a cup of boiling water over them and let them steep for at least 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil in a wok, and stir fry mushrooms until they release their water and start to color. Add the whites of the green onions, garlic and ginger, and cook, stirring, for a minute or two. Add white pepper and soy sauce and shoaxing wine and cook, stirring, until almost dry. Add vegetable broth.
Drain and slice wood ear mushrooms (reserving some for garnish, optional), and add to the wok. Simmer for 30 minutes. Puree in a blender and return to the hot pot to heat through. Check for seasoning and add more salt if necessary.
For the corn and coconut cream
1 can coconut milk
2 ears white corn (reserve some kernels for garnish)
Pinch salt
In a small sauce pan, heat coconut milk and add ears of corn. Simmer for 30 minutes. Remove ears, slice of kernels and place in a blender with the coconut milk. Puree and return to the pot to heat through.
To serve, pour soup into bowls and drizzle with a generous swirl of the coconut corn cream. Garnish with mushrooms, corn kernels, and reserved green onion.
Red peppers get all the love but the humble green pepper is fresh and unexpected. I had posted a green pepper soup recipe here years ago and it was one of my most popular; I’ve tweaked it slightly and taken terribly lit moody new photos.
While not as sweet as red peppers, deeply roasting green ones does bring out a bit of sweetness, though their overall flavor is more grassy and herbal. In this soup the grassiness is enhanced by ground coriander, deepened by cumin, and mellowed and richened by coconut milk. It’s light enough that I’d like to try it chilled in the summer, but right now in the winter it’s the perfect cheap and green dish for your New Year.
Roasted Green Pepper Soup
3 green peppers
1-2 tablespoons coconut oil, or a flavorless oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
salt & pepper to taste
4 cups vegetable broth, divided
1 can coconut milk, left in the fridge overnight to separate into water and cream
Heat oven to 450° and roast green peppers by placing on the rack and turning with tongs as they blacken (place a cookie sheet on the rack underneath to catch any drips). When blackened, place in a bowl and cover with a plate or plastic wrap to steam and make easier to peel.
Meanwhile in a soup pot heat coconut oil and saute onion until just beginning to turn golden, being careful not to burn. Add garlic and cook for a minute or so, then add coriander, cumin, salt (start with a scant teaspoon) and generous black pepper. Cook, stirring, for another minute, and add about a cup of the vegetable broth. Move mixture to a blender.
Peel and deseed the green peppers and place in the blender with the soupy mixture and blend until smooth, adding more vegetable broth if necessary. Return to the pot and heat through.
Open the can of coconut milk and reserve several spoons of the cream for garnish. Add the rest to the soup and heat through well, and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve with a dollop of coconut cream.
