Posted by Jim at August 23rd, 2006

In an effort to be clear about this, I should note that this is not a post about having wine with kofta. It’s actually two different things.

First off, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that I got a comment on my earliest post about Kristen’s winemaking. Apparently it is possible to make drinkable beet wine.

Who knew?

Curried Kofta
Tonight I made an interesting meal. I got it out of a cookbook on Middle-Eastern and African cooking. Essentially it was meatballs (kofta) in sauce with rice. In detail, however, it was a little odder.

Among professional cooks, I’m told, fusion cooking (mixing the techniques and flavors of two or more cuisines) is controversial. There’s some degree of division between those who want to make meals in the style of the culture that created them verses those who want to combine to make entirely new things.

Though not a professional cook, I’m inclined on a theoretical level to favor the experimenters, but I’m more interested in eating what the traditionalists make.

That being said, I think that all cuisines could be considered fusion. Certainly, the dish I made tonight was.

Despite being Middle-Eastern, Arabic cooking, it used spices that I associate more with India. I’m thinking specifically of turmeric, cardamom, garam masala (a spice mix from northern India), and another sort of curry powder.

The sauce of the dish was composed of a combination of beef broth, tomato, and yogurt. Once the curry powder was added in and the whole mess simmered for a while, it was much more like something from India than the Middle East.

It would be interesting to know the history of the dish, but the cookbook didn’t go into it.

Some of you might be wondering how my kids reacted to it. I can’t say for sure since I was called away to do technical support, but my wife tells me that one daughter ate only the rice (not a surprise). The other daughter, however, gobbled down seven meatballs and stopped eating only because a friend came over to play.

P.S. It just occurred to me that I’ve now written a post on what I had for supper tonight. Does that mean that I’m officially out of ideas?