Relaxing in the Kitchen

In addition to the agility class, I'm teaching two sessions of the basic obedience class, one here in Dhahran on Thursday afternoons and one in Ras Tanura on Fridays. We had our third agility class meeting this morning and we have a ton of video and photos as a result of having a dedicated videographer (MH's husband, who gave up his usual Thursday morning to do this for us). But I am feeling a bit saturated tonight with dogs and dog training (the basic obedience class today was particularly engaging and tiring) so I'm going to post instead about relaxing in the kitchen.

I am quite capable of zoning out on the couch while watching a movie (I rarely watch sitcoms and never watch reality shows---big yawn). I much prefer relaxing on the couch with a good book (more and more these days it is an ebook although I still ready plenty of the old-fashioned tree-killing variety). But above all, I find that I unwind and relax most often in the kitchen.

It's sad that I'm stuck with the dollhouse kitchen in my hovel but I've learned to make do with everything else and the kitchen is no exception.

The monthly (or so) making of the dog food is one of my most elaborate kitchen events involving all sorts of equipment and knives and pots and vegetables. Making my whine is important but only sporadically time consuming--dumping yeast, sugar, and grape juice into the 20 L round Gott cooler (customized with a hole in the top and tubing duct-taped in to create a one-way valve) is messy but not that complicated. The big time sink for whine making is the bottling stage. I have to wash and sterilize the bottles a couple of days ahead of time to let them thoroughly dry inside before transferring the precious whine into them. But it doesn't really matter because I look forward to even the most quotidian kitchen tasks.

I have a bit of a weakness for prawns and last weekend bought 2 kilos of fresh ones from the wonderfully expanded, awesomely newly renovated Tamimi store in Khobar. Two kilos--that's a lot of damned prawns. It took me nearly an hour to clean and devein them all (divided into bags, I promptly froze most of them). It was certainly an hour of hard, messy work--but I found it extremely satisfying. How could you not? Just imagine that giant bowl of fresh, clean prawns ready to go!

My usual kitchen rituals involve making dinner. I love to cook and I love to eat what I cook. If I can't cook, rather than settle for some gross prepared frozen meal, I will eat a bowl of muesli and yogurt instead. And of course I must have a glass of whine or two while making dinner. It is only the cook's due, in my opinion.

In this post, I am sharing my recipe for Mango Chutney. I make this fresh then cook fresh prawns in it or use it as a sauce over grilled hammour (which is what I am going to have for dinner tonight). It also works well as a dressing on top of greens or rice served with grilled lamb (look, I live in Saudi Arabia; everything goes well with lamb). For you purists out there, I am perfectly aware this isn't the same sort of gummy spicey stuff you get in jars at the store; this is more of a "field" version of chutney).

Mango Chutney

• Wash, peel, and coarsely dice a large onion. Put in saucepan with olive oil.

• Peel and dice several large cloves of garlic. Set aside.

• Wash, peel, dice one or two large mangos. Ripe ones are sweeter but even unripe sour ones are okay to use here.  Set aside.

• Wash, peel, and dice about a thumb's worth of fresh ginger. Set aside. 

• Gently saute onion over low to medium heat. Stir frequently. When the onion begins to turn clear, add the garlic, mango, and ginger. Add to taste salt, black pepper, and curry powder. You can add a bay leaf too but this is not critical. If you are feeling frisky, toss in some dried red chili pepper flakes (I always do). 

• If you don't have real curry powder, you can use a mixture of turmeric (3/4) and cinnamon (1/4). If you use a commercial curry powder, make sure it doesn't already have salt in it. If it does, don't buy that kind again and don't add extra salt. You can also use powdered ginger instead of fresh (add about 50% more volume if you go with powdered ginger).

• You will probably need to add 1/4 to 1/2 cup water if this mixture looks dry or sticky (which it will if you add a lot of powdered spices). Add the water in small volumes until the mixture looks smooth but not runny.

• If you used sour not-quite-ripe mangoes, add 2 tablespoons of honey. 

• Optional: wash, peel, and separate a tangelo or tangerine (remove seeds and white stringy bits from each piece). Add the pieces with the mango. 

• Optional: instead of honey, dice some dates (remove pit) and add with the mango. You can add dates even if you use ripe mangos. Yum!

• Optional: squeeze a lime into the pan. Lime and mango were made to go together.

• Stir well. 

• Reduce heat and simmer gently, stirring frequently, until the mango pieces just begin to fall apart. Add water if needed.

If you want to use this with prawns, add them a couple of minutes after the spices. If you want to use the chutney as a dressing for grilled fish or meat, cook it completely, remove from heat, and cover until ready to serve with the main dish (the flavors improve with the sitting anyway). You can easily "perk" it up with a tablespoon or two of water added over very low heat and a bit of stirring.