Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Chicken Biryani

Portland, September 13, 2010—
SOMETIMES THINGS SEEM to me to get too complicated. Take last night, for example: nine or ten of us at table, so the girls decide to make an Indian meal. Simon cut up two chickens — beautifully, I might add, with help from an online explanation. Grace cut up a few melons with a melon baller bought for the occasion. Lindsey and Giovanna ground the spices and seeds, cooked the rice, shredded cabbage, cooked dal, and did countless other things.

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(A cartoon from The New Yorker hangs on Giovanna's kitchen wall: guests with Martinis in hand peeking into a messy kitchen, woman digging into the refrigerator, lobster walking away from the scene, caption: "So this is where the magic happens." It seems appropriate.)

Well, the results were undoubtedly worth the effort: everyone ate almost everything. I especially liked the dessert, melon balls in a watermelon-and-rose-water purée.

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Insolia-Grecanico blend, "Ramì," Azienda Agricola Cos, 2007; Cerasuolo di Vittoria, "Pithos" (also from Cos), 2006
(These are wines we encountered a few months ago in Sicily, complex and extremely interesting, also very tasty.)


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