March 27, 2007

comfort me with pickle

When it comes to cooking, lazy I am not. And I'm a full believer in those little details, so it's not uncommon for me to run all over Manhattan and beyond to pick out the perfect ingredients for whatever meal I am currently making. Meat at a green market? Herring in Brighton? Locally produced milk at Fairway?

Some people, when they cook, like KS, just see what they have on hand in the kitchen and whip up something. This is how my mother and grandmother have cooked - and they've managed to do plenty with that approach. I, on the other hand, will clip a recipe and make sure I have every ingredient on hand for it. I'll plan to make X on day Y and hold myself to that schedule. Regimented much? Who, me?

And so whenever I get something in my head, particularly when it's a craving of sorts, I can't get it out until I exorcise my demons so to speak and make the dish. For the last two weeks, I've been craving basmati rice with buttermilk and lime pickle - a dish my once-roommate now friend taught to make. I use the term "dish" liberally, as this requires minimal amount of effort, which makes the dish no less tasty, and in my opinion even more satisfying. I've yet to make my first real Indian dish and this suffices for the time being (while I gather my spices - see what I mean with being so particular?)

I've been planning on making this lime pickle by hand, but never being at home (my now ex-apartment) and never raving time to go and pick up asafoetida and other spices, I never got around to it. Of course, I couldn't find lime pickle in stores anywhere and going to Jackson Heights wasn't an option given the schedule. And so I craved, but had to just make do with other food, until I spotted it in Chelsea's Garden of Eden and armed with a jar of Patak's pickle, a carton of buttermilk and a puny, laughable, white-person-sized bag of basmati rice, I rushed home, only to find that KS was making pasta. And then the next night we had pasta leftovers. And the following night we went out to a movie and had sushi beforehand. And so it went.

Until 2 nights ago, when I got home from a busy Sunday, and finally got to make the dish I craved for 14 days beforehand. It didn't help that on Saturday, I watched "The Namesake" and looking at fried samosas on the big screen made me drool a little.

Within 25 minutes of putting the rice on the stove, I was sitting with a bowl of rice, having poured a little buttermilk into the steaming heap and depositing a tablespoon of picked on top of this starchy mountain of bliss. That first spoon was incredible and I all but inhaled my simple, comforting meal.

And it's a little bit amazing to me that despite my love of cooking new things and meticulous attention to detail, the foods that give me most joy and comfort are often the simplest, requiring few ingredients, little exactitude, and a lot of love.

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