Junglee achaar

In the West you'd typically associate the off-cuts of meat with pickling. The Polish have their Pickled Pigs' Feet - actually the Polish like to pickle everything from herring to cabbage to beetroot -, the Brits, pickled Ox tongue. I have also seen recipes for pickled pig livers and lamb hearts. All this sounds damn good to me, but in India we pickle the best cuts. Why would you want to slow cook a shoulder, sear a loin or braise a shank when you could just as well chop it all up and pickle the whole lot in litres of fat and assure yourself an early grave!

Pickled game, mainly deer and wild boar, was the maharajas' staple. Not that I was around at that time, but go through the recipes from stately recipe books and you can tell. And they didn't count calories. They didn't need to.  Hunting wild game in India is illegal now, but as with most things here, where there is a will there is a way. And some times the way precedes the will. The other day, funny story, some meat found it's way to my place. It would be a waste to turn it away, so I took it in. I asked a friend what I should do with it, and as expected, he generously bestowed upon me Jesus-esque advice.

"Looks like a healthy portion! Make a pie - just chuck it in a pot with
some cheap pastry on top - then chuck it all away, after scalding yourself
in the eyes with it first."

If I were a tad bit sillier, I would. But pickling the meat seemed the right thing to do to make it last a while. A little while.

So, I washed the kilo and a half of whatever it was (guesses?) and cut 1 inch pieces. Keep at hand:

1. 7 tbs of red chili powder
2. 7 tbs of mustard seeds
3. 3 tbs of fenugreek seeds
4. 2 tsps turmeric
5. 7 tbs fennel seeds
6. 7 tbs cumin
7. 25 cloves of garlic, slit lengthwise
8. 4 inches of ginger, grated
9. 6 whole dried red chilies, 3 chopped green chilies and how much ever more you want for heat.
10. salt to taste

In about 400ml of vegetable oil, when it comes to temperature, put in all the about ingredients and give it a quick stir. Then put in the meat and simmer of about an hour. The cooking time will depend on how big you keep the meat pieces. It should look like you are cooking a curry in a deep fat fryer.

When the meat is tender - you don't want it too tender. Pickled meat is better with some bite - balance the seasoning. I added a bit of jaggery to make it darker and to round off the copious amounts of chili.

Let the pickle cool before you bottle it. Add about half a cup of vinegar to the jar and shake it like there's no tomorrow. I'd give it at least a day or two before eating. The stuff should keep for a couple of weeks, if not more.

Thank you for smoking

The only agenda this Sunday was food. Food that roams free, frolics in the forest, food you need a keen eye and a keen shot to pot. Food that got away. Again. There is an old shikaari protocol of taking some potatoes on a shoot for times exactly like these. But we weren't too far away from the comforts of a fully loaded kitchen and frugality could be foregone.

There was some talk with a fellow cook about smoking fish a weekend ago and I had been itching to try my hand at that. Not exactly Scottish Smoked Salmon or a Mackerel Kipper, but the first attempt was most definitely worth the effort. Decided to go with a fatty sea fish. Fat's a great carrier of flavour, the best, and keeps the fish from drying out. Managed to lay my hands on 2, 1.5 kilo Groupers. Head removed, gutted, finned and scaled.

The one for the smoker was rubbed down with salt and garlic granules. I can't imagine smoked fish without buckets of salt and besides, it draws out the moisture and leaves you with a nice crunchy skin. Not exactly pork scratchings, but if you like piggy fat, you like fish fat. And trust you me, there is more fat in a nice sized grouper than you would imagine. The fish was left to lie over night.

Ready for the smoker

To hot smoke the fish we dug a pit in the ground, fired up some coal till they were white hot and laid on some water soaked logs. An assortment of logs. Some mango, others I didn't recognise. Next time I am tempted to use some packing wood, pine. I am told pine soaks up water and keeps flames at bay. The smoking pit was then covered with the top-slotted drum, courtesy of  a well-meaning oil company. They are just misunderstood. A little like Hitler. We did have trouble with flames here and the fat dripping off the fish did not help. The drum had to be lifted a few times to kill the fire. Who needs fingers anyway!

The fish was lowered into the drum for about an hour, head side down because that'll get a lot more heat. To be entirely honest with you. The fish was even a little grilled, having failed to keep the flames dead. But you live and you learn eh? Next time I am tempted to try a cold smoker where the smoke pit is further away from the smoking chamber. Might even pass the smoke through a pipe buried in the ground to cool the smoke before it reaches the meat. Then I could leave the fish to really pile on the flavour over a few hours, even a day.



Smoked Garlic Grouper

Cover the drum with a wet sack and watch the sinister contraption steam. I let the smoked fish cool before digging in. Will stay in the fridge for a few days and superb in sandwiches. I am already planning the next smoking. A ham maybe. Maybe even a humble chicken. Watch this space. 

One fish good. Two? Great. The second Grouper was barbecued. Masala style.

For the marinade:

• Green chilies
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Lime juice
• Salt to taste
• Turmeric

That's all I think. I did not marinade this one. I was in charge of the grilling. I charred the fish on both sides for a few minutes each and then popped it into the oven for about 10 minutes at 180 C. Again the fat made the barbecue flame like hell and after failed attempts of raising the grill modern technology was resorted to.

Whacking the fish in the oven made the skin go a little soggy. But on the plus side all the juices weren't lost. The fat drenched gravy would have gone great with some bread. I just drank mine!