So as if to prove my recent point about being a laughable old coot: Last night, I was making curried rice noodles for Margaret and me. I pulled out the ingredients, chopped a sweet pepper and onion, boiled the noodles; it turns out that I had made half again as many noodles as I needed, since cooking for one has thrown off my judgment. Then I began mixing things up. First I added some milk and yogurt to the noodles, then I reached up to the spice cabinet and grabbed the bottle at the front and sprinkled it into the milk-and-noodles mixture. Poured in the peppers, onions, some corn and peas, mixed it all up. Tasted the sauce; the curry flavor wasn’t very strong. Poured in some more from the spice cabinet. Looked around the counter top for the milk and yogurt, of which I thought we needed more. Spotted the milk and yogurt sitting right beside the. . . curry.
Wait. If that’s the curry, what spice bottle had I been seasoning the noodles with?
It turns out that I had been sifting ginger into the main course. Could have been a lot worse. I added more milk and yogurt, sprinkled a very generous quantity of curry into noodles; mixed, added a little more, mixed, and served Margaret.
Granted all the things that might have awry, it was actually very good. Margaret enjoyed hers, had a second helping, and I ate three servings myself. But I got there by the long way ’round.
The Anderson household firmly supports the platform that ginger is a key ingredient in curry. But preferably fresh and grated!
At least you wouldn’t have nausea!
Isn’t it strange how fast our automatic knowing-how-much-to-cook gets turned off?