Clams in Dry Masala

Every week a local fisherman comes to the farmers' market. They have whatever they catch the previous day.

This being the East Coast, they always have clams which the CC never fully appreciated before living out here. Now, they are the most purchased weekly item (after tomatoes, of course!)

There are two classics that the CC makes often — spaghetti with clams and asari gohan (あさりご飯).

This recipe is from the Konkan region in India. It's quite straightforward, and it's in the sukke style (as in it's a dry dish.)

Ingredients

2 dozen clams
1 small onion (diced fine)
1 sprig curry leaves
1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut
2-3 pieces of tamarind

1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (or more)

oil
salt

Recipe

First soak the tamarind pieces in 1/2 cup of boiling water. Set aside for 15 minutes or so. When done, mash the tamarind with your hands (the water should've cooled down.) Pass through a fine sieve and retain the liquid. Toss in the turmeric, chilli powder and salt into the liquid and mix thoroughly. Make sure you don't get lumps of turmeric and/or chilli powder. You need to make sure they mix thoroughly.

In a small pot, heat the oil. When it shimmers, fry the onions until they are translucent. Add the curry leaves and fry for a bit. Add the coconut and fry for a minute. Add the clams and fry for a bit. Toss in the tamarind liquid (which has the spices mixed in.)

Cook uncovered until the clams open. Serve immediately with rice.

Konkan Café

The CC normally never endorses restaurants but has been known to make exceptions for exceptional ones (duh!)

This is one of them.

In Mumbai, in a tourist-encrusted corner, a man (Ananda Solomon) is trying to make classically home-down cuisine from the coastal regions of Maharashtra.

He has women (yes, women - there are no males traditionally!) come in every morning to grind the spices the ol'-fashioned way using a mortar and pestle.

The results speak for themselves.

Is it expensive? Yes, it is. But attention to detail always is.

The CC (who's a cheapskate at heart) will happily pay out for a meal of this anal-retentive detail every single time!

Yes, this is seafood-oriented (as a true coastal cuisine would be) but if you are vegetarian, just tell the chef to make whatever pleases him, and he will deliver. The coastal regions have vegetarian traditions too. This is India where every goddamn place has a "traditional" vegetarian tradition!!!

(There were a buncha Gujarati losers on the adjacent table who made their way into one of the great restaurants of all time, and ordered mundane crap. It was extraordinarily painful to watch. These money-grubbin' ass-monkeys were, quite literally, not aware of their own culture. The chef, who attended them personally, was a masterpiece of Japanese emotion — inwardly seething while outwardly polite.)

On a more positive note, the squid was ethereal, and the dessert (jackfruit, not very sweet) was so divine that the CC who normally doesn't like dessert would eat it by the bucketful.

This is the food that gods themselves would desire!


banana flower fritters
sol kadhi

jackfruit in coconut milk
Konkan Café.
(Mumbai, India)