like many things prepared in the US by well-meaning white folks, this is a dish that bears little resemblance to anything really ethnic. but it's still tasty. and who knows? it may be the specialty of some grandma in some souk in tunisia. but i doubt it.
assembly:
1 medium onion, diced fine
1 little knob ginger, peeled and diced fine
a few cloves garlic, same dice
olive oil
1T coriander seed
1T cumin
1/2T fennel seed
a handful of thai hot peppers, if they happen to be in your fridge
1 28oz can tomatoes, cleaned up and mushed with their juice
maybe 1/3C dried fruit - i use golden raisins, but i have a feeling diced apricots would be nice too
a squirt of honey
...make a sauce. saute the onion in the olive oil for a few minutes, throw in the ginger and garlic for another minute or two, then the whole spices and hot peppers...give them another minute more, dump in the tomatoes, add the dried fruit, and stir in the honey. cover mostly and let simmer on low heat. the usual 45 minutes or so.
finish:
a little fresh mint
a little fresh basil
a handful of oil cured olives, chopped coarse
salt
pepper
when everything looks good and saucy, add all the above and let the olives warm up. no more than a minute or so. you don't want the herbs to get all cooked and sad.
serves 2 nicely, over pasta or couscous.
i'll mention that i had the end of some sausages from the other day kicking around, so i threw those in too. totally optional, though i could see some merguez tasting pretty good in here. if you can get merguez where you live. i don't think i can.
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1 comment:
Yer pop says that this sounds like any number of chutneys that he thinks of concocting before your old mum says that there are "already tons of jars of chutney in the basement" after which the chutney of the moment fades from mind ....
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