With the end of August came the end of summer and thus the end of my summer living arrangement. I moved out of my apartment and back into the wonderful dorms at the University of Minnesota. With this transition meant the loss free time to create new dishes and the kitchen in which to cook them. As can be expected, after just over three months of having home cooked meals, dorm pizza, burgers, and pasta dishes are not exactly healthy nor particularly tasty alternatives. On the plus side, during the summer, creating salads was cumbersome and expensive. Whenever I purchased spinach at the farmers market or grocery store, it would go bad before I could eat it all. In the dorms, there is a salad bar everyday. Although they seem to be the only healthy choice the dining halls offer consistently, a girl gets tired of salads rather quickly.
After a couple weeks of classes and the monotony of salads, I had a craving for a good curry puff. I just needed something to spice up my diet. Finally, after an almost 4 week break, I decided that we were going to have the first _ND of the school year. The menu: Curry Puffs, Eggplant Beef, and Banana Fritters.
Curry Puffs and Banana Fritters are both Malaysian specialties. The last time I went to my mother's home in the "Food Capital of the World," Penang, Malaysia, I remember buying a couple of each of these guys off a street vendor. When you bite into a curry puff, the crunch of your teeth breaking through the delicate layers of puff pastry is the perfect introduction to the smooth taste of coconut accented with the gentle heat of the curry. The pork, or in the case of last week's dinner, beef, and potatoes provides a rich, succulent flavor and soft texture juxtaposed against the flaky, buttery outer shell. Just writing about them makes my mouth water.
These curry puffs are a family recipe so I feel bad giving it away. Hopefully for those interested, the pictures provided will give you enough information to try to make them yourself. (The puff pastry used for the shells is Peperidge Farm prepared Puff Pastry found in the freezer aisle at the local grocery store).
I'm still waiting on pictures from the camera I borrowed, but since we're going into October, I'm just going to publish this now and update it with pictures later.
Curry Puffs and Banana Fritters are both Malaysian specialties. The last time I went to my mother's home in the "Food Capital of the World," Penang, Malaysia, I remember buying a couple of each of these guys off a street vendor. When you bite into a curry puff, the crunch of your teeth breaking through the delicate layers of puff pastry is the perfect introduction to the smooth taste of coconut accented with the gentle heat of the curry. The pork, or in the case of last week's dinner, beef, and potatoes provides a rich, succulent flavor and soft texture juxtaposed against the flaky, buttery outer shell. Just writing about them makes my mouth water.
These curry puffs are a family recipe so I feel bad giving it away. Hopefully for those interested, the pictures provided will give you enough information to try to make them yourself. (The puff pastry used for the shells is Peperidge Farm prepared Puff Pastry found in the freezer aisle at the local grocery store).
I'm still waiting on pictures from the camera I borrowed, but since we're going into October, I'm just going to publish this now and update it with pictures later.
