Sri Lankan Entree
JACKFRUIT CURRY
(Polos Curry)
INGREDIENTS
1 pound canned jackfruit*, drained
3 green chiles
3 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons coconut oil or vegetable oil
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon chili powder
½ tablespoon diced ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
1½ tablespoons roast curry powder* or curry powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
2″ cinnamon stick
3 collard green leaves or 2 pandan* leaves
6 curry leaves
1⅓ cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon tamarind juice or goraka*
* = Can be found in Asian supermarkets or online.
Serves 2. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut jackfruit into strips 2″ long. Seed green chiles. Mince garlic and green chiles. Dice onion. Add coconut oil. Heat coconut oil using medium heat until a cumin seed starts to dance in the oil. Add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, and mustard seeds. Sauté for 30 seconds or until seeds start to pop. Stir constantly.
Add garlic, green chile, onion, chili powder, ginger, pepper, roast curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon stick, collard leaves, and curry leaves. Sauté for at medium heat for 4 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.
Add coconut milk, tamarind juice, and jackfruit pieces. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Cover. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour or until jackfruit pieces turn brown and soften. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove cinnamon stick. Goes well with rice.
TIDBITS
1) This entree, Jackfruit Curry, is a curry that uses jackfruit.
2) We are indeed starting this tidbit series on solid ground.
3) It is less well known that this dish also goes by the name of Polos Curry.
4) Culinary historians tell us that this curry was named after Marco Polo. Hence, Polo’s Curry.
5) How do we not know this? Unfortunately for foodies everywhere, Polo’s travelog, The Travels of Marco Polo, blew his recipe book out of the water.
6) I mean, Venetians, Pisans, Genoese, other Italians, and Europeans, from well, all over Europe kept saying, “Ooh, ooh, I want to know about far-off Asia.” So, Polo’s travel tale sold thousands and thousands of copies.
7) So, the European book readers generally blew their literature budget on The Travels of Marco Polo.
7b) Just now, I made a small typo and added an “i” before the “o” in “polo” to get “polio.” That kinda changed the meaning of the previous tidbit a bit. Fortunately, I edited out the offending letter, so you would never know my mistake.
8) Anyway, Polo’s great culinary masterpiece Ottimi Pasti del Gran Khan, or Great Meals of the Great Khan, gathered dust in the most hidden parts of just a few European bookstores.
9) Marco dictated Ottimi Pasti del Gran Khan to Fabio Manzo who languished in the same Genoese jail.
10) How did Manzo’s effort get relegated to the dustbin of history, while everyone knows of Marco Polo and only a dedicated group of introverts talk freely–that is if they could talk freely to people–of the not great, but still pretty good, Signore Manzo.
11) Sure, Marco Polo dictated his travels to his other cell mate, Rustichello da Pisa. Okay, da Pisa rates a mention. But Fabio Manzo never rates a mention.
12) Why is this so?
13) Literary agents.
14) Signores Polo and da Pisa hired literary agents. Polo has been famous for nearly a millennium. Da Pisa merits a footnote every now and then. However, penny-pinching, Manzo hired no one. He is literature’s most forgotten man.*
15) * = See Time Magazine’s(tm) issue, The 100 Most Forgotten Names in Literature.
16) However, while Manzo and Great Meals of the Great Khan remain largely forgotten, this cookbook can always be found on the shelves of all great chefs. Something to think about.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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