Guest Article by Tyler

After successfully preparing a delicious dish of Murghi Ni Curry, our second foray into the book 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer was Badam Murghi. Again, I can only guess as to what this might literally translate to, but it is anglicized as “Yogurt-Almond Chicken with a Spinach Sauce”. If you haven’t read the article on the Murghi Ni Curry, take a minute to do so, as I will be making numerous comparisons between the two.

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The theme this week was Spanish cuisine and flavors. (More on why in the next article.) I needed an all-meat dish to accompany the other main, so I bumbled around on the internet until I ran across "albondigas"—or meatballs. The snafu: the online recipes were all over the map. Many of the meatballs were basted in a tomato sauce, but some were in wine-vegetable broths. Beef, pork, veal, bacon, and chicken were all candidates for the actual meat content. One of them called for Parmesan cheese, and that’s where I just drew the line. Parmesan cheese? As in the Parmigiano Reggiano of Italy?! Why would Spain, with all its lovely and wonderful cheeses, use Parmesan in what is considered a classic dish of Spain? I dove for the nearest bookstore. Save me from the hordes of sameness! I was not going to be conned into some American rendition of spaghetti and meatballs (minus the spaghetti), no matter what the internet said.

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This recipe was a tasty deviation from regular, old basil pesto and was a wonderful contrast to the cioppino. I particularly liked the tarragon, the fennel, the Kasseri cheese, and the almonds. What was disappointing was the lack of anchovy flavor! Then again, yours truly has never before bought whole fresh anchovies and gutted them by hand, so I had no idea what to expect; I’m more used to the stuff they sell you in a can, which is pungent indeed. Next time I’ll be a little more careful and pair the anchovies with ingredients that complement rather than override.

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As the end of summer approaches, the juicy, ripe nectarines and peaches are fast disappearing from the farmer’s market. The heat wave, however, is still here; so this week I decided to celebrate the passing of the summer produce season with a cold chicken salad and caramelized nectarines. To be fair, I must credit the idea of caramelizing nectarines with onion to the folks at Christine’s. The nectarines at said restaurant were plated with a fish entrée, and at the time I thought to myself, “This would be great with a salad.” So here’s the breakdown of my procedure:

Breaded Chicken
chicken breasts, 3 lbs
leftover panko breading from the freezer (see my article on the ono)
egg
vegetable oil
cayenne pepper

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