Really LAME nerd jokes aside (oh god, stop), the culinary transition between winter and Spring has been a combination of the old and new. Some recipes I’ve developed from scratch and others I’ve simply borrowed from my library of awesome. I didn’t record much of these past few months in detail, but here are some of the menu items I’ve concocted:

1. Strawberry-mayonnaise in a turkey bacon wrap with fresh basil, mint, romaine, escarole, thinly sliced red onion, toasted slivered almonds, balsamic vinegar, and goat cheese (optional).

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With the arrival of Spring, farmer markets throughout Los Angeles are experiencing a revival of crop. The end of winter was very tedious; the herbs were dour looking, and many of our favorite stalls downsized their inventory. In the last month or two, however, there’s been an abrupt shift in momentum. Strawberries, fava beans, carrots, asparagus, artichokes (particularly the baby artichokes), and cucumbers are now available in abundance. The strawberries are hit-or-miss, so you always need to sample before buying. But the other produce is fairly consistent, especially a new favorite of mine: fava beans.

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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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Guest article by Tyler

After putting together two fantastic feasts for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Jenn is starting off the new year by taking a short vacation to drive the darkspawn out of Ferelden. Meanwhile, I’m going to write up our first experiments with recipes from a book on curry that Jenn received for Christmas. You’ll have to excuse the sub-standard pictures — I don’t have quite the presentation skills that my wife does.

The book is 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer. This book caught our eye because while we both enjoy Indian dishes, we’ve never really made too much of it ourselves beyond a very simple and very Americanized chicken curry, a rather botched attempt at Baingan Bharta, and the much more successful Yellow Dal Puree just recently.

We thought we’d start in somewhat familiar territory by focusing on chicken curries. Much like a good chili, what separates a boring curry from an interesting curry is the sauce. The Americanized curry-from-a-box approach, or the slightly more sophisticated “try to make something like curry-from-a-box without using a box” approach is to make a relatively simple tomato paste-based sauce, and to load it up with vaguely Indian-seeming spices, and pour it over a mish-mash of vegetables and small bits of chicken. The chicken curries in this book are much more authentic, and are without filler vegetables: just substantial pieces of chicken stewing in a complex, flavorful, savory sauce.

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