My beautiful, brilliant wife, who we will definitely NOT call “the other Emily,” is a thoughtful, talented cook. She’s great at selecting and executing recipes, and thus bombs with far less frequency than I do. (My most recent whiff: Improvised Swiss Chard Soup that looked like bile and tasted half as good). She’s also pretty good at improvising.
This week she pulled this Bon Appétit recipe for Paneer Curry with Peas. She couldn’t find paneer at Whole Foods — though they normally have it — so she used extra firm tofu. It doesn’t bring much to the flavor party but offers the needed textural contrast when tossed in corn meal and pan-fried in olive oil (in lieu of ghee). And because she knows how to balance a dish, she topped it all with a refreshing cucumber-mint sauce that tempered the spiciness of the curry. ‘Twas delicious, made even better by a bottle of dry Riesling.
Because my wife is in many ways a better true cook than I am (I’m self-sabotaged by my chefly delusions of grandeur), I’m going to periodically feature her meals in a section called “Lady Akin’s Kitchen.” But please, whatever you do, don’t refer to her as “the other Emily.”
Emily #2′s kitchen skills are fresh!
I agree. Old Emily is indeed a wonderful chef.
Emily 32 is not going to be happy about this.
Yay Emily! The Rees one.
Jeff, if you want to be included in a local blogging group I’m in, feel free to PM me on FB.