Singapore Chicken Curry

• 1/3 C whole coriander
• 1/2 t white peppercorns
• 1 whole clove
• 3 green cardamom pods
• 1/2 t fenugreek seeds
• 2 T anise seeds
• 1/4 C cumin seeds
• 1 dash ground mace
• 1 1/2 T ground turmeric
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• 5 whole dried chili peppers
• 2 thumb-sized pieces ginger, chopped
• 1 thumb-sized piece galangal, chopped
• 2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
• 10 shallots, chopped
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 15 fresh serrano chili peppers, chopped
• 3 T canola oil
• 1 whole chicken, split into 12 pieces

salt

• 6 fresh curry leaves (available at specialty Indian supermarkets)
• 2 C coconut milk
• 2 C chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 lb fingerling potatoes, boiled in salted water until tender
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 serrano or jalapeño chili
• 1 piece (1") fresh ginger
• 2 t coriander seeds
• 2 t cumin seeds
• 1 t ground turmeric
• 1 t kosher salt
• 1/2 C fresh or frozen peas
• 3 T mayonnaise
• 1 T ketchup

thinly sliced red onion

thinly sliced beefsteak tomato

• 1 C loosely packed cilantro leaves
• 4 potato hamburger buns
• 1 large russet potato, peeled (about 12 oz.)

neutral oil for frying

• 250 g cold milk
• 5 g cornstarch
• 50 g soft cream cheese
• 50 g egg yolk
• 100 g whole egg
• 200 g crème fraîche
• 5 g kosher salt
• 1 ENRICHED BUTTER CRUST
• 1 egg
• 15 g water
• 150 g diced bacon, cooked and drained of the fat
• 1/2 g nutmeg (a few gratings of fresh nutmeg or a fat pinch of ground nutmeg)
• 5 g kosher salt
• 2 g black pepper (a generous round of cracking from your peppermill)

ENRICHED BUTTER CRUST

• 40 g egg yolks, from 2 large eggs
• 60 g cream, cold
• 275 g all-purpose flour
• 4 g salt
• 225 g butter, cold, cut in 1/2-inch cubes

SORBET

SORBET

• 8 oz passion-fruit purée
• 2 oz lemon juice
• 4 oz simple syrup
• 2 oz apple brandy
• 1 ½ oz bourbon
• 1 oz water
• ¾ oz lemon juice
• ½ oz simple syrup
• ¼ oz grenadine

1. Heat the oven to 350 °F.
2. Combine the coriander, white peppercorn, clove, cardamom, fenugreek, anise, and cumin seeds on a sheet tray and toast in the oven about 10 minutes or until fragrant. Working in batches, transfer the toasted seeds to a spice grinder and blend to a fine powder. Mix in the mace, turmeric, and cinnamon and set aside. (This makes twice what you need for this recipe. Use it to season chicken or fish, or stir it into sour cream and use as a dip for potato chips.)
3. In a blender, combine the dried chili pepper, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, shallots, onion, garlic, serrano chili peppers, and 1/4 cup of water and puree till smooth.
4. Set a large deep pot like a Dutch oven over medium heat and add the oil. Add the puree and cook until most of the water evaporates, about 3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the dry spice mix and continue cooking until the oil turns reddish, about 5 minutes more.
5. Season the chicken on all sides with salt and add it to the pot. Stir to coat the chicken very well with the spice paste. Add the curry leaves, coconut milk, and stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Check the seasoning, add more salt if necessary, then add the potatoes. Return to a simmer and serve.
6. Finely grate the garlic, chili, and ginger into a large bowl. There should be about 1 tablespoon of each. Add the spices—coriander seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, and salt—and the peas to the bowl. Set aside.
7. Set up your assembly line: Stir the mayo and ketchup together in a small bowl to make the special sauce. Arrange the rings of red onion and tomatoes on a plate. Have your cilantro and buns ready and waiting.
8. When ready to cook, set a box grater in a shallow bowl or pie plate, and grate the potato into the receptacle. Use your hands or a kitchen towel to squeeze the liquid from the potato. You aren’t looking to wring it dry, just to extract what’s there to be extracted. Toss the squeezed potato into the bowl with the seasonings and use your hands to fold and mix.
9. Pour ¼” of oil into a 12″ skillet, preferably cast iron, and heat over medium heat. Eyeball the potato mixture into 4 portions in the bowl, and use a gentle grasp to lift one portion from the bowl. Deposit it as a lacy-edged mound in one quadrant of the pan. Repeat with the remaining portions to form four lacy potato-pea mounds. Fry the McAloo patties without moving or pressing on them for 3 minutes. When the edges have become golden brown, use a slotted metal spatula to release the patties from the bottom of the pan, and carefully flip them, so as not to splash any hot oil on you or your friends. Cook the McAloo on the second side until crispy, then re-flip and cook until the whole thing is mahogany brown and quite crunchy all over. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels.
10. Assembly-line your McAloos: Smear a bit of special sauce on each cut side of the buns. Set a patty on the bottom bun and top with a few rings of red onion, a couple slices of tomato, and a handful of cilantro leaves. Eat at once.
11. Place the egg yolks and cream in a small bowl and whisk them together until combined. Hold in the refrigerator until ready to use.
12. Place the flour and salt in a bowl and toss to combine. Transfer the bowl to the freezer for 30 minutes.
13. When the flour mixture has chilled for 30 minutes, remove it from the freezer, and transfer it to the bowl of a food processor along with the butter. Pulse the food processor 10 times. Now, a pulse in the food processor is not a nervous jump in which you release the pulse button as quickly as you press it. A pulse is an intentional motion, lasting at least one second, but not much longer. If you were waltzing with your food processor, you would hold the pulse button for the 1 and 2 count, releasing it on 3. After ten pulses, the butter should be broken down into nuggets ranging in size from M&Ms to Nerds. Remove the lid from the food processor and drizzle the reserved egg-cream mixture over the surface. Pulse the food processor a few more times, until the dough begins to clump together. Once the dough starts to clump together, pulse one more time to pull the moist clumps into a large mass.
14. Once the dough has come together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and continue to use your hands to press the dough together. Divide it into two pieces, and shape each piece into a disk 1-inch thick. The more evenly you press the edges of the disk, the less likely they are to crack and split when you roll your dough. Wrap these disks in plastic wrap and let them rest in your refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours before you roll your pie crusts. The crusts will keep in your refrigerator for up to 48 hours, and your freezer for two weeks.
15. QUICHE BATTER
16. Make the slurry.Place the milk and cornstarch in a small bowl and whisk together until the cornstarch has dissolved completely. If there are lumps of cornstarch that won’t go away, just let it sit for a couple minutes; they will soften and ready themselves to be whisked in shortly.
17. Blend the batter. Place the cream cheese in the cup of a blender and add the egg yolk, whole egg, crème fraîche, and salt. Blend on medium-low speed until the batter is uniform. Finally, add the cornstarch slurry and blend until evenly distributed. Do not over blend; you want to avoid adding air at this point.
18. Strain the batter. Strain the quiche batter through a fine mesh sieve. The quiche batter can be held in your refrigerator for up to 3 days. To use the batter, line a blind-baked tart shell with your desired filling and cover with quiche batter, filling the shell about half an inch from the top edge.
19. Heat your oven to 350°F.
20. Place the egg and water in a bowl. Whisk the egg and water together until the egg white completely disappears from sight.
21. Roll the Enriched Butter Crust out to a thickness of a ¼ inch, and line a 9-inch pie plate with it. Trim the edges to fit the pan, and use a fork to press the edge of the crust against the pie plate, marking the entire rim. (Alternately, you can crimp the pie shell with a decorative pattern.)
22. Using a fork, prick holes in the crust every inch or so, penetrating it only halfway to avoid creating leaky holes in the base.
23. Line the crust with a piece of foil, pressing it into place so that it hugs the shape of the pie and its edges. Place the crust in your freezer for 1 hour to set. (This can be skipped, but it will greatly assist your shell keep its shape when you bake it.)
24. Fill the frozen, foil-lined pie shell with pie weights, dried beans, or rice. Bake the pie shell for 30 minutes and remove from the oven. As soon as you can handle touching the foil, gently pull it back from the edges, and lift the pie weights from the piecrust.
25. Brush the surface of the pie generously with the egg wash. Place the piecrust in the oven for 2 more minutes. As soon as the pie shell comes out of the oven, give it one more coat of egg wash. The residual heat from the oven should be enough to set the egg wash on contact. Lower the oven to 300°F.
26. Sprinkle the bacon over the surface of the pie and dust with the nutmeg, salt, and black pepper.
27. Pour enough Quiche Batter into the pie shell to fill it half an inch from the top. Depending on your pie pan, the exact weight will vary. Just use your eyes to know when the liquid is close to the top.
28. Bake the quiche for about 30–40 minutes, but this might vary depending on your oven and the depth of your pie shell. The quiche is done when it no longer wobbles when the pan is jiggled. It should quiver, and look set all the way through. Sometimes I even crack the quiche crust with a spoon and lift it to peek at the custard in the center. If it looks like a cheese sauce, you’re not quite there; give it a few more minutes. If the spoon lifts a firm chunk from the center, you may have gone a little too far. Pull the quiche from the oven and get it in a very cold place to stop the cooking as fast as possible. A freezer works if you have space, or your refrigerator. Or if it’s a winter morning in Chicago, it can go outside on the porch.
29. If the spoon cracks the crust and exposes a custard that’s set but still glossy: congrats, your quiche is perfect. Remove it from the oven and let it sit on a rack on the counter. The quiche will firm up over the next 15 minutes as the residual heat finishes coagulating the proteins. (This is called “carry-over cooking” in professional kitchens.) As the quiche starts to cool, it will become perfectly sliceable. Congratulate yourself, you’re a regular Julia Child, whipping up elegant custard pies worthy of any brunch menu. Make sure you reward yourself with a sliver of the pie before your honored guests devour it.
30. MAKE THE SORBET
31. Combine the passion-fruit purée (which you can get on Amazon from a company called Boiron), lemon juice, and simple syrup, and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Transfer the spun sorbet to a pint container, freeze for at least a couple of hours, then stir the apple brandy into the sorbet a few minutes before making the drink. This is enough sorbet for eight drinks, but it’s hard to make less—plus, who doesn’t like extra sorbet lying around? Eat any excess with a spoon.
32. PUT BUBBLES IN THE BOOZE
33. Combine the cocktail base ingredients in a carbonating device (like a PureFizz Soda Maker; making a batch in the slightly more common SodaStream is possible but requires you to carbonate a lot of cocktail fixins), and carbonate according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
34. ASSEMBLE THE COCKTAIL
35. Scoop a quenelle of sorbet into a champagne flute and top with the cocktail base.