Serve with warning labels

Remember our good friend the Model Bakery Cookbook?

We do. The Chief Taster now tells people about running the Napa Valley Marathon not because she got her best time there, but because the next day we bought this cookbook, and she wants everyone to know about this cookbook. Seems weird, coming from someone who loves to brag about herself, but maybe it's her way of bragging about what she gets to eat.

This summer, we went to a friend's birthday cookout. They requested that I bring "something yummy for dessert." I didn't get any further clarification except "brownies?" I couldn't remember ever baking brownies that weren't from a mix (when I want hand-edible sweet treats, I usually bake cookies), but as the Chief Taster tells everyone, "everything from that book is amazing," so I checked the Model Bakery index.

There was one little problem: the book calls for an 8x8 pan, and I was serving around 20 people (plus some smallish humans I hadn't anticipated), so I first made a test batch of the prescribed size, then increased the recipe to fit in a 9x13 for the actual party. Both batches happened in the same week, and by the time we got to the actual party, I was already saturated with brownie, and couldn't bring myself to eat them anymore.

Which isn't to say they weren't good.

I was a little thrown by the texture; it wasn't what I had expected, and maybe wasn't what I had in mind, but they were ridiculously popular, possibly for the same reason. These aren't your usual box-mix, flaky-topped brownies. These are more like fudge and brownies had a baby, and it ate all your chocolate chips. They are thick, rich, a little dense, and as we learned after the cookout, should not be fed to gremlins after 7 PM. I called them:

Weapons-Grade Brownies

3/4 C plus 1 T unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
unbleached all-purpose flour for the pan
1 C cake flour (I used all-purpose)
3/4 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
10 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (the book says "no more than 55% cacao," and wants you to buy a bar and chop it up. I just bought a bag of chips. Their cacao rating was not labeled. I live dangerously.)
1 C sugar
3 T espresso (in my case, 1 1/2 t instant espresso dissolved in 3 T boiling water)
1 t vanilla
3 large eggs
1 1/3 C semisweet chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Butter an 8 inch square pan. Dust with flour, shake to coat, and dump the excess. The book said to line the bottom with parchment paper, but I can't think of any reason to do that.
• Put the the chopped chocolate (or 10 oz of chips, you dangerous rebel!) into a large mixing bowl. We're going to do a slow melt in it later, so make sure the bowl has plenty of room above the chips for stirring.
• Heat the butter, coffee, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. When the butter is melted and everything has blended, pour it over the chocolate and let it set for a minute or so until the chocolate has softened. Add the vanilla and mix until the chocolate has melted.
• Beat the eggs into the chocolate. Mix in the flour, powder, and salt. Make sure you get the bits that stick to the bowl; we want it all blended. Fold in the chips. Spread batter evenly in the pan.
• This is where I ran into problems with my test batch. The book said to bake for 35 minutes. I did. I even did the toothpick test. Everything looked fine until I tried to serve myself a delicious, oven-warm brownie, and a thick, muddy landslide oozed into the space I had opened (see bottom left corner of picture). The "brownie" I tried to pull from the pan was a formless glob of (delicious, decadent, dangerous) goo which flopped wetly from the spatula and onto the counter, plate, and my hand. It was far too warm for my hand, but that's another issue. The pan had been out of the oven 15 minutes by then, but I stuck it back in and waited patiently. I really don't remember how long it finally baked. but I let it cool until after dinner (a few hours) before trying to serve more.
• Since this was my test batch, I was concerned about the "real" batch I was going to make later, by doubling the batch size and using a larger pan. I baked that one for 55 minutes, and didn't touch it until hours later, at the party, giving it plenty of time to finish setting outside the oven and cool to a more cohesive temperature.
• How long should you bake it? Hell if I know. Figure it out. Worst case, cover it with ice cream.

I mentioned that they are unusually thick, rich brownies. On the email chain about food people were bringing to the cookout, I labeled my contribution "Weapons-Grade Brownies," and this naturally invited some questions. Hours after the party, I got this email from a mother of three who attended with her husband and gremlins:

I now understand that "weapons-grade," when used in reference to brownies means "one twin will be so wound up she will throw her bottle on the floor and have pretend conversations on her lego car/telephone, while the other twin will throw her arm around your shoulder and sing ribald songs of the sea while kicking twin #1 and fending off random hits from the car/telephone."  One of them is still talking.  I'm not going in there to find out which.

 In case you are wondering, this was the ribald song of the sea. I did not teach it.

syrupy salmon

Friends got us a cast-iron cookbook for Pi Day (what, you're not observant of math holidays?), and I sometimes browse through it for food ideas guaranteed to be excellent. This time, I was trying to find the Spanish Chicken Stew recipe I knew I'd made, but my efforts were in vain (turns out it was in my notebook, because I'd made up the recipe. I'll get to it soon, really). On my way from cover to cover, I made the mistake of showing the Chief Taster a salmon recipe with a full-page picture.

"Make that. Now."
"Now?"
"Tonight. Do we have a dinner plan for tonight? Can we make that instead?"

I had to buy a couple things I've never bought, but they were conveniently near each other in the "Asian" section of the grocery (four feet of shelves at the end of an otherwise unrelated aisle). And I didn't get the sauce thickened to the "glaze" consistency recommended, but she was still pretty happy with the results. More on the subject of making women happy follows the recipe.

Salmon with balsamic Thai chile glaze
4 scallions (white parts)
4 inches of the green parts of aforementioned scallions (I can never find scallions. Sources I've found say they're the same thing, so I always use green onion when a recipe says "scallion." No one has died, so I guess I was right. I did not see the "four inch" part of the recipe until typing this post, the day after making the food, so we had lots of green onion. I used the rest in breakfast the next day. No worries.)
salt and pepper
4 to 6 (6 oz) salmon fillets with skin attached (I bought a 12 oz slab of salmon and cut it in half. I didn't adjust sauce quantities. That's part of why I had so much sauce, but not why it didn't thicken)
2 T vegetable oil (or canola)
1 T Asian sesame oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T grated fresh ginger root
1/2 C sweet Thai chile sauce
1/4 C firmly packed brown sugar
3 T soy sauce
3 T balsamic vinegar
1 to 2 T freshly squeezed lime juice (I cut a golf-ball-sized lime in half and squeezed the hell out of it in my hands. That gave me 2 T)

• Chop the scallion whites and set them aside. Thinly slice the green portions and set them aside. They'll be garnish later. The whites will go into the skillet with the sesame oil, garlic, and ginger, so you can put all of that in the same bowl if you want, but use a spatula to clear it so you get all the oil.
• Season the salmon with salt and pepper. I put on a lot, because that's how I cook steaks, too, but under the sauce I don't think I could taste it. Still, it's good to use when searing, so don't skip that.
• Heat a 12" skillet on high heat. Coat with the veg oil. Put in the salmon, skin side up, and leave it the hell alone for about four minutes. Don't flip them, don't move them around, don't peel them up and look at the fleshy side. Pretend they're your ex at a party and just turn your back on the damn things, ok? Maybe take a look every once in a while to see how they're cooking (you'll see a color change creep up the edges of the fillets). I used this time to frantically finish the sauce ingredients I'd forgotten, like the grated ginger and minced garlic.
• Flip the fish and let it cook skin side down for another 2-3 minutes, then move it onto a warm plate. (I neglected to warm the plate for two reasons. First: I was using the oven to roast some potatoes at 400F. Second, I was a little gun-shy after destroying one of our new pie dishes with a rapid temperature change. Luckily, the sauce cooks up quick, and the fish only cooled enough to be edible.) The book says to wipe out the skillet with a paper towel, but there was nothing in my skillet once the fish was freed, so I skipped that.
• Put the skillet on medium-high heat. Dump in all the stuff that goes with the onion whites. Cook and stir 30 seconds, until fragrant. I have almost no sense of smell, and that sesame oil was still plenty fragrant. Those of you whose noses are more than decorative will have no trouble telling when it's ready to:
• Add chile sauce, brown sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar. Stir and cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until syrupy. Turn off the burner, stir in the lime juice.
• Top each serving of the salmon with a generous dose of the glaze. Mine were practically swimming again, but I had all those roasted potatoes, too, and despite my careful application of seasoning (which amounted to pulling four or five jars out of the spice rack, thinking, "yeah, that sounds like a good idea," and then liberally shaking them over the taters), the sauce soaked in and overpowered everything I had done. We didn't care. It's good sauce. I had some left over, and I'm not sure what to do with it, but I'll find out this week. Top with green onions.

A while ago, I mentioned an idea I had for a cookbook called "How To Please A Woman." It's been a recurring theme of jokes and discussions ever since. One friend in particular has been campaigning hard for this idea. She may be more excited for it than I am. I have two hypotheses as to why. First, her outlook on publishing has not taken the pummeling that mine has. Second, I suspect she hopes to be a taste tester for the featured recipes. Can't blame her optimism.

I had been drifting away from the idea for a couple months now, because I've been disappointed with repeated failed efforts to get my work printed, and because, as I told the Chief Taster and our glass-blowing friend, "Every asshole with a food blog has a cookbook. But every other asshole with a food blog also has a big following. I can count my followers without removing my shoes."

Thing is, I'm pretty much the only person who understands what the title of this blog means. Starting a new site with a title like "How To Please A Woman" makes it much more appealing and accessible. The glass blower believes this will go a long way to attracting more followers. This is where you come in. You had to find this post somehow. However you got here, leave me a comment below (or you can contact me directly) and let me know whether you have interest in a new site with pretty much the same content (it's also been suggested that I could have polls connected to each recipe. I like that idea, too). Still me writing recipes to try, but with a specific goal in mind: scoring chicks!

Stuffing more peppers

I've made stuffed peppers before, and it went really well. Yes, there were some shortcomings; namely, I couldn't taste the cheese. A friend believes that the only properly stuffed peppers are stuffed with cumin. Some variations are meat-heavy, while others are almost entirely rice. Point is, you can stuff just about anything into a pepper with a reasonable degree of success.

When I asked the Chief Taster what she wanted for dinner this week, she found this recipe online. I, in turn, dutifully bought what I needed, then started making changes through conscious effort, mistakes, and sheer laziness. This is my version.

"Mediterranean" Mushroom stuffed peppers (in case every recipe needs a name)
Olive oil
3/4 C chopped onion. I really don't know how much I used. I had half a large onion and used all of that. Whatever. Recipes are suggestions, dammit!
salt
pepper
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t garlic powder (I wanted to mince some real garlic for this, but I forgot)
8 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
8 oz fresh mushrooms
handful of parsley, chopped to bits
1 generous C long-grain brown rice (because I had slightly more than 1 C left). Her version soaks the rice for 15 minutes. I had mine in a bowl for closer to 20, but given the amount of liquid involved, I'm not sure the soaking is really necessary. Experiment at your discretion.
1/2 t paprika
8 oz can tomato sauce (she uses 3 T. What do you do with the rest of the can?)
3/4 C chicken broth
6 bell peppers, tops and ribs removed

• Heat the oil in a big, deep skillet. cook the onions in there until they turn translucent. Dump in the meat and season with salt, pepper, allspice, and garlic powder. Caveat: I only said "1/2 t" because she did. When I made it, I didn't measure the onion, salt, pepper, garlic, allspice, parsley, or paprika. If I did measure, it was all by eyeball, and I purposely overshot on all seasonings because I like strong flavors. Do what you will.
• Cook the beef. Stir in the mushrooms and chop at them a little with the spatula, because small pieces pack more easily into the peppers. Don't go too crazy--you still want to taste the mushroomy goodness (Cindy, I'm looking at you). Stir in the chickpeas and cook a couple minutes.
• Add the parsley, rice, paprika, and broth. I messed up a little here. Her recipe said "add the water," and I looked up and saw "3/4 C broth (or water)" in the ingredients, so I dumped in the broth. Then I saw "2 1/4 C water" listed a little higher. I left it alone with my extra tomato sauce, and nothing bad happened! Plus, I didn't have to simmer the damn thing another twenty minutes while all that liquid cooked off. Anyway. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20 minutes. You want the rice to be cooked.
• While that simmers, cut off the tops of the peppers and scrape out the insides. If you think this is tedious work, imagine scooping the glop out of a pumpkin so some thankless kid can have all the fun of carving it, and it will feel like a breeze (next month: pumpkin pie!) I cut down from the top on five of my peppers because I wanted them to hold together better, and contain more Stuff, but one of them had a nasty spot on the top, so I had to slice straight across for that one. It slimed me. It was gross.
• Stand the peppers up in a baking dish (my 11x7 was a perfect fit). Pack them full of tasty stuffing. (Has anyone tried stuffing stuffed peppers with stuffing? Thanksgiving style? The sausage kind? WHY THE HELL NOT??) Pour water into the baking dish (NOT into the peppers) 3/4 to 1 inch deep.
• Have you pre-heated the oven to 350F? No? Go back in time and do that.
• Tightly cover the baking dish with foil and bake for... I don't know. Half an hour? Everything inside the peppers is cooked, so you really only want to get the peppers softened. Do what you want.
• She suggested serving with Greek yogurt. We just had normal (plain) yogurt. It helped. I think sour cream would be fine, too.

One more note: She grills her peppers. I didn't. Because we only have a Foreman-style grill, and that just won't work. In the past, I boiled the peppers a little to soften and pre-cook them. This time I stuffed raw peppers and baked them 30 minutes. They were tender enough to eat, but firm enough that the Chief Taster used a knife to cut hers apart. I still had no complaints, and she reported high success on the recipe.

No food porn this week. I'm tired of making really good food in my fun-size kitchen and then getting shitty photos because there's only one crappy light fixture which casts shadows on EVERYTHING I DO. You want food porn, go look at the link. There's a dozen pictures of the same damn peppers. At least show the different steps, woman!

phaking pho

Often, my impetus to make a new recipe is driven by a bit of research. The process usually starts when I notice something in the fridge that needs to be used soon, and I think, "I'm pretty sure that's in Thai food!" or "That would be good with beef!" Then I go through our cookbooks, or recipe websites, or at least check Wikipedia to find what the most traditional forms involve. Sometimes, that leads to falling down rabbit holes. Usually, it leads to a grocery list.

This time, I didn't bother with any of that.

I'd made some Creamy Salmon Pasta for the Chief Taster, because it's one of her perennial favorites, and had a bunch of green onions left in the fridge when I finished.  Somehow, that led me to decide to make some pho (the first time I ever saw that link was when I looked it up while writing this post).  It was a risky choice, because I've only had pho once or twice.  I'm not equivocating; I honestly don't know whether one of those was pho.  I'm certain the second time was pho, because a coworker picked the restaurant, told me what we were having, and even suggested a menu choice. The first time I was on my own somewhere in California, and thought I'd go get some authentic cuisine by visiting the place with signs I couldn't read.  I couldn't read the menu, either.  And none of the staff spoke enough English to clarify anything for me.  My selection was based on the mangled English translations of the menu items, and I was brought a bowl of broth and tendons that might have had a boiled hoof in it.

I based my recipe on the other version.

This is what I remembered: pho was an aromatic beef broth full of basil and maybe garlic?  It should have noodles, beef, and I decided mine should have vegetables, too.

The Chief Taster is afraid of beef bouillon for the same reason she's afraid of hamburgers, so I couldn't use beef broth unless I made it for real, and I didn't want to invest that kind of time.  I got some chicken bouillon, and on a whim, some vegetable-flavor "Better Than Bouillon."

Phake Pho
3/4 to 1 lb. skirt steak, cut diagonally into thin strips
1 C diced celery
1.5 C sliced carrot
8 oz sliced mushrooms
3-4 green onions, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
fresh basil (I just bought one of those handy clamshells and used the whole thing. Use however much basil you want.)
6 C broth
noodles (I used rice noodles, because I wanted to try them. I also considered egg noodles.)
fresh chives (because I already had them)
olive oil
salt and pepper

• I used a deep cast iron skillet. If that's not an option for you, use a skillet to brown the meat and cook the veggies, and move them into a soup pot as they're ready.
• Brown the beef in a little olive oil, seasoning it with some salt and pepper, because you really don't need more than that. (Though I admit that I used kosher salt, and ground plenty of pepper in there, because I like pepper)  The Chief Taster was shocked that I hadn't done any more than that to season the beef.

Cows are delicious.

• Scoop the browned beef out of the skillet and onto a plate (or the soup pot, if you're going down that road). Toss the mushrooms into the beef juices so they can soak it up and cook a little.  Just as they're well coated and start to soften, add the carrots, celery, and garlic. Saute until crisp-tender. (you could leave the veggies a little under-done if you want. When we ate the soup, I thought some of the carrots might have cooked too long)

• Put the meat back in the skillet (or move the veggies into the soup pot--from here on, we're all in the same pot), add the green onion, broth, and basil, and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and let it simmer 20-30 minutes.  I just pulled the basil leaves off the stems and never bothered to cut them up. I assumed they'd wither like spinach, and I was right. Do what you will.

It's just started to cook, so the basil still looks like basil.  Give it time.

• While the soup simmers, cook the noodles.  I'd recommend only cooking the noodles you need for the amount of soup that will be eaten that night, and cooking more noodles later for any leftovers.  Soup noodles don't reheat very well; they just go mushy.  When the noodles are ready, serve the soup into bowls, top with a scoop of noodles and some chopped chives if you feel ambitious, or want to clean out the fridge.

My final photographs never look very good, because by that time I'm more interested in consumption than documentation.

Full disclosure: the Chief Taster has never had pho, hooves or otherwise, so she had no idea what it was supposed to be.  However, whatever I served her made her very happy.  She later pointed out to me that she had been too busy shoveling it into her face to say so at the time.  It may not be real pho, but it was really tasty.

Perfect puffs

Many years ago, when the earth was still cooling, dinosaurs roamed the hills, and I was but a wee lad, Mom made us popovers for dinner.  It didn't happen for every meal, but my brother and I requested them often, and as we grew older, Mom realized that a single batch was no longer enough.  We'd start to load our plates for dinner by grabbing two or three popovers each, quickly spotting the largest ones.  It became an unofficial, undeclared contest to see who could eat more, and that was usually determined by who got the last one.

Popovers are light, fluffy, cloud-like rolls, usually hollow inside.  I liked to put butter, jelly, or warm applesauce into their cavernous interiors before I ate them, but they're so good on their own that I had just as many plain.

A couple years ago, my aunt sent me an envelope full of recipes she'd gotten from Mom, written in Mom's hand.  One of them was for herb-cheese popovers.  Wow.

The Chief Taster loves popovers, too, though I've never seen her eat more than three for a meal, and that was only once or twice.  The batch size for the recipe I favor is about nine, and it's an act of great effort for me to not devour the rest myself.  Instead, I eat the last four or five from the batch over the course of the next day, for breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

They're pretty handy, because they have only four ingredients (for the base version), which are usually in the kitchen anyway: eggs, milk, flour, and salt.  If my plan for dinner is a little thin, and it needs some bread, it's a breeze to add popovers to the menu.  I've gotten pretty good at baking them over a wide range of temperatures, in case I have something else in the oven which may be more finicky.

Today, I'm going to stick to Mom's Herb Cheese Popovers, even though I don't remember her ever making them.  I only remember the bare-bones popovers, but they're both really good, and they make me happy, and I like that this recipe, in Mom's handwriting, is now in my file.

2 eggs
1 C milk
1 C flour
1/2 C grated sharp cheddar (I've used a couple different cheeses, including feta)
1/2 t salt
1/2 t dried thyme
1/4 t dried sage
1/4 t dried basil

• Generously grease a muffin pan.  You'll have to find out on your own how many cups (of the muffin pan) you need; this recipe only takes up 9 in mine, but your muffins may be a different size than mine.  I've also heard of popover pans, but mine aren't that specialized.  They do it all.  Muffins, cupcakes, popovers, eggs, whatever.  Anyway--only grease the cups you need.
• Crack the eggs into a medium bowl and beat them a little.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix to combine.  The batter may be a little lumpy.  No worries.  Pour it into the greased cups, getting each one about 2/3 full.
• Put the rack in the lower third of a cold oven, stick in your popover pan, and set the temperature at 450F.  Bake 30 minutes without opening door.
• Remove from oven, and use a butter knife to flip them from the cups.

There's a bite mark because I couldn't wait until after I took the picture.

I've kept some of Mom's directions here (I like heating the oven once the popovers are in there, because it means it's ok to forget to preheat, and the popovers can be a late addition to the party, if needed), but I changed some and removed others (her writing recommended piercing them after 30 minutes of baking to let steam escape and returning them to the oven to dry for about 10 minutes.  I don't remember her ever doing that, and I haven't, either).

If you want to make "normal" popovers, the recipe I usually use has three differences from the one above:

1. No herbs and cheese.
2. Preheat the oven to 450F.  Put the greased pan in the oven for about 5 minutes.  This is conveniently the same amount of time it takes to make the batter.
3. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325F and bake another 10 to 15 minutes.

In either case, you're done when they look golden-brown and delicious.

minty, fresh

Remember last week's pork kheema? I served this as a side, despite what the cookbook recommended.

Minted rice with tomato and sprouted beans
2 T olive oil
6 green onions, very finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 C cooked, cooled Basmati rice*
2 ripe plum tomatoes, finely chopped
8 oz mixed sprouted beans (you might find these near sprouts and fresh herbs at your grocery.  They're usually a mix of bean and lentil sprouts)
small handful of mint leaves
salt and pepper to taste

• Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet/wok/frying pan.  Add the green onions and garlic, and stir-fry them for 2-3 minutes.
• Add the cooked rice and stir-fry on high heat 3-4 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and beans, stir well, and cook another 2-3 minutes, until everything is warm.
• stir in the mint and season to taste.  Eat it now.  It's really good.

*I somehow managed to make about twice as much rice as I needed for this, despite following the instructions very carefully.  I set the rest aside and used as a base for some shrimp creole a few days later, made entirely from stuff I had leftover from other dishes.  It was the best fridge-cleaning meal I've made in a long time.

kheema get it

In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I'm a little embarrassed by that title pun.

Each week, I pick an entree, and the Chief Taster picks an entree.  I'm willing to cook just about anything, but neither of us wants to choose dinner all the time.  This is the best system we've devised, and it really doesn't work that well.  Some weeks I'll have five or six great ideas and won't ask her for any.  Some weeks, she keeps putting off deciding, and I have to resort to a fallback position of lasagna, tuna casserole, or reuben soup.  I feel curiously unsatisfied with those first two options, not because I don't think they're tasty, but because I've made them both so often that I don't really need the recipe much anymore, and it feels like a cop-out.  I can't say anything negative about reuben soup.

Given her reticence to choose, I was intrigued when she pulled cookbooks one morning before she left for work.  She may not have known exactly what she wanted, but she had regional flavors in mind; she grabbed the Indian and Mediterranean cookbooks from the shelf.  She stuck to the first volume, and indicated two choices each for entree and vegetable dishes.  I wanted to try the Bengali-Style Mustard Fish, but I don't think fish make good leftovers, so we shelved that one for later.  I'd already made the Spinach, Red Pepper, and Chickpea Bhaji, and wanted to try something new, so our options were thus narrowed to Pork Kheema with Peas (below) and Minted Rice with Tomato and Sprouted Beans (next week. Maybe when I get ambitious, I'll start posting more often, but that time is not now).

It must have been a successful gambit, even though the kheema recipe recommended serving with flatbread or plain rice, because her reaction when she saw the food (and to a greater extent when she started eating it) was what I would expect if she came home and learned I'd bought her a dream home.  I am now even more convinced that my next long-from work should be the cookbook titled How To Please A Woman.

Pork Kheema with Peas

1 T sunflower oil (or vegetable oil.  Or canola.  Whatever's handy)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 t ground coriander
1 lb. ground pork
2.5 C fresh or frozen peas (the book says frozen peas are more nutritious.  I find them more handy)
3 T medium curry paste (I used hot, because the grocery didn't have medium)
3 T tomato puree (what the hell is that?  I used tomato sauce, and put the rest of the can in the fridge for later use in pasta sauce)
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 t raw sugar (I don't have raw sugar.  I used granulated.  I don't think it matters)
1 C boiling water
2 T plain yogurt
large handful chopped cilantro (the Chief Taster is rabid for cilantro, so I bought a 3/4 oz clamshell of it and used the whole thing)
salt

• heat the oil in a big skillet.  Add the jalapeno, garlic, coriander, and meat.  Stir-fry until meat is lightly browned.
• Add the peas, paste, puree, tomatoes, and sugar.  Stir and cook 3-4 minutes, then add the water.  Bring the whole mess to a boil, then cover it and reduce heat to let it simmer 8-10 minutes.
• Turn off the heat and stir in the yogurt, salt, and cilantro.

She got home while the skillet was covered, offered to stir the rice, and used the opportunity to sneak a peek at the pork.  Then she made various happy noises and professed her undying love, but I was chopping cilantro at the time, so she might have been talking to the greens.  My only beef with this pork is that the water never cooked out, leaving the dish a little soupy, and I wonder whether that weakened the flavor of the curry.  I might try it with less water, or none at all.  The tomatoes were pretty juicy, and that might be enough.