Our favorite culinary genius and highly intelligent psychopath is back. The new season of Hannibal has premiered, delivering disturbingly intriguing situations and a wealth of culinary inspiration in equal measure; also, the beginning of the new season has attracted a wave of visitors to Saturn Satori looking for all things related to Hannnibal's cooking and Hannibal-esque recipes. And who am I to disappoint you, guys? I have something special to share with you today.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I know I am not the only one that has been inspired to up their culinary game after watching the wonders serves in Hannibal's dining room, which surprise episode after episode as much as the brilliant plot developments. All over the world, fans of Hannibal find themselves looking at the dishes of the show, looking for recipes and doing their best to exercise their culinary skills in a creative way, inspired by our sophisticated cannibal.
Turning an ordinary dinner into a truly delightful experience is something that can be easily done, one just needs a little bit of imagination and a playful spirit. Lisa, the charming author and culinary adventurer behind Feed You With A Kiss, one of my favorite food blog finds, understands this perfectly.
In the spirit of celebrating the joy of cooking while adding an extra-layer of enjoyment to the weekly release of each new episode of Hannibal, she came up with the idea of organising what is now known as The Fannibal Dinner Party. What is it about? Let Lisa herself explain:
Since the second season of NBC’s Hannibal plays on Friday nights, let’s exercise our wonderful fan community and have a global online dinner party each Friday night to celebrate the new episodes.
Feel free to submit (through tumblr or email [email protected]) the dishes you’ve cooked, consumed, or eaten together with fellow fannibals! They can be in image, text, or recipe form - get creative! Let’s keep each other company on and make our Friday nights inside FUN!
Needless to say, this sounded like my idea of fun! So I decided to take part in it and get into the spirit of the series.
Each week, our Fannibal Dinner host Lisa proposes a challenge that can serve as a guideline to give us cooking fans ideas on what to make for the special occasion. This time, for episode number 3, the challenge was a recipe that you have seen on the show. So much to choose from!
However, many of the best recipes were heavily reliant on some spectacular piece of meat, and as a pescatarian, that was a bit of a problem for me. But then, I remembered about a dish that caught my attention in the previous season, since for me it was a surprise outside what I would expect from our european cuisine-loving Hannibal: a south-Indian curry made of sheep gut, called Kudal.
The Kudal curry as served by Hannibal. Photo from Janice Poon's (the show's food stylist) Blog.
Now, I knew that I'd definitely not use sheep gut to make the curry - I mean, not even Janice Poon, the actual food artist for the show went for it! She recreated all that slightly icky-looking intestine goodness using a mix of cleverly arranged pieces of shredded pasta. Now, even though as a Mexican I am not squeamish when it comes to eating animal guts, my current dietary choices prevent me from doing so, and to be honest, I have never been a big fan of pasta either. I needed a suitable vegetarian replacement but I also wanted something that looked slightly freaky, so I decided to go for seitan:
I still remember Guitar Güero's reaction when I first introduced him to seitan: "What the hell is this?"
And this is what it looks like when you open it... yummy, I know.
So, with my fake intestines in hand and a cupboard full of Indian spices, I got cooking. Of course my goal was not to make an authentic Kudal (that possibility vanished when I decided to go for the seitan), so I aimed to produce a tasty indian curry loosely resembling the original dish shown in the series.
My curry ended up being a merging of two recipes. I used the ingredients listed in the Panthe Kow Swey recipe provided in Janice's blog post for Episode 10: Roti (plus additional anise seeds and coriander powder), and the cooking method described in this recipe for real, traditional Aaatu Kudal Kulambu.
I wanted something to go with the curry dish as a small entry, and after stumbling upon a picture of some egg-shaped gelatine treats with embedded pieces of fruit and vegetables -lovingly baptised as Fabergé Eggs- I decided to give them a try. I used plain gelatine that I sweetened with honey, and decorated one with berries and the other with sliced almonds and amaranth seeds.
To shape them, you will need and empty, pierced eggshell that will serve as a mold.
I decided to very appropriately place my Fabergé eggs in a nest of soy bean sprouts and scallions.
While I do have to admit that the so-called Fabergé Eggs looked better than they tasted, that was not the case with the curry, which, if I might say so myself, turned out very delicious. I think the final 15-20 minutes of slow simmer to let the flavours marry really makes the difference.
So, this was the final result:
Fruit-incrusted gelatine eggs, followed by a curry garnished with fresh spinach leaves, cherry tomatoes, fresh chopped bell peppers and basmati rice topped with some crispy purple potato slices.
Does it look Hannibal-esque enough? You be the judge!
Unfortunately, Guitar Güero was out of town so he could not take part on this little culinary adventure. However, Hannibal always makes an event out of each dinner experience, even if he dines alone, so I had to follow his example!
Ready to dine with Dr. Lecter tonight!
Would you like to take part in the Fannibal Dinner Party? You should! It is a fun and very satisfying experience, I can assure you! You don't have to make anything complicated, it can be as simple or as elaborate as you fancy, the point is to share and dine together while we enjoy the show.
If you would like to know more and join the party, you can visit the official Fannibal Dinner Party Blog, where you can find all about the weekly challenges, cool photos of the creations made by of the participants, and also lost of resources and interesting ideas to set your inner Hannibalicious chef in motion!
We hope to have you for dinner next week... *wink*
Cheers!
