Curried Chicken with Rice Colombo comes to us by way of a community cookbook published by the First Presbyterian Church of Enid, Oklahoma in the late 1920s. Originally published in the Kansas City Star, it provides an interesting window into perceptions of “exotic” cuisine in this area. Colombo presumably refers to the Sri Lankan port……
Ingredient: cooked basmati rice
Instant Pot Bombay Chicken (adapted from The Tastes of Home, 2004)
We have a good friend from Idaho who use to joke about a dish she grew up with that her mother called “Hong Kong Chicken”. In spite of the decidedly ‘ethnic’ name it was, in essence, the archetypal casserole: chicken pieces bathed in cream of mushroom soup and baked until tender. So why is it……
Polish Porcupines (Indiana, 1984, adapted)
Nearly every church cookbook I own from the 1960s – 1980s has some form of recipes for “porcupines”. They are usually little more than meatballs mixed with uncooked rice. As they cook the meat contracts and the rice expands to form “quills” on the surface of the meatball – hence the porcupine. Truth be told……
Fried Pork Belly Curry (Sri Lanka, adapted from The Complete Curry Cookbook, 1984)
One of the more interesting (and less intimidating) recipes in The Complete Curry Cookbook is the Fried Pork Curry. Pork may seem an unusual ingredient for a curry, given that many of the predominant religions in Asia forbid it. And while it is certainly off-limits for observant Hindus and Muslims, pork is quite common……