Winning Reader’s Recipe in 2011 Observer Food Monthly Annual Awards is a Winner!

My mother Ruth Schachter (nee Nisse), age 88, is one live-wire.

She reminds me (and oth­ers) of the cute lit­tle old lady in the orig­i­nal “Ladykillers” star­ring Alec Guin­ness and a young, dash­ing Peter Sell­ers. White-haired and blue-eyed, that sweet, seem­ingly inno­cent, slightly scatter-brained octo­ge­nar­ian is far more savvy than she looks. ‘Nuff said.

Mum lives in Prim­rose Hill between Hamp­stead and Cam­den Town in north-west Lon­don (U.K., of course) and is a busy bee.

A for­mer high-school biol­ogy teacher, she vol­un­teers at the local pri­mary school help­ing young ‘uns learn to read. She attends a group of “egg-head” (my words, not hers) seniors who take turns giv­ing dis­ser­ta­tions to each other on top­ics relat­ing to his­tory, pol­i­tics etc. An exam­ple: my mother’s pre­sen­ta­tion on the Drey­fus case.

She takes classes in Ital­ian once a week, some­thing she’s been doing for about 20 years together with her friend of 50+ years, Angie. When asked recently by me if she is flu­ent in that lan­guage by now, her response came with a shy smile: “Well yes dear, but I enjoy it — and we always go for a nice lunch after­wards.” Lunch that usu­ally includes a glass or two of wine.

Inter­spersed with all this is the occa­sional coach­ing she gives assorted young peo­ple in Ger­man and Russ­ian, just two of the other five lan­guages she reads, writes and speaks fluently.

A sci­en­tist with a master’s degree, she once explained cloning to my son-in-law Nathaniel Richman.

And wouldn’t you know it? My dear mum is also a fan­tas­tic cook, one of the rea­sons, I’m sure, that I became a food writer/broadcaster who has a pas­sion for all things culinary.

So nat­u­rally, my mother and I share recipes, dis­cuss food and enjoy eat­ing out on my annual vis­its to the U.K.

In between, we have a tra­di­tion that I trea­sure. Even though I could likely read it elec­tron­i­cally, mum sends me the Observer Food Monthly by snail mail every time it appears.

Read­ing it is some­thing I rel­ish for both its edu­ca­tional and enter­tain­ment value. The OFM’s food writer-in-cheif Nigel Slater is one of my heroes. (If you haven’t read his beau­ti­ful mem­oir “Toast,” please do.) Pho­tog­ra­phy in this glossy, info-packed mag is dar­ing, inno­v­a­tive and gor­geous. The sto­ries and columns are clever beyond belief. And there’s always a recipe or two that I make, usu­ally with great success.

This year’s Octo­ber issue was the annual round-up of awards for chefs, restau­rants and inno­va­tion in food. As usual, it’s a keeper. As usual, the win­ner in the reader’s recipe cat­e­gory is superb. Here it is:

Chicken Pis­ta­chio Curry

This recipe from Maria Kuehn pro­duces a del­i­cate, delec­table dish great served with mashed pota­toes or, more tra­di­tion­ally, bas­mati rice. I stream­lined and, in my opin­ion, improved the orig­i­nal by tweak­ing it slightly. To peel toma­toes, drop into boil­ing water briefly until skin loosens. The combo of chicken, pis­ta­chios, chiles, toma­toes and cream is divine. Yer welcome!

¹⁄₄ cup shelled pis­ta­chios
2 or 3 small fresh chiles (bird’s eye, Thai), seeded, chopped
2 tbsp veg­etable oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 cloves gar­lic, chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh gin­ger root
¹⁄₂ tsp turmeric
1 tsp fen­nel seeds
4 toma­toes, peeled, seeded, finely chopped
1 ¹⁄₄ cups chicken stock
3 tbsp whip­ping (35%) cream
¹⁄₂ tsp ground car­damom
8 chicken thighs, skinned, boned and cut in chunks
Salt to taste
Juice of half a lemon
¹⁄₂ tsp garam masala
Half a bunch fresh corian­der, chopped

Pour 1 cup of water into small saucepan; add pis­ta­chios. Bring to boil; boil 6 min­utes. Drain. Rub to remove any skin. Add to mor­tar with chiles; pound with pes­tle until mix­ture forms paste.

In large skil­let or saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion; cook for 2 or 3 min­utes. Add gar­lic, gin­ger, turmeric and fen­nel seeds; cook about 3 min­utes. Add pis­ta­chio mix­ture; cook about 2 min­utes. Add toma­toes, stock, cream, car­damom and chicken; reduce heat to low and sim­mer 16 to 18 min­utes. Add salt, lemon juice and garam masala. Trans­fer to warmed plat­ter or large bowl; sprin­kle with corian­der.
Serve with mashed potaa­toes or bas­mati rice.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.