L ifestyles /C ulture
Green Curry Chicken
F O OD
KERI WHITE | JE FOOD COLUMNIST
WITH THE CHILL in the air
these days, I am craving hearty,
warming foods. Stews, soups,
roasts, casseroles.

Lately, I’ve branched out
from my typical palate into
some Thai flavors. This recipe
was simple, and the results
were quite good. Many super-
markets carry jarred curry
pastes, and these would all
work well in this recipe, but I
was fortunate enough to source
mine from Kalaya Market.

Like many restaurants these
days, Kalaya has had to retool.

The creative chef/owner Nok
Suntaroanon did so rather
nimbly, opening a Thai market
on Ninth Street to supplement
her acclaimed restaurant just a
block away.

The market houses a
rotating menu of Thai dishes,
along with the building blocks
for meals using Suntaroanon’s
handcrafted spice blends and
curry pastes, sauces, salads,
dumplings and other ingre-
dients. They also offer expert
advice on how to use the
ingredients, how to assemble
meals using their offerings and
simple recipes.

Curry paste can be used as
a rub, a marinade, the base for
a sauce or a way to add zing to
soup or stew. I have not tried
putting it over cereal or in coffee,
but give me time. A little goes a
long way, and it can be mixed
with oil, broth, coconut milk or
water to dilute the intensity.

In the recipe below, I used
the paste as both a marinade
and the base for the sauce.

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16 DECEMBER 24, 2020
GREEN CURRY CHICKEN
Serves 4-6
I kept this straightforward,
using just carrots and chicken in
the curry, but you could branch
out with other protein or vegeta-
bles. If you use fish, I would not
marinate it for longer than 30
minutes, and the cooking time
would be cut in half. This would
lend itself well to tofu, chickpeas
and/or a mélange of vegetables.

2 pounds boneless chicken
breasts or thighs, cut in
bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon green curry
paste (plus more if
needed) ½ teaspoon salt, plus more
to taste
2 tablespoons mild oil like
vegetable or canola, plus
more for sautéing
2 carrots, sliced in coins
1 can coconut milk
1 cup water or broth
Juice of 1 lime
Chopped fresh cilantro for
serving Shop your groceries,
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Strictly Kosher
The curry delivered plenty
of complexity and flavor, so
I kept the sides pretty simple
— brown basmati rice and
sautéed broccoli/cauliflower.

There is a lot going on flavor-
wise in this meal, and the curry
is quite filling, so we skipped
dessert. But if you have a
hankering for something sweet,
I suggest keeping it simple:
Fruit sorbet, fresh mango or
pineapple, dark chocolates,
sponge cake or spiced cookies
would complete this meal nicely
without being overly heavy.

Place the chicken, curry
paste and 2 tablespoons of oil
in a sealable container. Mix to
coat and refrigerate for at least
2 hours.

In a pan with a lid, heat
a light coating of oil and add
the chicken with the marinade.

Add the salt and carrots, and
sauté until the chicken is seared.

Add the coconut milk and
JEWISH EXPONENT
Thai dinner
water, bring it to a boil, lower
the heat, cover and simmer
for 1 hour until the chicken is
done and tender.

Taste for seasoning, then
add the juice of the lime, salt
and a bit more curry paste,
if desired. Serve over rice or
Thai noodles topped with fresh
cilantro. SAUTÉED BROCCOLI AND
CAULIFLOWER Serves 4
I loved this color combo — I had
purple cauliflower, which looked
beautiful on the plate with the
bright green broccoli. Sautéing
this with garlic and ginger added
just enough to keep the vegeta-
bles interesting and in the theme
of the meal without overpow-
ering the curry.

If you don’t have this combo,
a whole head of either one works
fine. And if you don’t love this
vegetable choice, you can use
this recipe with whatever you
Photo by Keri White
like — just be sure to adjust
the cooking time depending
on the size and hardiness of
the vegetable. Sweet potatoes,
turnips, parsnips or collards
will take a while, but string
beans and spinach are quick.

If you have leftovers, toss
these in a green salad for lunch
or dinner tomorrow and spritz
it with some lime, salt, pepper
and oil.

½ head broccoli, cut in
florets ½ head purple cauliflower,
cut in florets
1-inch piece ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon canola oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Heat the oil with salt, garlic
and ginger over medium-high
heat in a large skillet. Stir until
fragrant, about 1 minute. Add
the vegetables and stir-fry until
cooked to crisp-tender, about 8
minutes. Serve immediately. l
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L ifestyles /C ulture
‘Mayor’ Makes Mundane Matters Meaningful
FI L M
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
THE FIRST TIME we
see Ramallah Mayor Musa
Hadid, subject of David Osit’s
new documentary “Mayor,”
he’s striding into the lobby of
Ramallah City Hall.

A waist-high decorative
snowman wearing a Santa
Claus outfit greets Hadid with
a black half-ramp of a smile.

There are potted plants. There
is a vending machine in the
lobby, which is presumably
restocked semi-regularly.

In Hadid’s first meeting
of the movie (which is largely
in Arabic, but subtitled in
English), a goofily boring
exploration of Ramallah’s
“city branding,” the slideshow
is shown with a Microsoft
operating system. Out front,
there is a fountain, with lights.

Ramallah City Hall and the
duties of the people who walk
its halls — trash collection,
street cleaning, filling potholes
and, yes, city branding —
are totally and completely
mundane. It is a place where
city council, led by Hadid,
administers municipal services
to a city of about 35,000 people.

In this mundanity, Osit finds
an utterly compelling story.

The movie is an interesting
departure from the usual conver-
sation about Israel and Palestine.

Even the most fervent partisans
could write the other side’s lines
at this point. The positions have
been stated and restated. With
the collected text of cable news
screaming matches, seder table
debates and poorly formatted
chain emails, you could teach
computers how to argue
about disengaging from Gaza
in 2004.

And when it comes to
movies, if you want to find the
one that adheres to your exact
view of what’s happened, it’s
out there, surely.

Meanwhile, people die,
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Mayor Musa Hadid watches a Christmas celebration.
become embittered and dig in
further. Generations of Israelis
feel besieged and generations of
Palestinians feel dispossessed.

But while the fates of Israelis
and Palestinians are played
out in the halls of power, in
Washington, in Jerusalem,
someone has to make sure that
in Ramallah, the Christmas
tree lighting ceremony is
properly sequenced (national
anthem, then moment of
silence). Someone has to be
in charge of deciding whether
“WeRamallah” is meant to
use the “R” as a stand-in for
the word “are.” After clashes
between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinians clear, someone has
to go around and put out the
literal fires.

In Ramallah, that someone
is Musa Hadid, a man
seemingly born with a hand
clasped to his forehead, when
it’s not holding an e-cigarette.

Hadid is the tired mayor at
the center of the movie, bearer of
a deeply lined face and a bushy,
graying mustache. It’s a good face,
one that Osit keeps his camera on
for much of the movie.

Hadid rubs his eyes and his
temples with regularity, smiles
at Prince William during his
official visit, looks upon soldiers
in the street with horror, and
at the naive German parlia-
mentary delegation with
indignation. When a teacher
demonstrates the crappy doors
on her classroom, he frowns.

“I can’t bear to see these
doors again next years,” Hadid
grumbles. Even when Prime Minister
Mohammad Shtayyeh is telling
cameras that he hopes Easter
will be celebrated in Jerusalem
next year, it’s Hadid’s face in the
foreground, seemingly occupied
with more immediate matters.

That shot encapsulates
the spirit of the movie. The
day-to-day is the focus, with
the exceptional nature of the
occupation as the contextu-
alizing backdrop. The most
moving sequences of “Mayor”
return to this reality repeat-
edly; one montage early on,
preceding a protest quelled
with tear gas and bullets, shows
American restaurants, social
media logos on a billboard,
hands raised in protest,
fences, trucks with Hebrew
lettering, the “WeRamallah”
sign, a Christmas tree and an
ominously smiling green light.

There are thorny questions
and a fraught history to every
image, but we don’t have time
to deal with that all right now,
because a city that uses the
currency of a country it is not
a part of has to be governed.

The meaning is built through
the images.

JEWISH EXPONENT
jarring experience for viewers
who are not used to hearing
serious newscasters describe
Yom Ha’atzmaut as being the
anniversary of “the Israeli
regime’s installment,” and
those who are accustomed to
seeing Israel Defense Forces
soldiers as more than far-off
blurs toting big guns.

If those viewers would like
to watch a movie that conforms
to their experience of reality,
they’re out there. But if you’re
just a little curious about one
Rammalah-ite’s experience of
living in Ramallah, it’s worth
Courtesy of Rosewater Pictures
seeing Mayor Hadid, the
morning after an IDF raid on
Osit’s movie is “the Ramallah, in disbelief that a
Ramallah-ite’s experience of school’s volleyball court could
living in Ramallah,” as he put be so poorly designed. l
it in an interview with The
New York Review of Books. jbernstein@jewishexponent.com;
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DECEMBER 24, 2020
17