It was Palm Sunday yesterday, a day when most Christians go to church to remember Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the start of the Holy week. Most are even fasting, which is something I haven't thought of doing yet. While we were invited to attend an event yesterday, we unfortunately had to cancel. Nonetheless, we did have some finger licking - literally - food.
We - mostly me - started our day with some savory snacks for breakfast, with the compliments of my parents who gifted us a piece of pot pie (bottom right) - known as pastei in Suriname - and some other leftover snacks from an event. Those were quiche and what's known as barra (an Indian snack) in Suriname.
For lunch, we had decided on masala chicken and pumpkin, because of some roti's in the fridge and I had wanted to try my sardine dish with the flatbread for a while now. I've heard from some of my Indian acquaintances that it's a delicious combination.
The already chopped onions and garlic were put outside and only the pumpkin and chicken needed to be cut into pieces.
Usually peppers also need to be cut into smaller pieces, but @rarej had already made a pepper paste some time ago - which he'll probably write about someday - so that was one less step. The chicken had also gotten washed and salted.
We proceeded to burn cumin and masala in a pot for the pumpkin, after which we added the onions, garlic and tomatoes and made sure they blended well together before adding the pumpkin.
Next, water was gradually added to the pumpkin and brought to a simmer on medium to low heat and we made sure to mash the ingredients gradually.
For the chicken, we inserted the garlic first to brown a little and then added masala, cumin, coriander and turmeric (also known as curcuma) and remembered to put in the pepper paste with the onion and tomatoes.
We then continued with somewhat of the same steps as with the pumpkin, except for the mashing part: added the chicken, bouillon cubes to taste and gradually some water to let it simmer.
And that's the finger licking (pun intended) food we sustained ourselves ourselves with. What did you have on that blessed Palm Sunday and do you see the sardines in the picture below?
P.S.: The combination is delicious!