Tonight I made shish. That’s our name for marinated and grilled meat cubes: shish kebab without the actual kebab stuck through it. Easier to cook evenly that way. Usually I use beef, but any meat would do. Tonight we had mystery meat.
It didn’t start out that way; it started out as (good red) beef. Then I added some oil and (red) wine and (red) pepper and (black) pepper and (colorless) salt and (very deep purple) sumac and a pinch of (red) curry powder. So why, with all these reddish ingredients, did the dish come out green? The only greenish ingredient at all was the olive oil, and frankly we get the cheaper stuff, so this wasn’t the deep blue-green of artisanal first pressings, but simply a modest yellow that adopts the color of whatever is dissolved into it. Otherwise, no green component to the shish at all.
My theory is a chemical reaction. Beef is red because of the heme, which is red because of the ferrous (or is it ferric?) iron in it. I’m guessing that something in the sumac or curry was highly reactive, and turned the iron ferric (or is it ferrous?). I’m sticking to this theory because the alternatives—all the alternatives—are too horrid to contemplate.
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