Pour Some Fancy Champagne in Your Curry Tonight

Despite the fact that we use the name interchangeably with the most bastardized corner-store sparkling white wines imaginable, Champagne is still the gift that keeps on giving. Between it's dramatic opening process and festive carbonation, it is truly the drink of celebration. Celebrate a wedding, a birthday, a new year, a tonsillectomy, the clear results from an STD screening. There are so many occasions for a Champagne toast!

Bet you could think of a reason tonight. Had a decent day at work? Champagne. Had a lousy day at work and need a pick-me-up? Champagne. Got a new Tinder match? Champagne. So why not cook with some bubbly and then chug the rest of the bottle with your meal? Sounds like a stellar Monday, if you ask us.

On Fat Prince, Andy Milonakis straddles the social and culinary barriers between fine dining and low-brow eats. Think foie gras and Cheetos, Shake 'n' Bake and wagyu, uni and instant noodles … you get the idea. So when he teams up with the Mahendro brothers of LA's Badmaash—creators of Chicken Tikka Poutine and other wonderfully inventive Indian fare—you can rest assured that you're not going to be eating any ordinary curry.

Start with a batch of microwave rice… spiced with toasted Ceylon cinnamon bark, cumin, and bay leaves. Then on to the curry itself. Think of this as the perfect opportunity to use up those idle jars of chili powder and saffron you have left over from your last legit cooking project seven months ago.

Hobble down to your local mediocre supermarket and grab a shrimp cocktail, sauce packet and all. Fresh tomatoes, garlic, ginger, serrano peppers, onion, and cilantro pack this dish full of big flavor. Magnum-sized flavor, you might say.

And hey, if you've got the dough for Cristal, let it flow. But that $9 sparkling wine from the spot on the block will do just fine in its place.

Just because a microwave got some play in the process doesn't mean that you didn't cook up one high-class meal. And saber the bottle of bubbly while you're at it.