Naan bread

Yesterday was our monthly girls’ get together and the host was cooking curry, so I offered to bring naan bread.  I’ve already blogged about the success I’d had making the super simple chapatti so this was a progression of the challenge.  With a couple of packets of supermarket naan in the fridge as a back up and not a lot of time, but a packet of Nigella seeds in the cupboard and a friend for culinary support, I set to and gave them a go.

A recipe search pulled up a Paul Hollywood version in his book 100 Great Breads, and online several other versions all with slight variations to the same plain naans, either in ingredients or cooking methods.  What I made was a hybrid of them all:

Mix 500g of strong flour (many of the recipes used plain but this is what I went for) with 1.5 tsp salt, 11g quick action yeast, 1/2 tsp nigella (black onion) seeds, 2 tblsp natural yogurt and approximately 300ml water.  Kneed in a machine for approx. 5 mins until smooth.  Divide into 3 if you want large naans or 9 for more “individual, girly size”.  Place on a baking sheet, cover & leave to prove until doubled in size.

Roll into a rough triangular, naan bread shape and cook.

Cook… this was the tricky bit.  Not having a tandoori oven to hand, I needed to use something rather more domestic.  Paul H uses a greased frying pan and kinda shallow fries them.  Other recipes suggested greased baking sheets and cooking in the oven and another throwing them into a hot wok.  This was the option I went for.  I heated the wok until smoking hot, banged on the extractor to full power and threw a rolled out naan onto the side, popped the lid on (for some steamy moisture) and waited….  for about 20 seconds until the smell of carbonisation started to waft through the kitchen!  The wok was far to hot and rather than sit in a curved fashion on the side of the pan, the bread had straightened itself out, resulting in burnt edges that were in contact with the pan and an uncooked middle.  Not what I was after.

So plan B.  I’m lucky to have a solid top section to my hob, which has the wok burner in the middle, so as the plate was already hot, I threw the next bread onto the flat plate.  The first one was a little too hot and burnt slightly but not too much that it was inedible.  I reduced the heat a little and the following naans bubbled and puffed beautifully with just the right amount of charring.

The taste was fab, with the nigella seeds giving the perfect authentic flavour.  Paul H had used a mix of cumin & caraway, which I’m sure would be nice, but nigella seeds are pretty easy to come by, especially online.  Next time I really want to have a go out our house favourite, the peshwari; I just need to work out the best way to get the filling to stay inside!

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Slow Cooking

A nice quiet winter’s weekend called for some gentle slow cooking and some comforting dinners.  Saturday night was curry night so I gave the Baker Brother’s lamb curry a go.  Using diced lamb shoulder, the curry is slowly cooked for 2 hours, and what started as a very un-promising piece of meat turned into the most tender, melt in the mouth dish.  Unfortunately the sauce was not the most exciting although mild enough for the boys to enjoy.  I will be on the lookout for an alternative recipe using lamb but with a more exciting sauce.

  

What made the meal special was my first attempt at cooking chapattis.  They were amazing!  Using just 250g wholemeal flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 170ml tepid water the kneaded dough was split into 8 pieces, rolled to about 15cm in diameter then given 30 seconds each side on my solid top on the stove with a final flash each side on the naked gas flame.  As you can see, they puffed up beautifully and were wonderfully soft, making the prefect scoop for a mouthful of curry.  So simple and so effective – I will definitely be making these again.

It was only 15 minutes after we finished dinner on Saturday night that I had to get up and put on Sunday’s dinner to cook! This time Nigella’s Slow-Roasted Aromatic Shoulder of Pork from Nigella Bites (based on a River Cafe recipe).  She suggests a 9.5kg joint to serve 12 people whilst ours was only 1.5kg for 2 adults and 2 children.  No doubt a larger joint would have been great if feeding a crowd and with 23 hours of cooking they certainly shrink down considerably but our small piece was perfectly tender and with plenty of leftovers.  After an initial and a final blast at maximum temperature (to give you great crackling), the meat is cooked at 120c for 23 hours.

Unfortunately my oven wasn’t quite up to speed with my plans and we were woken on Sunday morning by our youngest informing us that “the dinner is cooked as the oven is bleeping”!  It seems that it has an automatic turn off setting if left running for an “abnormal time”.  I’m not entirely clear when it switched off but I obviously need to work out a solution before I cook this again.

And I will be, as this is the first successful roast pork that I have cooked.  The crackling was perfect, the meat so tender and served with some chilli and tomato jam it tasted sublime!

To finish off our slow food session, tonight we had one of my favourite suppers.  Roasted squash risotto with grilled pancetta.  The combination of the salty, crisp bacon with the sweet, smooth pumpkin is just one of the best things you can put on your fork and makes me smile every time I eat it.

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Five Today

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so I’m in blog catch up mode.  Today is the 1st February which means we are no longer in meat free January and very soon I am of to the butchers to buy a couple of nice rib eyes!

It’s been an interesting month and I have enjoyed trying lots of new dishes and eating more fish and more vegetables.  I wouldn’t even say I’ve missed eating meat.  What I have missed is the extra variety that cooking meat allows, and for example, being able to add just a bit of bacon to a  dish to give it that extra something.  Gotta say though that I am looking forward to dinner tonight and to a roast on Sunday.  Sunday just isn’t the same without meat!

Here’s a selection of 5 of the best from the past couple of weeks:

Smoked Mackerel Tostadas

From Thomasina Mier’s Mexican Food Made Simple, these were definitely our dish of the month!  They are  meant to be made as small snacks using 4cm rounds cut from tortillas but as a supper dish, I chose to make them large!

Take one corn tortilla per person and brush both sides with ground nut oil.  Place on a tray & bake for 10 minutes at 180c. Then prepare your layers of topping: The bottom layer is a tablespoon of chipotle mayonnaise (basically mayo with finely chopped chipotles added).  The next layer is finely shredded cos or baby gem lettuce; then 1 smoked mackerel fillet flaked and mixed with 2 tablespoons of tomato salsa.  Finally top with sliced avocado and a squeeze of lime juice (you can also add deep fried shallots, which I couldn’t be bothered with but will try next time).

The result – crispy, soft, crunchy, creamy; fiery & cooling.  A complete mouthful of different sensations all of which left me wanting more (right now in fact!).

Roasted Roots frittata

based on a recipe from HFW’s Veg Every Day, I oven roasted a couple of small beetroot, half a red onion, some butternut squash and a medium potato tossed in olive oil, a chopped garlic clove and salt & pepper.  When they were soft after about 40 minutes, I added 6 beaten eggs, some chopped parsley and more seasoning.  It went back in a medium oven for about 15 minutes and we ate it with some rather fab vine ripened tomato & chipotle salsa from Sainsbury’s.

Baked Mushrooms with Couscous

I had some large mushrooms in the fridge and some flavoured butter in the freezer so brought the two together in the oven for a delicious supper.  The butter is an old favourite Jamie Oliver idea and is great to have on hand to pep up steak, cabbage or of course, mushrooms!  I make up half a pack of butter at a time:  soften the butter and mix with 1 crushed clove garlic, a pinch of dried chilli, chopped leaves from a sprig of rosemary and 3 chopped anchovy fillets.  Roll into a log and wrap well in clingfilm.  This will keep in the freezer for 6 months and you can cut slices as you need them with a sharp knife.

The couscous was tossed with half a red onion, finely chopped and lightly sautéed plus some pine kernels (I love the fact you can now but them ready toasted!), lemon juice, olive oil, parsley & sultanas.  A bowl of rocket salad simply dressed with olive oil finished the meal off perfectly.

THAI PUMPKIN CURRY

From an old Sainsbury’s magazine.

 

MUSHROOM & SQUASH SALAD

From HFW’s Veg Every Day.  Some cubed squash was oven roasted and tossed with sautéed mushrooms, crumbled blue cheese, balsamic dressing and rocket.  It was nice but a bit too rich for me.

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Digging for victory

Over the holidays I ordered some apple trees; some for home and a couple for the allotment.  As they could turn up any day, I took advantage of the ok weather and headed off to our plot first thing and began to clear the wasteland at the back of the beds where they will be planted.  Last summer this patch was a jungle of brambles and nettles and a completely wasted space.  Fortunately all of this had died back and all that was left was a green carpet of grass.  When I say carpet, i mean this quite literally as over the years we have attempted to keep the weeds at bay by covering this area with any that we have been able to get hold of.  The result was that with a bit of effort, I was able to pull back the carpet and reveal (what looked like) weed free soil underneath.

Unfortunately it was not quite as simple as this as there were still quite a few patches where the roots had dug down or run under the carpet and boy are bramble roots stubborn!  Still, after all the recent rain the ground was nice & soft, in fact a complete bog in some areas, and I managed to clear a good sized patch so with one more good go at it, things should be sufficiently clear to get the trees straight in when they arrive.

Before heading home, I staked up the broccoli and kale, had a quick clear up into the compost bin, picked some kale for dinner and pulled a couple of leeks.  Back home at midday I remembered the next job on the list – THE REMOVAL OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE!  Fortunately we have a council collection point for trees just up the road, but this is the first time I have had the pleasure of dragging the green beast up there.  With a trail of needles ready to guide me home and a couple of dozen sticking into my foot the tree is now no longer, it is deceased, it is an ex-tree!  I have about 3 kilos of needles swept up from the floor to take down to compost and a pile of decorations to put away but the tree has gone – phew

Before I left for the allotment, I got out one of my Christmas Presents – 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood (aka The Silver Fox from the Great British Bake Off), and made a Pain de Campagne.  This used a mix of 400g strong white flour to 100g rye flour.  Remembering his advice from the program  to follow the recipe EXACTLY and that the wetter the better, I was surprised at how dry this dough was!  Still, after a bit of kneading it came together fine and was left to rise while I went & did my hard labour.  After a final shaping and slashing and another hour’s proving it was baked for 30 minutes and came out just in time for a spot of late lunch with some very ripe brie and home made yellow courgette & tomato chutney.

For our meat free supper we went hard core and had a surprisingly tasty Kale, Mushroom & Chickpea Curry from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook (with a few tweaks).

Sautee a small onion & a large clove of garlic in a little oil until soft, then add 1/2 tsp of garam masala, some grated ginger, 1 finely chopped green chilli (with as many seeds as you can stand the heat of), salt & pepper.  Stir well, add a can of drained chickpeas, 1/2 can coconut milk, 200g quartered chestnut mushrooms, juice of half a lime and a bruised lemon grass stick (although I didn’t have one and it tasted fine without!) .  Simmer for 30 mins.  Meanwhile put a large pan of water on to boil for some rice and steam the shredded greens from 7 or 8 kale leaves for about 5 mins (i used a mixture of Redbor & Cavalo Nero from the allotment).  The water will turn a beautiful pale blue which fortunately did not permeate into the rice!  While the rice is cooking, add the leaves to the chickpea mixture along with a tablespoon each of fish sauce and soy sauce.  Serve the curry on a bed of rice and scatter with chopped coriander.

So tasty and very satisfying on a cold evening.  I would happily eat this in place of a meat curry any night (but I’m not sure that P would agree!).

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Indian Book night

Last night was book club and we have just read White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (I loved it, the others weren’t so keen!).  It was my turn to host so, as we try to do a meal connected to the book we have just read, the obvious choice was curry.  Now I’m no curry expert and haven’t got a curry recipe book so this wasn’t the easiest menu but I was keen to have a go.  I also had a very busy day and my Sainsbury’s shop wasn’t due until 4pm at the earliest so I needed to keep things relatively simple. (Things nearly went very wrong when they did arrive without any ginger, but thanks to a friend the day was saved!)

I was keen to make butter chicken as a friend made it in the slow cooker a week ago and it sounded lovely.  I had also cooked it many years ago and remember it being very fiddly but wondered how much of that was down to my inexperience at the time.  So a bit of Googling later and I found a recipe for Butter Chicken from Gordon Ramsay, a Vegetable Jalfrezi from Jamie Oliver and a simple recipe for Pilau Rice (which I have attempted only occasionally in the past).

Starters were kept simple with bought popadoms, Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference onion bhajis (very nice and very “home made” looking) with some home made mango chutney from the larder.  Pudding was  Lemon, Banana & Cardamom ice Cream which I had made before and is one of the nicest ice creams I have made.

These were the recipes I used:

Gordon Ramsay’s butter chicken

 

Serves 4

Ingredients

800g boneless and skinless chicken thighs (I used breast), cut into 3-4cm pieces

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely crushed

2cm ginger, peeled and finely grated

½ tsp fine sea salt

½ tsp hot chilli powder

1½ tsp lemon juice

75ml natural yoghurt

½ tsp garam masala

½ tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cumin

1-2 tbsp vegetable oil, for brushing

Sauce

1½ tbsp ghee or melted unsalted butter

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely crushed

2cm ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 cardamom pod, seeds lightly crushed

2 cloves 1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp hot chilli powder, or to taste

275ml tomato purée

1 tbsp lemon juice

40g unsalted butter

100ml double cream

1 tbsp chopped coriander, to garnish

Method

Place the chicken in a bowl with the garlic, ginger, salt, chilli powder and lemon juice. Mix, cover with cling film and chill for 30 minutes. Mix together the yoghurt, garam masala, turmeric and cumin and add to the chicken, making sure that each piece is well coated with the mixture. Cover again and chill for 3-4 hours.

Preheat the oven to 160C. Put the marinated chicken pieces on a grill rack set on a baking tray and cook for 12 minutes. Brush the chicken pieces with a little oil and turn them over. Bake for another 12 minutes, until just cooked through.

For the sauce, heat the ghee or butter in a pan and add the garlic and ginger. Fry for a minute or so, then add the cardamom, cloves, coriander, garam masala, turmeric and chilli powder. Stir well and fry for 1-2 minutes, until they give off a lovely aroma.

Stir in the tomato pure and lemon juice and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the chicken pieces to the sauce and stir well to coat. Finally, add the butter and cream and stir continuously until the butter has melted and the sauce is smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Transfer to a warm bowl and serve hot, garnished with chopped coriander.

 

I doubled the recipe for 10 ladies and had none left over!  It was very tasty, although the chicken could have been a little more tender.

 

Jamie Oliver’s Vegetable Jalfrezi

 

Serves 8
Ingredients

1 medium onion
• 1 fresh red chilli
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic
• a small bunch of fresh coriander
• 2 red peppers
• 1 cauliflower
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 1 small butternut squash
• 1 x 400g tin of chickpeas
• groundnut or vegetable oil
• a knob of butter
• ½ a 283g jar of Patak’s jalfrezi curry paste
• 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
• 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 lemons
• 200g natural yoghurt

 

To prepare your curry
• Peel, halve and roughly chop your onion
• Finely slice the chilli
• Peel and finely slice the ginger and garlic
• Pick the coriander leaves and finely chop the stalks
• Halve, deseed and roughly chop the peppers
• Break the green leaves off the cauliflower and discard
• Break the cauliflower into florets and roughly chop the stem
• Quarter the tomatoes
• Carefully halve the butternut squash, then scoop out the seeds with a spoon and discard
• Slice the squash into inch-size wedges, leaving the peel on but removing any thick skin, then roughly chop into smaller pieces
• Drain the chickpeas
To cook your curry
• Put a large casserole-type pan on a medium to high heat and add a couple of lugs of oil and the butter
• Add the onions, chilli, ginger, garlic and coriander stalks and cook for 10 minutes, until softened and golden
• Add the peppers, butternut squash, drained chickpeas and jalfrezi curry paste
• Stir well to coat everything with the paste
• Add the cauliflower, the fresh and tinned tomatoes and the vinegar
• Fill 1 empty tin with water, pour into the pan and stir again
• Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 45 minutes with the lid on
• Check the curry after 30 minutes and, if it still looks too liquid, leave the lid off for the rest of the cooking time
• When the veg are tender, taste and add salt and pepper – please season carefully – and a squeeze of lemon juice

• Garnish with the yogurt & coriander.

 

 

Pilau Rice

Serves 6

Ingredients

300g Basmati Rice
4 – 5 cloves
1 small Cinnamon Stick
1 – 2 bay leaves
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
1 tsp salt 
60g Butter / Ghee
4 – 5 Green Cardamom pods
1 litre water – approximately
1 medium sliced onion

1 tsp turmeric

Method

In a pan melt butter or ghee, add cumin, cloves, bay leaf, cinnamon and green cardamom.  When they crackle add the sliced onion and sauté until the onion is a little coloured.  Add the washed and drained rice and sauté for two minutes taking care that the rice does not break.  Now add the water, turmeric and salt and cook with a tight lid on top for 20 – 25 minutes on low heat, undisturbed.

 

Now, I don’t know how authentic these dishes are (well, obviously the jalfrezi from a jar would make curry aficionados quake) but frankly I don’t care!  They ticked the boxes for flavour and ease of cooking and most of us went up for seconds!

 

I love making homemade ice cream and wish I did it more often.  I’m lucky to have a counter top maker (ie one which doesn’t take up half your freezer!) so really there should be no excuse.  I can’t recommend this recipe enough, especially after a curry which as we all know from the dearth of desserts at our local curry house is a tricky job!  It comes from an old Sainsbury’s Magazine, but I couldn’t tell you who the author.  It is great because you use whole eggs rather than just yolks.

 

Banana, Lemon & Cardamom Ice Cream

 

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

 4 large ripe bananas

finely grated zest & juice of 2 lemons

5 cardamom pods

3 large eggs

1/2 tsp salt

175g demerara or golden caster sugar

75ml water

275ml whipping cream

Remove the cardamom seeds from the pods and crush them finely.  Put the eggs, salt & cardamom in a bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until frothy.  Gently stir sugar & water in a saucepan over a low heat until dissolved then boil fiercely without boiling for 3 minutes (watch & time carefully to avoid burning).  Pour the hot syrup onto the eggs in a thin stream, whisking until the mixture thickens.  leave on one side to cool.  I need to do some research on this as my mixture did NOT thicken after whisking for about 10 minutes!

Mash the bananas with the grated lemon zest & juice to a puree.  Stir in the cooled egg mixture.  Whisk the cream until thick but not stiff and fold into the mixture.  Churn in an ice cream maker for 15 minutes then freeze.

The lack of thickening did not seem to make any difference as once combined with the cream & bananas the unfrozen mixture came together as a smooth thick cream,  but I would be intrigued to know what difference this would have made. 

I chose the next book which is based in Arles, Provence so am looking forward to next month’s meal which I won’t be cooking!

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June Suppers

Chicken Fricasse

Tuna Stir Fry

Greek Salad

Thai Green Chicken Curry

Pasta with Peas, Ham & Lettuce

Asparagus Omelette – Sarah Raven p101

Salmon with Pea Puree

Chorizo with Potatoes – Sarah Raven p125

Paella

Prawn & Asparagus Salad

 

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January Suppers

Minestrone Soup

Antonio Carluccio’s Passion for Pasta p38

from this: to this:

 

 

Chicken Pies

Sauteed chicken, onion, mushroom & bacon, in double cream and whholegrain mustard topped with a puff pastry lid and baked in a hot oven for 20 minutes.

 

 

Cous Cous Squash and Goat’s Cheese Salad – like Jan scans p37

The recipe used pearl barley but I went for cous cous.  I also omitted the french beans and roasted a sliced fennel bulb in with the squash.  It made a really tasty winter salad – definitely one to repeat.

 

Vegetable & cashew stir fry – a version of Jan scans p45

Honey & Sesame Chicken with roasted squash – Jan scans 44

Leek Pappardelle – Jamie at Home p333

Roast Chicken followed by Golden Pear Pudding – January scans p4

Thai red chicken curry

 

 

 

 

 

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Smashing Pumpkins

 

It was rather a miserable day today and since M and I had nothing on I decided to spend some of it in the kitchen.  Having tasted S’s fantastic pumpkin soup on Halloween, I was inspired to have a go myself.

 

I chose to use one of the Crown Prince pumpkins rather than a Red Kuri, for no better reason than it had a bit of damage so seemed less likely to keep.  This really is one of the best pumpkins for cooking with; the flesh is beautifully dense with really very few seeds as you can see.  The one problem with this is in the preparation and I have in the past broken my large Global chopper trying to cut through a pumpkin.  You really do have to give it some power to split the beast apart and even then, the flesh is so dense that cutting off smaller pieces is very difficult.  However with some careful chopping i managed to split it down and eventually peel it.  I have made pumpkin soup in the past following a Jamie Oliver recipe where he doesn’t bother to peel, since the finished soup is blitzed and it was as nice as one could hope for, but I do think that the skin colour on a Crown Prince would probably not enhance any soup made this way.

 

So, once I’d butchered the beast (well half the beast in fact which gave a good kilo of flesh), it was cooked with a couple of sautéed shallots (allotment grown and professionally peeled by my young assistant!) garlic, ginger and 2 red chillies (home grown cayenne chillies with seeds included), a lemon grass stalk quartered length wise, half a litre of vegetable stock (I always use the Bouillon variety), 30ml of fish sauce and a can and a half of coconut milk.  After 25 minutes of simmering, the pumpkin was cooked and had imparted its beautiful amber colour into the liquid.  The zest & juice of 2 limes and a handful of coriander were then added before blitzing everything in a blender.

 

The resulting velvety soup looked and tasted beautiful and is now residing in my, once again full, freezer until needed.

 

       

 

 

I kept on the pumpkin theme for supper and using pretty much the same ingredients, cooked a pumpkin curry.  The only variations was the addition of some freshly roasted and ground cumin and coriander together with some toasted cashews at the end of cooking.  The result was a lovely fragrant, tasty curry which was delicious served with Jasmine Rice and a coriander naan.

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October Suppers

 

Some of our more interesting October Suppers:

 

• Autumn pasta (October scans p1) – Broccoli, mushrooms, parma ham & pine nuts; autumn on a plate!
• Sausages in Apple Gravy (October scans p4) – really tasty with a lovely gravy which the boys really liked too.
• Home made Chicken Kiev (October Scans p18) – a shallow fried version.  Can be prepared in advance and is probably better that way.  Butter leaked when I made it but still tasted great!
• Chicken & roasted vegetables in cheese sauce – a great way to use up veg from the fridge!
• Chicken caesar salad – with our own lettuce and home made dressing
• Beef in beer – sliced onion, garlic, thyme, seasoned beef, carrot batons and prunes all simmered in some gorgeous dark ale – lovely
• Butternut Squash risotto
• Mushroom Tagliatelle (October Scans) – An Antonio Carluccio recipe
• Chicken, mushroom & squash curry – cumin, coriander, turmeric onion & garlic with coconut milk.  A bit bland, ginger definitely missing
• Rich Oven baked Vegetable pasta with sausages (October Scans)  another Antonio Carluccio recipe.  Rather involved but very tasty.  4 key elements: Tomato Sauce: used my own from the freezer; pasta: used a large conchiglie which was already in the pantry; vegetable & cheese filling: the last of our aubergines & courgettes, coated in flour, shallow fried then mixed in with taleggio, blanched fennel and sausage meat balls (not in the recipe but thought the men would prefer it!) and spinach balls (spinach, egg, breadcrumbs & parmesan).  Really fab flavours liked by whole family.
• cauliflower cheese with sausages

 

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