Lamb Pilaf

For my husband's birthday I got him Anjum's New Kitchen. It was a great gift as since then we have made many delicious Indian recipes from there, dipping into our 'exotic' supply of spices from the Spice Emporium and introducing our taste-buds to new and fantastic flavours.


Yesterday I came home to a absolutely delicious Lamb Pilaf or Lucknowi Biryani.


What's unique about this dish is that the rice is cooked with the meat rather than separately, the latter I would assume is usually the case with rice-accompanying dishes.

Ingredients:
350g jasmine rice 
650g lamb neck
6 cloves of garlic
12g fresh, crushed ginger
1 tsp salt
1 big onion, chopped
10 cardamon pods (green)
1 tbsp black pepper
4 bay leaves 
4 pieces of cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
4 tsp canola oil
2 tsp cumin seeds
4 green thai chillies


Method:
Rinse the rice and soak it for 30 min.


Make a stock by putting the following ingredients into a large sauce-pan: 500ml water, the lamb, half the onion, garlic, ginger, salt, cardamom, black pepper, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves. Simmer for 40 minutes or until the lamb is tender.


Take out the meat and place it in a separate bowl so that you can strain out the spices from the stock with a sieve. The stock shouldn't have any solids in now. Measure it and add enough water for it to reach 700ml.


Heat the oil in your saucepan and add the cumin. When the seeds start to make a sizzling sound, add the chillies and other half of the onion and cook until the onion is translucent. Add the lamb neck in again to brown (about 5 minutes). Your stock can now be added along with the drained rice that has been soaking.


Simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave it to steam for a further 5 minutes.


Note: This version is slightly different to the one published in the book, just describes how we cooked it.

Naan Bread

After a delicious supper at Bhandari's I decided that I could try my hand at naan bread. It was rather easier than I had thought!


Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt 
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups of low fat yoghurt


Method:
I mixed together 4 cups of flour with 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking powder. I then kneaded in 2 cups of low fat yoghurt, but double cream might make it tastier.


Once you've kneaded it for about 5 minutes, oil another bowl lightly and put the ball of dough aside to rest for an hour. Thereafter, divide the dough into about 10 balls and roll them out. 


Since you will probably be using a round frying pan, try to make them round rather than long. When ready, add the dough, once piece at a time to the pan on medium-high heat until the bread puffs up and gets brown marks on it. 


Then transfer it to a hot oven (220 - 290'C). My oven started smoking at 290 so I turned it down. I think this part of the process just cooks the inside a bit more.


Serve hot with butter and garlic.Enjoy with a nice hot curry and a home-made chutney.


Note: I found that they weren't great the next day, so if you're going to make them, eat them all that day (which shouldn't be too difficult). 


I used this recipe: http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/naan-203261

Bombay Chicken with Dahl

I visited Vintage India in Garden Center in Cape Town today to take some photos for a virtual tour that I am compiling as part of my job. It put me in the mood for Indian food and gave me motivation to try out something new for supper. I stumbled across a curry that had no vegetables in, and all the ingredients that I already had at home so I decided to try out the Bombay Chicken (link below) and modified the recipe as described directly below (I left the indian names next to the ingredients as they are useful to know!).

This whole meal shouldn't take you more than 30minutes to prepare and cook.

Bombay Chicken - serves 2

1 tblsp olive oil (tel)
1 finely chopped onion

1/2 cups (125gms) desiccated coconut (narial)
2 cloves of crushed garlic (lasan)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper corns (kali mirch)
1/2 tsp grated, fresh ginger (adrak)
3 curry leaves (kari patta)
1/2 tblsp sugar (cheeni)

500g chicken breasts

3/4 c hot water

Deviating from the recipe, I fried up all the ingredients in the olive oil (I read that olive oil is a good substitute for ghee, but I stand to be corrected) and then added the boiling/hot water and my four chicken breasts once the coconut was toasted and brown. I cooked that on a medium-high heat with the lid on for about 20min resulting in tender chicken breasts. There shouldn't be much water at the bottom - if there is, let it reduce in volume by cooking with the lid off. I shredded the now-cooked chicken and added it back to the pot to give it a final mix. I served that with the dahl recipe below and a huge dollop of double thick plain yoghurt sprinkled with more cayenne pepper (i found the chicken could have done with more spice). Add some chutney on the side too if you like it.

Original recipe: http://www.indianfoodforever.com/non-veg/chicken/bombay-chicken-curry.html

Coriander Dahl - serves 2

1/2 c dried split peas

1 1/2c water

1tsp coriander

1/2 tsp dried mint

1/4 tsp dried ginger

2 cloves

Salt

Pepper

Boil the mixture together on a medium heat for about 20- 30min until mushy.

Enjoy :)

Kerala Chicken Curry

Sometimes I prefer chicken to red meat, and that's ok, because it's mostly healthier. As part of our Indian Food Month at home, I made some chicken curry (also a first for me). And it was really yumm!

I found a weird website with I will mention at the end, that guided me most of the way. Some Indian recipes like to do things in stages, maybe it's traditional, or maybe there are real reasons that effect the taste. Anyway, most of the time I'm just lazy and throw everything in the pot, taste it, add salt and taste it again, adjust necessary flavours and then eat. Sometimes I just leave one or two of the steps out as in this case:

I fried ½ tsp mustard seeds (a teaspoon is ok too) and when they started popping (if they don’t pop it’s ok, move on and try it again another time, but be careful not to get burnt) I added 1 piece of cinnamon, 1 or 2 bay leaves, 2 cloves, 3 tspn grated garlic(6 cloves) and about 3-4 curry leaves. Before it burns, add 2 chopped onions, 5cm piece of grated ginger (or 2tspns), 3 green chillies. When the onions look like they’re about half done, add the chicken (about 900g is fine, 1kg will do as well as less) and stir it around until it goes all yellow and coated. I got chicken pieces with the skin on. Remember that free-range has more protein than the non-descript “surprise” chicken option, and so you get more bang for your buck. You also don't get hormones, added chlorine flavouring... etc. (

Add about 4 big potatoes chopped up, 4 chopped carrots, a teaspoon of garam masala, about 2 handfuls of peas (frozen peas are far more affordable on this side of the world). Let that cook with the lid on for 5 minutes.

Add 1.5 cups of coconut milk. I added a can of reduced fat coconut milk (about 440g) and cook for about 40min to make sure its well done and thoroughly tasty throughout.

Serve with brown rice to be healthy, and put some plain yog(h)urt, chutney and atchar on the side for an added taste sensation.

Should serve 4 hungry people with a little bit of seconds.

Here is the weird website with the original recipe (I like to add more vegetables where possible):

http://www.indianfoodsco.com/Recipes/chicken_images/ChickenCurries.htm

Butternut Curry Wrap

I had a take-away meal from an Indian restaurant, The Maharajah, months ago, but I can still remember how surprisingly tasty it was, although it was mostly a butternut roti. In fact, that's all I can remember: tasty indian butternut roti.

So since my husband has declared March "Indian Food Only" month, I took up the challenge to make a similar recreation of that surprising, and tasty meal. And the results were, with a bit of deviation from the recipe: surprisingly tasty to eat three times in a row.

I put a chopped butternut into a big pot and lightly fried it in minimal oil (5min). I added a 300ml chicken stock (recipe says veg stock, but I didn't have- can't taste the difference) and cooked the butternut with the lid on for 20min. I added a teaspoon of grated ginger, 2 of garlic, 1/2tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp coriander, 1/2 tsp tumeric, 2 cloves, 3 star anises, 3 cardamom seeds, 2 small pieces of cinnamon (try get cinnamon rather than cassia if possible- cassia's not healthy), 1 small tin tomotoe puree, 400g canned chickpeas (actually I used dry ones that I saoked and cooked seperatley in a presure cooker for speedy results- it's cheaper) and then 2 chopped tomatoes. You can let that cook for another 10min and take the lid off if you think there is too much liquid for a curry consistency.

Butternut + tomatoes? It's surprising. Never would have invented that flavour combo on my own.

Basically all the spices can be substituted for any curry paste/powder, but I thought I would be authentic and reckless, but it turned out perfectly. If you like it spicy and your curry powder/paste isn't, add 2 chillies chopped up finely.

Serve with wraps (was lazy and got mine from Woolies), coriander (and or cos lettuce), chutney of choice and large dollops of Greek yog(h)urt!

The curry can also be mixed into couscous for a different twist.

Serves 2 fairly skinny people for 2 dinners and one lunch. That's 6 meals, the original recipe only serves four, so maybe butternuts are smaller in the land of BBC.

Here's the original recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/775642/indian-butternut-squash-curry