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 :)

Crêpes with Pomme-pote

My recent trip to France put me in a mood for good wholesome green salads and the deliciously unhealthy: crêpes. I decided it was time to make some crêpes and I also had some apples lying around, and as apple puree/compote is a popular snack in France, it also goes well with crêpes! So, I ventured out to make my own.

What are crêpes?

The most basic definition would be "French pancake". The word comes from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled" - as the edges do curl up as the crêpe is cooked.

I found that in France crêpes seemed to be filled with all sorts of sweet things (from the simplicity of sugar, to the fantastic combinations of chestnut cream, Nutella and vanilla ice-cream or flambeed citrusy Grand Marnier), while savoury fillings were often left for galettes (a French buckwheat pancake). Often accompanied by cider, crêpes are a delicious and affordable treat when travelling and an easy dessert to make at home!

How are they different to pancakes?

Firstly, they are thinner and more fragile. Therefore they are sometimes only cooked on one side and not flipped. I also think that they are easier to make (for example, the recipe I found omitted the use of baking powder and sugar - ingredients often found in regular pancake recipes).

Basic Crêpe Recipe - Makes 8 (I only made 7 as mine were a tad too thick)

Simply beat the following into a cup of sifted cake flour:

2 eggs

1/2 c milk

1/2 c water

2 tablespoons of melted butter

Use about 1/4 c batter to make one crêpe with a flat pan that has a little bit of melted butter in it to prevent sticking. Continue as if making pancakes and use the spatula to spread the batter thinner.

Tips:

1. I would suggest a change in the method of the link pasted below - as above: Instead of adding the ingredients one at a time, I found it works better to add all the liquid ingredients to the flour before beating/whisking. An electric beater works fine.

2. I also found that adding an extra 50- 100 ml of water allowed me to make thinner crêpes.

3. Working with a higher-than-medium heat worked better.

4. I did flip my crêpes (without them breaking), because I didn't have the special batter-spreading spatula or the rimless flat pan that is used to make sure that your crêpes are super thin.

5. Using a spatula to spread the batter can be ungracious and make holes, so be careful. And perhaps use a different one for the cooked crêpe to avoid putting raw batter on the finished product.

The recipe I used:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/basic-crepes/detail.aspx

Pomme-pote

2 tablespoons of treacle sugar

1 pinch of cinnamon

1 pinch of ground cloves

4 cubed and cored apples

1/2 c boiling water

Boil the mixture together until soft and then blend it when cool. Add more water to help the blender, if necessary.

This resulted in a thick, brown, creamy (surprisingly creamy!) sweet apple sauce. It went very well indeed with the crêpes! The leftover compote we will use as a dessert with plain yoghurt. Yum!