Parathas

It's the day before I start my little boy in daycare and go back to the office full-time. How to prepare? Cook the entire week's dinners, of course! Since I find the flavours develop in the fridge and it's easy to mix and match what I want, I made three different kinds of curry, and sealed them up in tupperware. None of them were particularly amazing -- Rick Stein's aloo gobi is rubbish compared to mine --- but I did take a little time out to make parathas for the first time. Skipping chapatis: go straight to the flaky version!

I was a bit nervous because the only time I made decent naan, I did it by accident. So I expected these to come out terribly. Fortunately, they are really really easy, and they came out totally deliciously! They also were easy to make ahead and then fry quickly just before serving. I bet they would freeze perfectly as well. I think next time I make them I will enlist a helper, and then the process would be really fast. Otherwise you're constantly switching back and forth between rolling (floury) and brushing (buttery) and everything gets a little sticky. The following quantity serves four people with curries.

Ingredients

• 250g chapati flour (finely milled wholewheat flour), or half wholemeal, half plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp melted butter, plus ~5 tbsp for brushing
• 120-150ml warm water

In a bowl, mix the flour with the salt, then add the melted butter and 120ml of the water. Mix together, adding a little more water if needed, until you have a soft but not sticky dough. Knead in the bowl for a minute then cover and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Set out a ramekin of the ~5tbsp melted butter with a pastry brush, a ramekin of plain flour and a rolling pin, plenty of kitchen paper (great for mopping up butter spills), and a plate with a wet tea towel to cover your parathas as you make them. Lightly flour a surface and the rolling pin, and give yourself plenty of room. (mis-en-place is super important here!)

Divide the dough in half, then each half in half again, and again, to make eight pieces. Roll out a piece of dough to a circle about 13cm in diameter. Brush the top thinly with butter, dust over a little flour, then fold in half over the butter to form a half-moon. Repeat the brushing, sprinkling, and folding again, to form a triangle. Roll the triangle out so that each side is about 13cm long. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Heat a heavy-based frying pan and fry each piece of dough 1-2 minutes each side; they should become golden, slightly singed, and puff up a little as they cook. If you like you can brush the sides with yet more butter as you do this! (I didn't, and they were still yum.) Remove them to a warmed plate, cover with a (dry) tea towel,
and serve as soon as you can.

Lucknow Spiced Roast Lamb

Another excellent recipe from Rick Stein's India. There's a fair amount of prep work in making and applying the spice paste, but once it's done and the lamb is in the oven, that's it. You can serve with quite plain accompaniments (roast potatoes or boiled rice, and some simple vegetables or salad) because the lamb is so rich and the spice paste so delicious. It's tempting to skip steps like frying the onions but I urge you not to; much of the paste should end up inside the roast, and you want it to percolate into the meat, so it needs to be tasty straight from the blender. With this mix of ingredients, that's easy.

Ingredients

• 2kg easy-carve (boned) leg of lamb
• 2 brown onions, thinly sliced
• 6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 6cm ginger, roughly chopped
• 55g cashew nuts
• 75g desiccated coconut
• 300g thick Greek yoghurt
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp garam masala
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp Kashmiri (mild, bright red) chilli powder

Fry the onions in oil for 10 minutes until deep golden brown; add the garlic and ginger and fry for a further 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a food blender and blend to a paste with all of the other ingredients.

Sit the leg of lamb in a roasting tray and make 1.5cm deep and wide incisions all over, so you can push the spice paste in. If you like, you can take off the thickest part of the fat as well, but leave some on so the roast stays moist. Push the spice paste into the middle where the bone was removed, and into the incisions, and finally coat the surface of the lamb thickly. If you have any left over, plop it underneath the lamb. Add about 200ml of water to the bottom of the tray and cover the whole leg loosely with foil. Roast at 150C for 1.5 hours, then remove the foil and roast for a further 30 minutes uncovered. Allow to rest for 15 minutes before carving thickly.

Lamb Pulao and Vegetable Makhanawala

Really loving this new cookbook! I won't copy out the recipes here since I did nothing to change them. If you're interested in really fantastic authentic Indian food then I suggest you purchase a copy of the book! The pulao was fluffy, with gorgeously reduced lamb curry underneath, and the vegetable makhanawala was creamy, cashew-y and filling. On Stein's recommendation I bought some Kashmiri chilli powder, and it was an excellent purchase, giving a lovely red colour and a subtle and tangy heat. A couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt and this pairing made a feast -- and in the quantities I made, enough for a whole week of dinners for us! Will definitely cook these again.

Quick-friend Coconut Beans and Carrots

Nom, at last a vegetable-based Indian side dish that I can make in just under 10 minutes! Stein suggests using fresh or frozen grated coconut, but I find that adding dried shredded coconut just a minute before the cooking time is up soaks up the remaining water, and is a lot less hassle to keep in the cupboard. You could easily vary the vegetables based on whatever you have to hand, and the spices to complement whatever else you're cooking.

Ingredients

• vegetable oil
• 2 small chillies, finely chopped (keep the seeds if you like the spice)
• handful of curry leaves (fresh or dried)
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• large handful of green beans, topped, tailed and diced
• one medium to large carrot, diced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 75 ml water
• a large handful of dried shredded coconut

Bruise the spices in at mortar and pestle then fry with the curry leaves and chillies in a frying pan for a minute. Tip in the vegetables and salt, stir to coat, then add the water and immediately cover, turning the heat down to a simmer. Cook for 5-6 minutes, until the vegetables are just done, then add the coconut, stir, and re-cover, turning off the heat so the coconut can absorb the cooking water.

Sali Murghi (Chicken and Apricot Curry with Matchstick Potatoes)

Happy New Year!

I have no good excuses for not posting. I was lazy at the end of November, in the US for most of December, and then ate nothing but BBQ and leftover Christmas ham during the holiday break. Yesterday saw the seventh-hottest day ever recorded in Perth, so all I could face was the usual Thai beef salad, thrown together from whatever salad vegetables I had, plus half a bag of fresh beansprouts and a big bunch of mint, for extra cooling effect. Nice to use a post-BBQ extra T-bone steak as well; never have I had such deliciously chilled and soft beef.

Anyway! Last year, just before I left for the States, a surprise present arrived from a friend in the UK: Rick Stein's India, a really fantastic compilation of Indian recipes from all over the subcontinent. On Sunday I decided to try out one of the more challenging looking recipes, sali murghi, or chicken and apricot curry with potato straws. The ingredients list is moderately long, but of course the spices are essential. We found that they combined beautifully with the apricots and other vegetables to form a thick and sweet-sour sauce that complemented the chicken and potatoes perfectly. From a single chicken, there was easily enough for six people, or for us, two dinners and two lunches. (We had the second dinner with perfect pilaf rice and quick-friend coconut vegetables.)

Ingredients
For the matchstick potatoes (sali):

• 250g of Chat (or other chipping/new) potatoes, julienned and soaked in cold water for at least 15 minutes
• a deep fryer or heavy-based pan full of vegetable oil for deep frying
• salt

For the curry:

• vegetable oil
• 8 black peppercorns
• 6 cloves
• 3 green cardamom pods, lightly bruised with a rolling pin
• 2 dried chillies
• 4cm piece of cinnamon stick
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 100g tomatoes (about 1 large, or 2 small), finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• a thumb of ginger, finely grated
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 chicken, jointed into 8 pieces (get the butcher to do it!)
• 2 tsp jaggery, palm sugar, or brown sugar
• 150g dred apricots
• 3 tbsp white wine vinegar
• handful of fresh coriander, leaves torn off

Bruise the whole spices in a mortar and pestle and fry in a large casserole / Le Creuset for a minute until fragrant. Add the onion, turn the heat down, and fry for 10 min until softened and golden. Stir in the tomatoes, salt, ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander and turmeric, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and turn in the spce mixture, then add the sugar, apricots and vinegar.

(At this point, Stein suggests adding enough water to cover; if you do this, you will likely need to remove the cooked chicken and then vigorously boil down/reduce the sauce for ~10 minutes at the end, unless perhaps you remove the lid, but then the chicken may cook unevenly. I suggest instead adding 200ml of water, covering, and turning over the chicken pieces a few times until they are cooked, and leaving the lid off for the last 15 minutes of cook time.)

Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is reduced. Meanwhile, drain the potatoes, dry in a colander, and deep-fry at 180C for 2-3 minutes per batch until crisp and golden. Drain on kitchen paper and season with salt, then use to top to the finished curry, along with the coriander leaves.

Spicy Potato-stuffed Green Peppers

Back in March we had a wonderful visit from friends from the UK :) Amongst the fun of visiting Fremantle, Rottnest, Margaret River and generally pottering about and playing games, we had time to cook a few favourites: lamb abruzzio, T-bone steaks with salad and BBQ'd potatoes, and of course, lots of kangaroo!

Since then I've been a bit swamped by work, and under the weather from the 'winter'. We've had lots of old favourites and fallbacks, like that wonderful chicken, orange and almond salad. I just started getting the cooking bug again this week, but I'll be away for work next week! So I thought I'd better update while I had a little enthusiasm.

This recipe came originally from The Flavour Thesaurus, under the 'peppers and chillis' combo. I didn't actually get much of a taste of the chilli in this - yes, it was spicy, but it didn't have that kind of jalapeno-like aroma to it. What I really liked was the savoury contrast of the spiced potato with the fresh green peppers. All it needs is a touch of sweetness to round it all out. You could serve it with some sweet chutney, or some peshwari naan. I made gajar ka halwa to go after, but it was too sweet, too late. Next time perhaps I'll cook the carrots with fenugreek and a little honey, and have them with, instead.

Ingredients:

• 2-4 large to medium green peppers
• one large white onion
• 4-5 mashing potatoes
• 2-3 tsp garam masala
• a whole chilli (optional)
• butter, ghee or oil
• sour cream or yoghurt
• 1tsp paprika
  

Halve and deseed the peppers, then grill or microwave, cut-side down, until beginning to go tender. Arrange in a roasting tin or baking dish, cut-side up. Meanwhile, scrub and boil the potatoes, and finely chop and gently fry the onions and chilli, until golden and sweet. Mash the potatoes and stir into the onions, with the garam masala. Spoon into the green peppers and top with a little butter, ghee or oil. Roast at 180C for 20 minutes, until the green peppers are soft and the tops of the potatoes are golden. Stir the paprika into the sour cream or yoghurt and serve the peppers topped with a blob.

Palak Raita (Spinach with Yoghurt and Spices)

I'm going through a big spinach phase at the moment. There's no better way to prepare it than to wash it thoroughly (grit is HORRIBLE!) pile it into a big saucepan and cook it in the rinsing water for a few minutes, then squeeze it out completely and use or serve as soon as you can. I like it very simply dressed with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and a generous dusting of salt.

Tonight's curry calls for a more robust treatment, and fortunately my Giant Asian Cookbook is ready to provide. They start by cooking the spinach in exactly the same way I do - so really it's just the dressing that changes.

Ingredients

• a big bunch of spinach, cooked as described above
• 1 tbsp ghee or butter
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds or ground fenugreek
• 1/2 tsp salt
• a pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
• 250g plain yoghurt

Fry the mustard seeds in the ghee or butter at a low heat  until they start to pop, Add the cumin seeds, ground cumin and fenugreek, and stir fry with a wooden spoon until the spices colour - but be careful not to burn them. Remove from the heat, and add the salt and cayenne, if using, then allow to cool. Swirl the spinach, yoghurt and spice mixture together in a bowl; serve cold or at room temperature (more fragrant).

BBQ Naan

I've made naan before, and this uses exactly the same basic recipe, but this time I made one of those kitchen mistakes that turns into a serendipitous discovery.

I put the dough on in the breadmaker and went out for a nice walk with my husband. I came back and floured a worksurface, and rolled the dough out into two large thin pieces: about half a cm thick, and each piece was the size of a baking tray. I usually find my naan is too thick so wanted to get it nice and thin so it would cook quickly at a high temperature. I popped each piece onto a large baking tray and left it for 10-15 minutes to rise. Crucially, I forgot to flour the baking trays!

We had decided to cook the naan on the bbq, since it's not entirely dissimilar to a tandoori oven, and thought the charcoal-y taste might be appropriate. So I brought the baking trays outside to the hot bbq, and tried to transfer them. But without flour, the naan had completely stuck to the baking trays, so as we pulled the dough off, it stretched and deformed and tore in places. I didn't want to roll it out again, because it had already had enough rising time, so we just shrugged, sprinkled a bit of flour on the mangled dough, and cooked it as it was, for about ten minutes in the hot bbq (lid down).

Eureka! Perfect naan: loads of crispy bits, doughy bits, tasty yoghurt-y charcoal-y yumminess... loads of fun to tear into and mop up the spicy curry we'd made to go with. So I guess the lesson is, roll out the dough so it's thin enough, but then mistreat it a little so it's not uniform, and you'll end up with a perfect naan :)