For Father’s Day, I asked dad what I could cook for him as a ‘gift.’ He asked for Thai Green Curry and Spotted Dick.

I found this recipe from the internet and it looked quite tasty (I have to admit, it’s always the pictures that draw me to the recipes!), and the ingredients seemed plentiful, but easy to find. I have had this curry in curry houses before, but I made one myself from one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks using shop-bought curry paste, and it didn’t come out very well. I think it was because I used long beans and asparagus spears, which were quite hefty to manage without getting curry everywhere! This, on the other hand, was extremely creamy and soft in flavour. It would have been easy to spice it up a little more using more chillies (and including their seeds, perhaps) for the curry paste. But having my grandmother and people who don’t appreciate too much spice, I thought it’d be best to tone it down as one can always add chilli to their dish.

Happy Father’s Day, dad

Chicken & Prawn Thai Green Curry
Adapted from: It Must’ve Been Something I Ate
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
For the green curry paste:
• 3 tbsp walnut/peanut oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 x stalk lemon grass
• 1 x tsp ground cumin
• 1 x tsp coriander leaf
• ½ green chilli, deseeded
• 3cm ginger, roughly chopped
• 2 x garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 x spring onions, roughly chopped
• 2 x fist full fresh coriander

For the green curry:
• 2 tbsp walnut/peanut oil
• butter and flour, for greasing
• 812g boneless chicken breast
• 360g cooked prawns
• 3 x spring onions, chopped
• 1 x garlic clove, crushed
• 2 x red and green bell peppers, chopped
• 155g mangetout
• 200g pack of “cabbage medley”
• 1 x 400ml can coconut milk
• green curry paste (as above)
• 3cm carrot, grated
• ½ cup water
• 2 x tbsp cornflour
• fresh coriander leaves for garnish

• enough rice for your guests

Preparation
For the green curry paste:
Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until a smooth paste is formed.

For the green curry:
Heat 2 tbsp of walnut oil in a large pot. Add the chicken and prawns, and whiten the chicken all over. Throw in the chopped onions and crushed garlic and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the chopped peppers and mange tout., and cook for 5 more minutes. Add the coconut milk, green curry pasta, water, cabbage and grated carrot. Bring all to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until ready.

Don’t forget to cook the rice! Serve and enjoy!

ทานให้อร่อยนะ

Enjoyed: 19.06.2011

Mum and I were shopping the other day, and we came across a large pack of ribs on offer. The first thing that came to our minds was to make a sticky BBQ sauce! As soon as we got home I rushed through all of the cupboards to see if we had all of the ingredients, and luckily, we did! The sauce was very simple to make, and I’m surprised that I hadn’t ever made something like this sooner!

The recipe that I originally followed was a little odd in that the liquid measurements were given in ounces rather than millilitres. But I weighed them all out on a set of digital scales (extremely useful!) and the recipe turned out really well! I also substituted Worcestershire sauce for dark soy sauce, corn syrup for honey, and apple cider vinegar with white wine vinegar, as that’s all we had!

Sticky BBQ Pork Ribs
Adapted from: Food Network
Serves 5-6

Ingredients
For the sauce:
• 450g Ketchup (I used Reggae Reggae tomato ketchup)
• 225g (~250ml) water
• 85g brown sugar
• 85g caster sugar
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• ½ tsp garlic granules
• ½ tsp English mustard
• 300ml white wine vinegar
• 5 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 5 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp honey
• 25g paprika

For the ribs:
• 870g pack of pork ribs
• enough rice for your guests

Preparation
For the sauce:
Throw all of the ingredients into a large saucepan/pot (otherwise it’ll slowly spit all over your cooker). Bring to the boil, then let simmer, uncovered for an hour.

For the ribs:
Wash the ribs and lay them in a baking dish. Pour over the BBQ sauce, using your hands to cover them entirely. Leave to marinate overnight (not necessary).

Pop into a preheated oven at 180◦C for about an hour and a half. In the meantime, cook the rice, and serve the ribs and sauce piping hot over the rice with salad and sweetcorn.

Enjoy

Devoured: 17.06.2011

I’m so glad that exams are finally over! My final exam was on Friday, and on Saturday I thought I’d be feeling really good, but in actual fact, I didn’t. I’ve done really well with my coursework, and was desperately hoping to get a first, which I have! However, my exams have really brought my marks down. Even though I studied hard, it got to a point where even if you know everything on the lecture slides and the stuff we covered throughout the year, none of us could answer the questions on the papers because we just didn’t cover them! Quite infuriating! Anyway, Ed came and stayed the night on Saturday, and we played badminton. The on Sunday, we went to our tennis club’s open day, where it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it! It’s quite rainy today, but luckily yesterday the weather held out and it turned out to be a pleasant day.

For my family today, I made the kefta tagine. In Morocco, Tim and I had kefta, but not in a tagine with eggs quite like this. When I looked the at the recipe, the photos looked really nice, but I thought it as just gonna be a sort of bolognaise sauce and didn’t really think it’d be too nice with rice. But it turned out ok actually! Would probably go just as well with pasta!

Below you can see some pictures of some of the food we had with the Moroccan flat bread. I never took a picture of the bread, but fortunately it managed to sneak its way into some of our pictures. I also didn’t take a photo of the kofta we ate that one time… The top left picture is one of the only times we ate pasta, and the top right was in Tangier, the day we left for Madrid airport.

I also made some Moroccan flat bread, which they have everywhere in Morocco, and it turned out to be just like it (which I was surprised about, because the last time I made bread it was a hard rock of something completely inedible)! I was pretty pleased, and I love fresh bread from the oven, when it’s warm and smells of yeast.

Moroccan Flatbread
Adapted from: About Moroccan Food
Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients
• 4 x cups plain white flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 x sachet dried yeast (7g)
• 1 ¼ cups warm water
• 4 x tbsp olive oil
• extra flour

Preparation
Prepare a baking sheet with grease-proof paper, and 2 tbsps olive oil. Sieve the flour in a large bowl, and add the salt and sugar. Make a well in the centre, and add the yeast, 2 tbsps olive oil and water into the centre. Mix together, and knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes. Make sure that the dough is soft yet firm, but not sticky to the touch.
Split the dough into two, and form into balls. Place on the baking tray and cover with wet kitchen roll for 10 minutes.
Then, use your hand to flatten the dough out into about ½” thick discs, and score two lines through the dough in a cross formation. Cover with the wet kitchen roll for an hour.
The pop them into an oven preheated to 180◦C for 30-35 minutes.

Moroccan Kefta Mkaouara
Adapted from: Almost Bourdain
Serves 4-5

Ingredients
• 2 tbsps oil
• 500g minced beef (or lamb)
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 tbsp dried parsley
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 x onion, diced
• 2 x garlic cloves, diced/minced
• 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
• A small handful of fresh corianders leaves and finely chopped stalks
• 4 x eggs

Preparation
Pop the minced beef (or lamb), parsley and ½ tsp paprika into the bowl, and a good shake of salt and pepper. Use your (dampened) hands to mix it all together, and form tight little balls; I got 26.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in an oven-proof dish over the stove, and brown the meatballs all over. Remove them with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate.
Add the diced onion and garlic into the remaining oil and fry until they start to turn brown. Add ½ tsp paprika, the coriander stalks and a few leaves and the tinned tomatoes (with another shake of salt and pepper). Simmer for 10 minutes before adding the meatballs
Bring to the boil, and cover, leaving to simmer for 15-20 minutes.Preheat oven to 200◦C.
Crack four eggs onto the top of the dish, and pop, covered, into the oven for abotu 10 minutes (or until the eggs have just cooked).
Serve with salad, the remaining coriander leaves, soft, fluffy rice, and khobz!

Bon Appétit!!

Well, seeing as it’s a rainy day, and I’d rather be doing anything than revision (I was really hoping to go on a long cycle today), here’s a little story and recipe to go with it!

On Valentine’s day, I entered a competition at Jen’s website, My Kitchen Addiction. The competition involved having to choose 10 spices, herbs, seasonings, chiles of extracts from the Spices Inc. website, developing a name for the spice set, and creating a couple of lines as to why those particular spices were chosen for the set.

I didn’t think I’d win anything, but it was a little bit of fun and worth a shot. So I came up with:

The Opportunist’s Diverse Gourmet Collection
These unique and expensive spices are from many areas of the world and only a true gourmet can appreciate their rarity, aroma, richness and origin. They can be used in many dishes, from main courses to desserts, virtually every day in order to develop some of the beautiful flavours found in the world. These spices create opportunity for those who can’t travel, or for those who want to bring about sweet reminiscence, to share these flavours and memories with others.

1. Organic Garam Masala
2. Saffron
3. Organic Cardamom Pods
4. Organic Vanilla Beans
5. Organic Ground Black Pepper Medium Grind
6. Fleur de Sel
7. Star Anise
8. Organic Herbs de Provence
9. Organic Lavender
10. Organic Mustard Seeds

Then a couple of weeks later, Jen sent me an email saying that she’ll be forwarding my address along to Greg Patterson of Spices Inc. so that they can send the custom spice set I “created.” It was amazing! Jen announced the winners here, and it turns out that they couldn’t settle with choosing just one, so they chose three sets that were suggested by competitors.

I couldn’t wait to start cooking with them! I love the use of spices but usually don’t go for expensive options. I’ve never used saffron, star anise or vanilla pods before, so I couldn’t wait to try them out! As well as that I’ve also never used fleur de sel or lavender in cooking, either!

It took the Spices Inc. crew a little bit of time to send to package across, probably because it was quite expensive, and they also said they’d never shipped anything to England before, so I guess they were sorting out the logistics.

A couple of days ago, Parcelforce sent me a letter saying that I was to pay an extra £21.24 as import VAT and clearance fees, and then the spices could be delivered. The Spices Inc. said that they had already paid $39 shipping it over, but as the retail value of the set is under £40, I was able for the gift to be delivered for free (apparently, the value of the spices were written as around $90 on the side of the box!). And I finally received them today! You can see the set for yourself, here.

And to celebrate, I made a beef rogan josh! I followed the sample recipe for my lamb rogan josh, except I used beef instead, and substituted the roasted peppers from a jar in the paste for grilled aubergines from a jar, and used a few different spices, too.

Recipe: here.

Yesterday was Dan‘s birthday. He came over for a birthday meal, and then we surprised him with a lovely chocolate cake! I know that a curry isn’t particularly a special meal, but I thought that one made from scratch, along with naan bread, would be a nice effort for any occasion!

This curry was actually a really nice level of spiciness. I like a bit of heat, but I find that too much just overpowers and destroys the rest of the flavours in the dish. This was perfect. There was spice, but you could still taste the other flavours. However, the curry looked a little anaemic; so I improvised and added some turmeric to make it a deeper colour of yellow.

This was also a nice opportunity for me to make some naan bread! The original recipe stated that you should stick the naan with water to the pan, and then turn it upside down to expose the top of the bread to the flame to create those large blister-type bubbles on top. But I didn’t want to create a mess, and decided to play it safe. They came out more like pancakes…but they still looked quite nice and people always appreciate when you’ve gone to extra lengths. The dough however, was extremely sticky (which I believe is what naan bread dough is supposed to be like), so next time I’ll try it the way the original recipe stated.

We served this curry with a really nice salad; with olives, fresh strawberries and hard-boiled eggs. My mum makes such amazing and colourful salads. And this curry definitely thickens up the next day!

Well, I hope you enjoy making this beautiful and aromatic dish as much as I did! I absolutely love cooking for others, because for me it’s not only nice to see people enjoy and compliment something you’ve worked hard on, but it’s also a way to share time together and bond. Food is something that everyone has in common, which is most probably why going out for a meal is always something people find a socially fun thing to do.

Chicken Korma
Adapted from: Jamie’s Ministry of Food, pages 74 & 99
Serves 6

Ingredients
For the curry paste:
• 1 tbsp walnut oil
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp garam masala
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 5 tbsp desiccated coconut
• 2 tbsp ground almonds
• 2 tbsp dried coriander leaves
• 2 x cloves garlic
• ~20g fresh root ginger
• 1½ fresh green chillies

For the curry:
• 800g diced chicken (or chicken breasts, thighs or legs)
• ~40g fresh root ginger
• 2 x onions
• a large bunch of fresh coriander
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 x drained can of chickpeas
• 1 x 400ml can of coconut milk
• curry paste (as made above)
• turmeric (optional)
• enough natural yoghurt for a large dollop each
• 1 x lemon
• enough rice for 6

Preparation
For the curry paste:
Pop the cumin and mustard seeds into a frying pan, and put on high heat. Don’t add any oil, but leave the seeds on high heat until you can smell their wonderful aroma and you can hear them start to crack. Don’t leave it for any longer though, otherwise they’ll shoot out all over the place.

Finely peel and chop the ginger and garlic cloves. Not forgetting to cut the chilli, too. Pop that, along with the toasted seeds, into a small blender. Then add the rest of the ingredients to a blender, then whiz everything together until it’s a nicely ground paste.

For the curry:
Peel and finely cut the garlic along with the onions. Remove the leaves from the coriander and set aside for garnishing later, and finely chop the stalks.

Put a large casserole dish on high heat and throw in 1 tbsp olive oil. Add the chicken and brown it all over, then toss in the onions, ginger and coriander stalks. Add 1 tsp butter and cook until the onions are soft, but not browned.

Then, add the curry paste, the coconut milk and the drained chickpeas. Fill up half of the coconut milk tin with water and mix that into the curry, too. Bring the mix to the boil, and then leave to simmer for 45 minutes. If the curry looks a little pale, add some turmeric until you’re satisfied with it’s colour.

In the meantime, cook the rice! And when that’s all ready, serve with a fresh wedge of lemon, a dollop of yoghurt and a sprinkle of coriander leaves.

And for the naan…

Homemade Naan Bread (Pancake Style)
Adapted from: Rasa Malaysia
Makes 6

Ingredients
• 2 cups (330g) plain flour
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp sugar
• ¾ tsp salt
• ½ tsp olive oil
• ½ cup (150g) yoghurt
• ½ cup (125ml) warm milk
• butter for brushing
• coriander, lemon, garlic, coconut, black peppercorns (for the type of naan you want)

Preparation
Sieve the flour into a large bowl, and add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and salt.

Form a well in the centre, and add the oil and half of the milk. Then mix together and add the rest of the milk slowly, until a dough is formed that’s slightly sticky to touch, but leaves an indent when you press it.

Knead the dough for 5-7 minutes, and then cover and keep in a warm place for 2 hours.

Separate your naan into six balls (it will be hard as the dough is sticky wet your hands to make it slightly easier).

Then, heat a non-stick pan on high, and use a brush to brush a little butter to thinly cover the surface.

Stretch out one of your naan balls into an oval, and place it in the skillet/wok. After it has cooked on the bottom, use a spatula to flip it over, and press down on the naan to make it thinner and to spread it out, so as much of the dough is cooked as possible. This is similar to the technique I used for making banana pancakes.

Continue to cook on both sides until they’re slightly brown and crispy.

Do this with the other 5 balls, and set aside to cool. Then, you can reheat in the oven at 200°C for 5-10 minutes (or under the grill for a few minutes) with a sprinkling of water when you’re ready to serve them with your curry!

Enjoy your meal.

An aromatic rogan josh lamb curry.

I’ve always wanted to make a curry from scratch, without using curry sauce from a jar or paste from a tube. So I asked if I could cook for the family when our grandmother came over to ours on one of her fortnightly Sunday visits. I also asked my family what sort of curry to make, and my mum immediately said “anything with lamb.” Well, that solved my problem, rogan josh it is!

This smelt amazing.

According to Wikipedia, this lamb dish originated from Kashmir (a disputed territory, claimed by both India and Pakistan, with some areas also claimed by China), and is popular in India, Pakistan, Singapore and, of course, the UK. Rogan (روغن) means oil or colour in Persian, while josh (جوش) means heat, hot, boiling, passionate or red. So I suppose that you can interpret that as you wish.

I prepared the rogan josh paste at my university accommodation a few days before actually making the curry, and when my house mate Jon walked into the kitchen, the first thing he said was “hmm, smells like curry!” He sounded a little surprised, with good reason though, as I said that I was making a banoffee pie!

Nom nom.

Lamb Rogan Josh with Lemon and Coriander Rice
Adapted from: Jamie’s Ministry of Food, pages 81, 96 & 99
Serves 6

Ingredients
For the curry paste:
• 2 x garlic cloves
• A large piece of fresh root ginger
• 85g roasted peppers from a jar
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp tumeric
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp walnut oil
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 2 tbsp dried coriander leaves
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp black peppercorns

For the curry:
• 600-800g diced lamb
• 2 x onions
• 1 x fresh red chilli
• 1 x piece of root ginger
• a bunch of coriander (they’re sold in Tesco in 30g bunches)
• 4 x bay leaves
• 2 tbsps balsamic vinegar
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 800ml vegetable stock
• rogan josh curry paste
• two handfuls (~70g) red lentils
• natural yoghurt

For the rice:
• enough rice for 6
• 1 x lemon
• a few tsps dried coriander leaves

Preparation
For the curry paste:
1. Peel the garlic and the ginger.
2. Put a frying pan on medium to high heat, and add the black peppercorns and cumin seeds. These are to be toasted for a few minutes, until you can hear them start to crackle and the wonderful aromatic smell is released.
3. Add the toasted spices to a blender, along with the rest of the ingredients (remembering to chop the ginger and peppers and to mince the garlic; as yo’ll get a more homogeneous paste), and blend until smooth.

For the curry:
Preparation
Dice the onions, chop (or grate) the ginger and thinly slice the chilli, and set aside in a bowl. Add the four bay leaves to the bowl, too.
Pick half of the coriander leaves from the bunch, and set aside for decorating later.
Chop the remaining coriander (leaves and stalks), and set aside in the bowl with the onions, etc.
Method
Put a large casserole dish on high, and add your lamb. Brown it all over.
Remove the lamb from the pot (or you could keep it in; your choice), and add the onions, ginger, chilli, bay leaves and coriander to the remaining fat and stick left over from the lamb.
When the onions are browned and softened, or when the pot starts to go dry, add the lamb back in and add the balsamic vinegar.
Add the tomatoes, stock, curry paste and lentils (no need to cook them beforehand).
Bring to the boil, and then simmer with the lid covered for about an hour.

For the rice:
While the curry is cooking, give yourself half an hour to prepare the rice, along with the naan bread and/or papadums.
Slice the lemon into 6 slices, and set aside for serving. Then zest and juice the rest of the lemon to mix in with the rice once it’s cooked, along with the coriander.

To serve:
Serve the curry over the rice, garnish with a large tablespoon of natural yoghurt, a sprinkling of the fresh coriander leaves set aside earlier, and a lemon wedge.

لذت ببرید شما کاری.
According to Google Translate, this means “enjoy your curry” in Persian.

When my brother and I went to Morocco in June 2010, we were really looking forward to trying a lot of Moroccan cuisine. However, seeing as we were on the road a lot and staying in hostels, camp sites and balconies our staple diet was cous cous! Cous cous and tagine…we really wanted to try one ourselves! And we did, although it wasn’t like anything we tried in Morocco. It has a sort of, Asian twist I suppose?

Tagine with a south-east Asian twist; so colourful and aromatic.

When we first arrived in Marrakech, tagines were a novelty. They were delicious and aromatic, and served in a unique looking pot. There are all sorts! Vegetables and potatoes, chicken and fish tagines…and they’re typically served with a sort of flatbread (I really want to try that recipe next). By the end of the trip we had tagine coming out of our ears!

Tagines cooking for the locals in “paradise” near Chefchaouen.

In Morocco, the men can be quite vulgar and rude, especially towards women. Even more so if they are attractive. However, there are also plenty of kind of hospitable people, who are genuinely interested in wanting the best for you, and also who just want to sell things in their shop. There was also one particularly fond memory I have of my brother and I meeting a man in Essaouira, who told us to be aware of younger men. By the end of the day, we were sitting in the middle of a carpet shop with his boss, his wife and two other Moroccan girls (one of whom who could speak brilliant English, and they were both students who studied media) eating a tagine made with local fish. We had no cous cous with it, but this Moroccan flatbread that I mentioned earlier. I believe it’s called khobz in Arabic.

Delicious fresh fish tagine eaten with khobz whilst sitting in the middle of a carpet shop.

Tim eating vegetable tagine with cous cous and khobz in Marrakech.

So there we were, sitting in a carpet shop, sampling local cuisine and being taught some basic Arabic. And this was all on our second day in Morocco…oh what more awaited us! I was absolutely dying to try out a tagine for my family when I got home.

This tagine, however, sounded really delicious and original. Tim and I never sampled something quite as fruity as this in tagine form in Morocco, so I thought we’d give it a go. This is also the first time we have eaten cous cous since our trip to Morocco! Although next time I make a tagine, I think I’ll try and recreate one of the tomato fish ones we had so often. The only problem is that my dad doesn’t care for cous cous, so I’ll have the replace that with rice. Or maybe I can cook him a separate portion of rice; it’s extra effort, but it’ll be worth it to bring about those staple flavours and Arabian memories of Morocco.

Tomato, lemon and fresh local fish tagine. Our last authentic Moroccan meal in Tangier overlooking the tropical sea before heading back to the UK.

Tim literally eating every last scrap!

Unfortunately, to boil the cous cous I accidentally used my mother’s Le Creuset oven dish…and it cracked as soon as I touched it on the hob when it heated up. She was very good about it, but I was absolutely gutted and still feel extremely guilty. I hope she can forgive me! It was a beautiful orange, Mediterranean-style pot, and I always used to eye it up whenever I opened up the cupboards for saucepans. I feel as though we should give it a proper burial and ceremony.

A little touch of Morocco in our very own kitchen!

The smell from the plums and nectarines was absolutely beautiful throughout the cooking process. They were so soft and succulent and complimented the chicken perfectly.

Plum & Nectarine Chicken Tagine
Adapted from: Eats Well With Others and Closet Cooking
Serves 4

Ingredients
• chicken legs and/or thighs (however many your guests will eat)
• 2 x onions, sliced
• 2 x garlic cloves, crushed
• fresh ginger, grated
• 4 x nectarines, chopped
• 4 x plums, chopped
• 1/2 cup (125ml) water
• 1 tsp parpika, cumin, tumeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp clear honey
• 1/4 cup (~40g) olives
• a bunch of fresh coriander, chopped

Preparation
1. Brown the chicken in a large dish over the hob. Remove the chicken.
2. Brown the onions in the fat that emerged from the chicken in the dish, and add the garlic and ginger.
3. Now add the water, spices, plums and nectarines. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
4. The add the chicken, olives, honey and lemon, and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.
5. Don’t forget to prepare the rice and/or cous cous in the meantime.
6. Mix in the chopped coriander, and serve with flatbread and rice/ cous cous.

Bon Appétit!!