Delicious Dozen - Bite Four

Right, I need to get this off my chest as soon as possible folks... this month I had the single biggest baking disaster of the last 15 months of baking and cooking challenges! This went so badly wrong that we suspected there might be permanent damage to our floorboards...

As you know this month's delicious dozen was inspired by my visit to the Middle East last month to see my in-laws. This was not my first trip to the Gulf States though, I was born and spent the first six months of my life in Saudi Arabia so it really was about time I learned a bit more about the food and cuisine culture of the place where it all started for me.

I haven't had the chance to go back to where I was born, it's all a bit tricky with visas and things so this month I wanted to find out about the eating culture rather than just googling recipes like I usually do. So off I popped to Blackwells in search of more than just a cookbook. The choice was limited but I finally settled on the aesthetically pleasing Olives, Lemons & Za'Atar by Rawia Bishara because it had a bit of story about each of the recipes and also it had lots of photos.  I have probably said it before but I really don't like recipe books without photos, how are you supposed to know how it should look? Anyway, full of enthusiasm I cracked the book open as soon as I got home and with the help of my good friend Jen I started this bite of the challenge in a thoroughly successfully way... it went DRAMATICALLY downhill after that.

Hummus

With my new handy-dandy food processor this was a breeze! Just chucked it all in and there we go. I think I whizzed it for a little bit too long because it was a little bit too runny but that could have also been the juice of the 800 lemons you had to squeeze! OK so it wasn't 800, it was about seven or eight but was seriously lemony! I really liked it but it was a bit much for some of my colleagues who tried it at work. Two important things to note about this recipe, firstly you need Tahini paste (sesame paste) to make any kind of Hummus, which living in the leafy Scottish suburbs is tricky to get. I had I had to venture further afield than normal for that but I could probably get it online in future. Also, this recipe makes enough to serve all your guests at a large housewarming party (or a small hummus lovers' convention), it was good but the quantity was a bit ridiculous, it must have been the equivalent of about five of the tubs you get in the supermarket. I have tried freezing a few portions (Jen's advice) so let's see how it turns out when we next have people over for drinks and nibbles.

Recipe

Sooooo many lemons

Arabic bread (attempt 1) (Kmaj in Arabic)

I don't even know what to say... I didn't make bread I made a sloppy, gooey beige monster some of which could be growing into a Pillsbury Doughboy under our lounge radiator as I write this. I followed the instructions and I was excited to use my new hand mixer with its dough hooks but no amount of mixing was going to make this into bread. I had a feeling that the quantity of liquid going into the mixer seemed a bit high but I did what I was told and went ahead with it. I must have had it mixing for 15 minutes and it still looked like a cake batter rather than bread dough. So, in my wisdom (utter stupidity) I thought I would just leave it to prove and see if it might come together/stiffen up over the hour. 

I was WRONG! I stupidly put the very full bowl of dough mixture on the floor by the radiator and forgot about it for an hour. When I came back the dough was oozing out from under the tea towel and creeping all over our lounge floor under the radiator and between the floor boards. Well, needless to say the cleanup operation was extensive, especially because Dave was laughing so much and taking photos of me that he couldn't be of much help!! We had to scoop the monster into a cardboard box and throw it away, I didn't want to try to wash any of it down the sink, goodness knows what would have happened to the pipes!! This was the first recipe I have done through both challenges that has totally defeated me and it felt rubbish. I think my mistake might have been using quick acting yeast rather than normal yeast but I won't be trying it again to find out. 

P.S I am not even going to give you the recipe for this one because it was so terrible.

Mixing the dough A.K.A the monster in waiting!!

Kmaj disaster!

Arabic flat bread (attempt 2)

http://www.sooogood.org/iraqi_food_recipes/arabic_flatbread_recipe.html

It was time to get back on the horse as they say and tackle flat bread again. I decided to go back to my usual tactic of googling the easy version of what I wanted to make and this recipe didn’t disappoint. I also went back to basics and made it by hand instead of using my mixer. The dough was quite sticky so I couldn’t really knead it for very long (only about 3-4 mins instead of the recommended  10)  without having to add more flour so it might have actually been a good idea to use the dough hooks afterall. Anyway, it was a real dough and it baked beautifully and tasted delicious.

Second time's the charm!

Baba Ghanouj

I would say I am an aubergine fan  but I don’t usually think about cooking it so this recipe looked like a winner. Unfortunately, this was another first for my 15 months of challenges, I REALLY didn’t like it, so much so I only had a little taste and then gave up. It also had Tahini in it which made the texture and taste a bit like peanut butter and I just didn’t like the feeling of it sticking to the roof of your mouth... urgh! On the plus side Dave loved it so he got stuck in.

Recipe

Chicken Kebabs

Very lemony but seriously tasty. When I make these again I will probably add some veggies onto the skewers for a bit of variety but the combination of spices was flavoursome and felt very authentically Middle Eastern. 

Recipe

Tomato salad (Salatet Bandoora in Arabic)

Apparently this salad is usually found on dinner tables every day during the summer in many Gulf states. Fresh and minty sums this one up for me. I really liked having it with the kebabs but the red onion was a little overwhelming, apologies to my work colleagues who had the smell of it wafting through the office!

Recipe

The feast!

Falafel

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5605/falafel-burgers

For my final weekend of this month's challenge I have been down in Yorkshire catching up with one of my besties, Louise. We were having a quiet night in so I thought we could do some adventurous cooking while we were at it. According to my cook book falafel is to the Middle East what the hamburger is to America. This BBC recipe was quick, easy and actually quite good for you because they are shallow fried rather than the usual deep frying technique. They took a bit longer to cook than expected but once they were stuffed into pita breads with salad, halloumi and hummus they were sooooo good. I will be making these again for definite. 

Lovely Lou in charge of the falafels

Quite the spread....can you see the traditional Arabic Doritos on the right?

Halloumi

We ate loads of halloumi when we were in Doha and I have pretty much just  added it to all the recipes I’ve done because it is just so darn tasty. I have just grilled it and served on the side of everything. Delicious!

My culinary tour of the Middle East hasn’t been plain sailing but I am glad I gave it a go. The spices from the region are definitely to my taste, lemony, flavoursome and spicy without being hot like some of the Indian spices I used last month.  

So, onwards and upwards, from where I was born to where I call home, Britain. April is dedicated to British Classics.

As of next month I am going to try to blog as I go instead of saving it all up to the end of the month so we will get to chat a bit more often!

Happy eating xx Linds xx

P.S I did a bit of baking too, I know you are shocked! Sticky toffee cake A.MA.ZING.

Delicious Dozen – Bite Three

Hello there, how are you? Long time no see!!! February really is a very quick month isn’t it? It has just flown by, and with being on holiday for a week of it I only managed to make five Indian things. As expected it wasn’t all easy or 100% successful but I think I have still managed to get a little bit of an insight into Indian cuisine.

I must tell you though, I really searched and searched when I was looking for recipes. I was given a small Indian cookbook a few years ago which was my first port of call for things to try but to be honest nothing was very appealing! The main reason was that all the recipes (even the relatively simple ones) had about twenty five different ingredients and spices, many of which I had never heard of and had no idea where to buy them.  This was a bit of a setback at the start but in order to start my adventure into the world of cumin and garam masala I did what we all do now and googled!! Yep I just did what I did so often in my baking challenge last year and googled an easy version of the recipe I was looking for!

So, let's dig into the tasty Indian treats I tackled...

Creamy Masala Chicken

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1884/creamy-masala-chicken

This masala chicken from the ever-reliable James Martin and BBC Good Food was a good way to ease myself into Indian cooking. It was relatively straightforward and didn’t take too long, despite me being especially careful while chopping the chilli to avoid touching my eyes or accidentally eating the seeds. I am not great with really hot, spicy things so I was overly cautious and wore plastic gloves to chop them up... haha!! I’m sure all you real chefs out there are laughing at that but you never can be too careful. The end result was a creamy, zesty, aromatic curry, not hot and spicy at all just really flavoursome. I think the lime made it taste almost Thai curry-esque but nevertheless it was delicious and there were clean plates all round!

Peshwari naan bread

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/peshwarinaan_86757

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Peshwari naan breads and always thought they would be super tricky to make but they really aren’t at all. You do need some serious guns to knead the dough for 10 minutes but it is well worth it in the end because they are soft, lovely and taste just like the ones you get in restaurants. I was a bit worried because my dough didn’t double in size when I left it to rest but that didn’t seem to matter. I would try to roll the dough out a bit thinner next time but I was pleasantly surprised that they cooked so well by just spending a few minutes under a hot grill.

Nicely toasted.

Vegetable Pakora

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/vegetablepakoras_90048

I was keen to try out a side dish or two and vegetable pakoras seemed like a good, straightforward option. Now, having never deep fried anything at home I really wasn’t sure how hot the hot oil needed to be in order to cook the raw veg but I soon learned the hard way! I made two batches which were very burnt on the outside and very raw on the inside...ooopppss. Never mind, I just turned the heat down a bit to a sort of medium high heat and they cooked up really nicely. Surprisingly though the mixture was a little bit bland so we added extra helpings of all the spices which pepped things up nicely.

While these were yummy I‘m not sure I would do them again for two reasons. Firstly I managed to ruin a slotted spoon by leaving it in the hot oil for too long...eekkk...a bit of melted plastic never hurt anyone though right?? Mainly though I was put off making them again because our house smelt like a takeaway/greasy spoon café for DAYS and DAYS!! The unpleasant deep frying smell lingered a little bit too long for my liking so I think I might leave pakoras to the restaurant experts.

P.S if you do want to try this I would maybe suggest halving the quantities, the batch was huge, it made about twenty generous pakoras which I thought was a little bit much for a starter portion for four people - especially since there were only two of us.

A touch burnt...

A bit better... third time's the charm!

Lamb and sweet potato curry

http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/647970

As we are just back from a week in the Middle East where we ate lamb almost every day I thought it would be good to try a curry with it. Strangely I never think to order lamb curries when I’m eating out but it really is a super yummy meat. The recipe was easy enough to make but just took AGES to cook which was a bit annoying but the end result was delicious. It definitely had more of a kick to it spice wise than I was anticipating but it was yummy none the less. I think it’s the sort of thing my curry-loving Dad would like so I will have to try it out on him the next time he is up visiting.

Cucumber and mint riata

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cucumberandmintraita_67787

I decided to make riata to serve as a little starter with naan bread and poppadoms to dip in but I am really glad it was also on hand to cool the lamb curry down a touch for my sensitive palette. This literally took 2 minutes to make, especially thanks to my new kitchen gadget, my mini food processor (I have never had a food processor  before and now I’ve used it for a couple of meals I don’t know how I lived without it, it makes food prep soooo quick! Love it!). The nifty Kenwood grated the cucumber in seconds and the dip was perfectly fresh and minty. This will most definitely be done again.

My new best friend!

So, as you can see I didn’t exactly manage to tackle all aspects of Indian cooking...not at all actually but I tried my best in the speedy month of February and I’m glad I did it because it has given me a taste for what I could do in future.

So, onwards and upwards in to March. Inspired by our recent trip to Doha, Qatar I have decided to change one of my Delicious Dozen months to Middle Eastern food. This does mean I will have to ditch one of my other topics but I think it will be worth it, if nothing else I am hoping to try to reuse at least one or two of the many many spices I bought for Indian month!

See you with some Middle Eastern delights soon.

Happy cooking everyone x Linds x