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
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
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
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
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
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
No comments:
Post a Comment