Along with the rogan josh I also dished up saag aloo.
I bought Gordon Ramsay’s Great Escape the other week and until I saw a photo of him in a vest started to quite fancy him. Which is irrelevant but I needed to share.
For this you need:
400g of fresh spinach
600g of potatoes (preferably floury ones such as Maris Piper)
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of onion seeds (I couldn’t find these so left them out…)
3 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli
1 teaspoon of salt
½ a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 onion
Lemon juice
Gordon Ramsay’s recipe also has a pinch of asafoetida (this is a spice that comes from the gum of the Ferula asafoetida plant. Tiny amounts are used as a digestive aid – oooh check me out!)
Before I begin I’d like to give a quick word of warning about cayenne pepper (or as Charlotte and I insist on calling it: Kanye pepper. “I’m gunna let you finish, but Imtiaz Qureshi makes the best curry of all time!”)
The pepper was tightly packed in the jar when I tried to measure it out onto a teaspoon which meant I had to shake it about a bit and got some on my hands. I’m very cautious when I use chillies and things so washed them straight away. This didn’t stop a bit making its way just under my thumb nail. I washed my hands in freezing water eight times to try and make the burning stop but to no avail. By midnight, four hours later, the intense fiery pain had let up slightly but even last night there was still a horrible lava-hot feeling when I touched anything. So be incredibly careful with this sodding stuff.
Wilt the spinach in a pan of boiling salted water for one minute. Drain it in a colander and rinse with cold water to perk it up a bit. Squeeze out all the lovely looking greenish water and roughly chop. Stick these to one side until everything else is done.
Finely chop the garlic, deseed the chilli and do the same. Cut the onion in half and finely slice this too. Peel the potatoes and chop them in to cubes.
I used a medium sized pan for this which I think was a lot easier than the frying pan the recipe suggests. Heat the oil and add the mustard and onion seeds (and asafoetida if you’ve managed to find any). The seeds start to pop when they get hot which is marvellous fun and once this happens throw in the onion, garlic and the chilli. After three or four minutes dump the potatoes in and shake the salt and cayenne pepper over them to season. Stir these around a lot while they fry on a high heat for a few minutes.
Pour in four or five tablespoons of water and stick a lid on it. Lower the heat and cook for twenty minutes to half an hour depending on the size of the diced potatoes. You need to keep moving this around so the potatoes don’t stick. I stirred mine and they broke up quite a bit so shaking the pan would probably be a better idea. Just like the curry if it seems too dry add a splash more water.
Chuck in the spinach and a squeeze of lemon juice and gently stir it all in. Let the spinach heat up for a minute or two, move to a bowl and stick in front of a hungry friend.
Showing posts with label curry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label curry. Show all posts
Monday, 22 March 2010
Indian Saturday #1: Rogan josh
On Saturday night I went what I can only describe as mental and decided to knock up a couple of Indian dishes for Charlotte and myself.
First up is rogan josh from Anjum Anand’s Anjum’s New Indian.
The list of ingredients looks incredibly long (especially when you’re wondering around Waitrose with an A4 shopping list) but when it comes to cooking it actually doesn’t seem too bad.
750g of lamb or mutton, cut into chunks
3 or 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 blade of mace
7 black peppercorns
3 cloves
2 black cardamom pods
5 green cardamom pods (I could only find green ones so used 7 of those)
5cm of a cinnamon stick
A large onion
2 medium tomatoes
12g of fresh ginger
6 large cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of ground fennel seeds
2 teaspoons of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of red chilli powder
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
1 and a half teaspoons of garam masala
A pinch of salt
3 tablespoons of natural yoghurt
Fresh coriander
It won’t come as a shock to anyone that even with a bit of prep I managed to miss out the cloves and put all the spices in at the wrong time. Charlotte hit the nail on the head when she said “It’s not the best curry I’ve ever had but it’s still tasty.” I’d say that as she ate her body weight it must have been okay but by the time I served it up she was hungry enough to have eaten it off the floor had I dropped it.
So you have the ginger and garlic mix to hand while you’re cooking I’d do this before you start.
Chop the garlic and throw it in a blender and add the peeled and chopped ginger. Keep the chunks quite big or they’ll get lost under the blades like mine did. Add a slosh of water and whiz until you have a paste.
The tomatoes need to be puréed so I’d suggest using tinned ones. I was using fresh, uncooked and unskinned tomatoes at it wasn’t half a job. The 1980s kitchen equipment came out (with the usual story from my mother about how it’s older than me… maybe) and the tomatoes got ineffectively schmooshed in a bowl. They then went through a sieve but somehow there were still strips of skin in there. This wasn’t end of the world but strangely enough it’s probably better to do it properly.
Put both of these to one side and heat the oil in a large non-stick pan. Throw in the peppercorns, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and the mace. The recipe very clearly says ‘add the whole spices’ but I, in my true village idiot style, put all the spices in. Fry the spices until they sizzle and then add the onion. Cook this until it’s browned and then add the lamb, stirring until it’s also browned all over.
Pour in the garlic and ginger and lower the heat. Stir it about for a couple of minutes and the garlic should start smelling like it’s cooked. In goes the ground coriander, cumin, fennel, chilli powder, salt and garam masala. Stir this for just under a minute.
I couldn’t find any powdered fennel so Charlotte was given my make-shift pestle and mortar (plastic bowl, rolling pin) and told to crush away.
After the last of the spices go in add the tomatoes and turn the heat up. This then cooks for fifteen minutes and needs stirred once in a while. If it starts to dry up too fast add a splash of hot water.
After the fifteen minutes mine was still quite watery. I’m not sure it should be as the recipe says ‘add enough water to come halfway up the meat’ but never mind. Bring the curry to the boil and then turn the heat down quite low. Simmer for around 35-45 minutes until the meat is lovely and tender. The liquid should reduce into a thick gravy. Stir in the yoghurt before bringing back to the boil. Remove it from the heat, mix in a handful of roughly chopped coriander and serve.
First up is rogan josh from Anjum Anand’s Anjum’s New Indian.
The list of ingredients looks incredibly long (especially when you’re wondering around Waitrose with an A4 shopping list) but when it comes to cooking it actually doesn’t seem too bad.
750g of lamb or mutton, cut into chunks
3 or 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 blade of mace
7 black peppercorns
3 cloves
2 black cardamom pods
5 green cardamom pods (I could only find green ones so used 7 of those)
5cm of a cinnamon stick
A large onion
2 medium tomatoes
12g of fresh ginger
6 large cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of ground fennel seeds
2 teaspoons of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of red chilli powder
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
1 and a half teaspoons of garam masala
A pinch of salt
3 tablespoons of natural yoghurt
Fresh coriander
It won’t come as a shock to anyone that even with a bit of prep I managed to miss out the cloves and put all the spices in at the wrong time. Charlotte hit the nail on the head when she said “It’s not the best curry I’ve ever had but it’s still tasty.” I’d say that as she ate her body weight it must have been okay but by the time I served it up she was hungry enough to have eaten it off the floor had I dropped it.
So you have the ginger and garlic mix to hand while you’re cooking I’d do this before you start.
Chop the garlic and throw it in a blender and add the peeled and chopped ginger. Keep the chunks quite big or they’ll get lost under the blades like mine did. Add a slosh of water and whiz until you have a paste.
The tomatoes need to be puréed so I’d suggest using tinned ones. I was using fresh, uncooked and unskinned tomatoes at it wasn’t half a job. The 1980s kitchen equipment came out (with the usual story from my mother about how it’s older than me… maybe) and the tomatoes got ineffectively schmooshed in a bowl. They then went through a sieve but somehow there were still strips of skin in there. This wasn’t end of the world but strangely enough it’s probably better to do it properly.
Put both of these to one side and heat the oil in a large non-stick pan. Throw in the peppercorns, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and the mace. The recipe very clearly says ‘add the whole spices’ but I, in my true village idiot style, put all the spices in. Fry the spices until they sizzle and then add the onion. Cook this until it’s browned and then add the lamb, stirring until it’s also browned all over.
Pour in the garlic and ginger and lower the heat. Stir it about for a couple of minutes and the garlic should start smelling like it’s cooked. In goes the ground coriander, cumin, fennel, chilli powder, salt and garam masala. Stir this for just under a minute.
I couldn’t find any powdered fennel so Charlotte was given my make-shift pestle and mortar (plastic bowl, rolling pin) and told to crush away.
After the last of the spices go in add the tomatoes and turn the heat up. This then cooks for fifteen minutes and needs stirred once in a while. If it starts to dry up too fast add a splash of hot water.
After the fifteen minutes mine was still quite watery. I’m not sure it should be as the recipe says ‘add enough water to come halfway up the meat’ but never mind. Bring the curry to the boil and then turn the heat down quite low. Simmer for around 35-45 minutes until the meat is lovely and tender. The liquid should reduce into a thick gravy. Stir in the yoghurt before bringing back to the boil. Remove it from the heat, mix in a handful of roughly chopped coriander and serve.
Friday, 26 February 2010
Cooking with middle class students
I’ve just finished the first week of my scary new job so decided to finally write about the last thing I cooked as I was too lazy to do it before.
After leaving Zoo on the 12th I was technically unemployed for a week. I had decided to spend my time preparing for my new position and trying out a lot of recipes but instead I went to Manchester and gave myself a two-day hangover.
My friend Asha is in her third year of a drama degree there and is currently in the middle of her dissertation. So obviously I thought that this would be the best time to go up and demand all of her attention. Intent on giving the poor student a taste of the high life I crashed through her front door with four bottles of champagne and expected to be knee-deep in Pot Noodle and empty pizza boxes. In actual fact I was greeted with a fridge full of fresh food, green tea and fancy cook books. In the end I was the only real student there at all: drinking beer at the crack of midday, watching two week’s worth of Neighbours on the internet and eating chips for breakfast.
I arrived on Shrove Tuesday and the plan was to make pancakes for lunch. To relax before this challenge we cracked open a bottle of Bollinger and I helped Asha learn some lines. I absolutely love doing this and get far too in to it. Unfortunately I went mental and was unable to do my crap American accent for one of the characters so did the whole thing in my crap Australian accent instead. I realised it was time to stop once Asha told me she was ready to punch me in the face. By now we were well and truly squiffy and pancakes were replaced by a trip to Pizza Express, washed down with a bottle of their rose cava. After dinner we weaved our way to a fundraiser for Asha’s play where within two minutes I had paid £3 to have a penis drawn on my hand - which only came off on Thursday evening. After a few more drinks we trotted home where it seemed essential to open another bottle of bubbly while Asha taught me when to use ‘who’s’ and ‘whose’. I thought I’d mention this as a word of warning to anyone else who thinks leaving school at 14 might be a good idea. There really isn’t anything more embarrassing than reaching 21, still not knowing and having to ask your friend to explain it.
Apart from the two of you then Googling ‘whom’.
Wednesday was a bad day for the both of us. Having managed not to be sick Asha sloped off to a rehearsal and I decided the best thing for my hangover was to drink four cans of Coke. I was wrong and spent most of the afternoon twitching and unable to concentrate on the high-brow documentary I was watching (http://snipurl.com/uf8wp). Later we recovered enough to make it to the cinema where we saw A Single Man. I cried through out most of it and I’m still unsure if that’s because it was very sad or my body was just doing anything it could to get all the alcohol out of my system. Cooking had once again fallen foul of the demon drink.
Waking up with a (vaguely) clear head on Thursday meant it was finally time for pancakes. In to a bowl went 100g of plain flour, a pinch of salt, one egg and 300ml of milk. It started to look like batter once Asha snatched the bowl from my grasp and beat it properly. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen her hovering by my shoulder, hopping from foot to foot, itching to say ‘shall I do that?’ so prolonged her agony for as long as possible. We had planned to go shopping that morning but after our slightly undercooked breakfast lazing on the sofa all day seemed a much better idea.
That evening we pulled our socks up and planned a lovely farewell dinner. We picked an invention of Asha’s based on a Nigella Lawson recipe.
I suppose you would call it a Thai red chicken and mango curry. Apart from the fact it isn’t red. The list of things you need seems rather long but when you’re as middle class as Asha most of the ingredients are in your kitchen anyway. And they are:
1 tablespoon of wok oil
1 spring onion, finely sliced
½ - 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
Diced chicken
2-3 teaspoons of red Thai curry paste
2 cloves of garlic
200ml of coconut milk
250ml of chicken stock
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
Assorted veg (we used mange tout, baby corn, courgette and broccoli)
The juice of half a lime
Diced mango
Fresh coriander
Heat the wok oil in, surprisingly, a wok and add the spring onion, chilli and garlic. Brown these off and add the curry paste.
Throw in the chicken and give it around five minutes to start to cook properly.
Pour in the coconut milk, chicken stock and fish sauce before bringing to the boil. Chuck in whatever vegetables you’re using and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes, adding some coriander five minutes before it’s done.
Squeeze the lime juice over everything, add the mango and give the curry another five minutes or so for it to soften. Serve with some more fresh coriander on top. I would have uploaded a picture of it but I took it on my phone and it looks a bit unappetising.
I realise that this was very, very long and I could have just skipped straight to the curry but this saves me having to repeat what I did on my week off to anyone who bothers to ask.
After leaving Zoo on the 12th I was technically unemployed for a week. I had decided to spend my time preparing for my new position and trying out a lot of recipes but instead I went to Manchester and gave myself a two-day hangover.
My friend Asha is in her third year of a drama degree there and is currently in the middle of her dissertation. So obviously I thought that this would be the best time to go up and demand all of her attention. Intent on giving the poor student a taste of the high life I crashed through her front door with four bottles of champagne and expected to be knee-deep in Pot Noodle and empty pizza boxes. In actual fact I was greeted with a fridge full of fresh food, green tea and fancy cook books. In the end I was the only real student there at all: drinking beer at the crack of midday, watching two week’s worth of Neighbours on the internet and eating chips for breakfast.
I arrived on Shrove Tuesday and the plan was to make pancakes for lunch. To relax before this challenge we cracked open a bottle of Bollinger and I helped Asha learn some lines. I absolutely love doing this and get far too in to it. Unfortunately I went mental and was unable to do my crap American accent for one of the characters so did the whole thing in my crap Australian accent instead. I realised it was time to stop once Asha told me she was ready to punch me in the face. By now we were well and truly squiffy and pancakes were replaced by a trip to Pizza Express, washed down with a bottle of their rose cava. After dinner we weaved our way to a fundraiser for Asha’s play where within two minutes I had paid £3 to have a penis drawn on my hand - which only came off on Thursday evening. After a few more drinks we trotted home where it seemed essential to open another bottle of bubbly while Asha taught me when to use ‘who’s’ and ‘whose’. I thought I’d mention this as a word of warning to anyone else who thinks leaving school at 14 might be a good idea. There really isn’t anything more embarrassing than reaching 21, still not knowing and having to ask your friend to explain it.
Apart from the two of you then Googling ‘whom’.
Wednesday was a bad day for the both of us. Having managed not to be sick Asha sloped off to a rehearsal and I decided the best thing for my hangover was to drink four cans of Coke. I was wrong and spent most of the afternoon twitching and unable to concentrate on the high-brow documentary I was watching (http://snipurl.com/uf8wp). Later we recovered enough to make it to the cinema where we saw A Single Man. I cried through out most of it and I’m still unsure if that’s because it was very sad or my body was just doing anything it could to get all the alcohol out of my system. Cooking had once again fallen foul of the demon drink.
Waking up with a (vaguely) clear head on Thursday meant it was finally time for pancakes. In to a bowl went 100g of plain flour, a pinch of salt, one egg and 300ml of milk. It started to look like batter once Asha snatched the bowl from my grasp and beat it properly. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen her hovering by my shoulder, hopping from foot to foot, itching to say ‘shall I do that?’ so prolonged her agony for as long as possible. We had planned to go shopping that morning but after our slightly undercooked breakfast lazing on the sofa all day seemed a much better idea.
That evening we pulled our socks up and planned a lovely farewell dinner. We picked an invention of Asha’s based on a Nigella Lawson recipe.
I suppose you would call it a Thai red chicken and mango curry. Apart from the fact it isn’t red. The list of things you need seems rather long but when you’re as middle class as Asha most of the ingredients are in your kitchen anyway. And they are:
1 tablespoon of wok oil
1 spring onion, finely sliced
½ - 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
Diced chicken
2-3 teaspoons of red Thai curry paste
2 cloves of garlic
200ml of coconut milk
250ml of chicken stock
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
Assorted veg (we used mange tout, baby corn, courgette and broccoli)
The juice of half a lime
Diced mango
Fresh coriander
Heat the wok oil in, surprisingly, a wok and add the spring onion, chilli and garlic. Brown these off and add the curry paste.
Throw in the chicken and give it around five minutes to start to cook properly.
Pour in the coconut milk, chicken stock and fish sauce before bringing to the boil. Chuck in whatever vegetables you’re using and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes, adding some coriander five minutes before it’s done.
Squeeze the lime juice over everything, add the mango and give the curry another five minutes or so for it to soften. Serve with some more fresh coriander on top. I would have uploaded a picture of it but I took it on my phone and it looks a bit unappetising.
I realise that this was very, very long and I could have just skipped straight to the curry but this saves me having to repeat what I did on my week off to anyone who bothers to ask.
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