Curry! Did I hear Yummy?

As most of my friends know (this is for you Caron!), I am rather obsessed with Indian food and Indian cooking...

I've been experimenting for years to replicate the amazing, sweet, spicy and complex flavours of Indian food you can find in South Africa. When I was still living in South Africa, I only cooked Indian food occasionally. It was so much easier to drive down to the Indian restaurant and grab take-aways rather than wrestle with spices, garlic, ginger and chillies!

Basic Indian cooking ingredients

Before I moved to Cambridge, Damon had warned me that the Indian food in the UK does not compare to the curries in South Africa. He was right! I haven't been able to find such tasty Indian food much to my tastebuds' despair! The only way for me to get my greedy hands on Korma, Masala, Makhni and other curries is to cook them myself...

Busy cooking Korma in our (tiny) Cambridge kitchen...

Tonight I made Cauliflower Bhaji with Beetroot Paratha but I will also include other Indian recipes I've made in the past in this post (this is for all those who've been asking for my Korma recipe!). 

Cauliflower Bhaji

Cauliflower Bhaji with Beetroot Paratha served with Yoghurt and Mango Chutney

Ingredients:

Butter/olive oil/coconut oil/ghee

1 Onion, chopped 

1 Red or Green Pepper, chopped

1 tsp Special Spice (see below)

1 tsp Fenugreek leaves, soaked in some water before adding to the curry

1 Cauliflower, cut into small florets and steamed/boiled/cooked

4 Tbsp Basic Curry Sauce (find recipe at the bottom of this post)

Optional: 2 tbsp Tomato Paste if the curry is not sweet enough for your taste

How to:

Heat the oil on medium heat. Stirfry the onion and green pepper until both are soft.

Add the Special Spice and Fenugreek leaves. Mix thoroughly.

Add the cauliflower and the Basic Curry Sauce (and tomato paste). You can also add a cup of water if the curry is too dry for you (I like my curry saucy so I added water). 

Heat through and serve with Paratha or Basmati rice.

Beetroot Paratha (Stuffed Indian Flat Bread)

Ingredients: 

2 cups Whole Wheat Flour (or all-purpose flour)

1 cup Water to knead the dough (you may not need all of this)

2 tbsp Butter/ghee at room temperature

Salt to taste

Stuffing:

2 cups Beetroot, chopped

1 Onion, chopped

2 Red Chillies

2.5 cm piece of Ginger

2 Garlic cloves

1 tsp Garam masala

Salt to taste

Coconut oil/ghee/vegetable oil

How to:

Add the butter into the flour and mix well until it has the consistency of sand. 

Add the salt and mix. 

Add a spoonful of water at a time and knead the dough until it is soft. Keep aside. 

Grind all the stuffing ingredients, except for the oil.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the beetroot on low-medium heat until it is almost dry. Remove the heat

Divide the dough into small balls, roll them out into thick wraps and put a little beetroot filling in the centre. Bring the edges together in the centre and pinch them together. Roll out the dough purse into parathas (thick-ish wraps).

Heat some oil in a large flat pan and fry each parathas until light brown.

Paneer Korma (vegetarian)
I am not claiming this is a traditional Indian recipe but it is the one recipe amongst dozens that comes closest to the Paneer Korma I used to eat on a weekly basis in South Africa. I may modify it as I perfect it, so keep an eye out!
Note: I did add peas to this dish because I had them in the freezer. Feel free to add any vegetable that you have lying around to make this dish a little bit more "healthy". 

Paneer Korma

Ingredients:
250gr Paneer, grilled in a pan with a little oil (or meat - just let it cook long enough for it to be tender) 4 Tomatoes, skin removed

1 tbsp Tomato paste
2 tbsp Butter/ghee/coconut butter
5cm piece of Ginger and 3 Garlic cloves - blend it with a bit of water into a paste
2 Green Chillies (or 1 tsp Red Chilli Powder)

3 Cardamom pods (or 1/2 tsp powder), seeds removed from the pods and crushed
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Turmeric

1 Onion, grated

1/4 cup Korma paste
1/2 tsp Salt, adjust to taste

1 Anise Seed Star

1 cup Mava - you can leave this out if you'd like, just double the cream and add 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 cup Cream

1/2 tsp Garam masala

Handful of Coriander leaves
Oil/Ghee

Korma paste: 

1/4 cup roasted cashew nuts/raw almonds, blended to a paste with a splash of water
Mava:
Evaporated Milk 1 Tin ( Nestle Coronation or any such )
Milk Powder 2 cups

- Mix in a bowl into a thick dough. Use as needed for this dish and keep the rest in the freezer until needed again.

How to:

Cook the tomatoes and tomato paste on low-medium heat until the tomatoes have "melted", then blend into a sauce. Keep aside.
Heat up the butter on medium heat in a large pan. Cook the garlic and ginger paste until light brown. 

Add the cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon and chillies and cook until fragrant (about a minute) but watch out not to burn the spices.

Add the onions and cook on medium heat until translucent and soft. Pour in the korma paste, mix well and cook for another minute. 

Add the tomato sauce, anise star, (peas) and salt. Cook for 3 minutes or until the tomato sauce is reduced a little bit. 

Add in the mava, mix well to make sure it dissolves throughout the dish. 

Add the garam masala, stir and reduce to low heat. Pour in the cream, stir well, making sure it does not come to the boil. 

Carefully add the paneer in to make sure not to break up. Heat through and serve with Basmati rice!

Festival Food

Ever been to a music festival with a vegan? Well, I have! And I've had to get quite creative to keep the recipes tasty, cheap, quick and with the minimum amount of ingredients to take along. All the recipes below are vegan but you can substitute ingredients for more conventional alternatives - though the chocolate fudgey bites are phenomenal as they are!

Doing what I do best - cook for everyone!

So yeah, sorry I haven't posted for a few days but we spent the weekend at a music festival (a vet, vegetarian, vegan and a legendary Essex lad!) - All Tomorrow's Parties - in Minehead (across the sea from Cardiff). To prevent excessive consumption of junk food during the weekend (we did pig out once for lunch...), I decided to come up with easy, quick recipes to feed 4 people using as few ingredients as possible.
Note that this is not for your typical South African festival, you'll need basic kitchen equipment for these recipes but they'll work for a quick meal.

Lunches and dinners for 3 night stay: 
Tomato Soup
Leek and Parnsip Risotto
Roasted Potato with Beans (don't need a recipe for this one, lol!)
Butternut Mac n Cheese
Celeriac and Cauliflower Mash with Veggie Burgers

Snacks:
Chocolate Fudgey Bites
Pita and Carrots with Hummus

Tomato Soup
I absolutely love tomato soup - it is probably the best kind of soup out there. The trick to delicious tomato soup is to de-seed all the tomatoes before cooking them. It can be quite time consuming but it is really worth it. You can also use cherry tomatoes if you have the patience/time to de-seed them!

Ingredients:
1kg tomatoes (you can use 1kg cherry tomatoes or half cherry tomatoes/half normal tomatoes)
1 onion, sliced
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 liter vegetable stock (use as much as desired depending how thick you like your soup)
Salt and pepper
Optional: butter, bread (we used wholemeal sourdough from the Earth's Crust in the Cambridge market) and cream to serve

How to:
If you'd like, you can skin the tomatoes but it is not necessary.
Start by chopping up the tomatoes and remove the seeds. 
Heat up some olive oil in a large pan and cook the onion until soft.
Add the tomatoes and cook for about 3 minutes.
Add the stock and the balsamic vinegar. Cook for 10 minutes.
Blend, season and serve warm with some cream and buttered bread.

Leek and Parsnip Risotto (with Ruby Orange Vodka Cocktail)

Eating lunch outside in the sun - an ATP festival first!

Ingredients (for 4 people):
1 onion, chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 fennel, chopped into small cubes
2 leeks, sliced thinly
400 grams risotto rice
150ml white wine - I used Pinto Grigio but I think a drier white would work best
1 liter of vegetable stock, keep warm in a separate pan
juice of one lemon
parsley or thyme - I only had thyme handy but I think parsley would work better
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

How to:
Heat up some olive oil in a pan on medium heat and add the onion. Cook on low heat until the onions are translucent but not brown. Add the garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.
Add the fennel and leek and cook on low-medium heat until both are soft.
Add the risotto rice and make sure it is nicely coated with the leftover oil in the pan. Keep mixing gently for a minute.
Pour the white wine in the pan and wait until it has mostly evaporated.
Add ladles of the warm stock one at a time. Wait a bit in between each ladle until the water has been absorbed by the rice - make sure the stove's not too hot or the stock will just evaporate and not cook the rice.
You can always add a bit more stock if needs be, just taste the rice along the way until it is al dente!
Once the rice is cooked, add chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste and the lemon juice.
Serve immediately on a sunny patio with a cool glass of white wine.

For the Ruby Orange Vodka Cocktail:

Eating tasty Butternut Mac n Cheese

Pour some Vanilla Vodka (I tend to be heavy handed so I won't give you any guidelines there, but the usual "single, double" rule should be alright here) in a tall glass. The mix is made up of 2/3 blood orange juice (or ruby orange juice) and 1/3 cranberry juice. Drink cold.

By the way, I need a creative name for the above cocktail - please help me with one!

Butternut Mac n Cheese
I stole this recipe from "Oh She Glows" so I'll link this up to her website where the original recipe is. I follow it to the letter and it comes out perfect, comforting and delicious.

Celeriac and Cauliflower Mash with Veggie Burgers (or any other burger for that matter)

Ingredients:
1 celeriac, peeled and chopped - I guess you could use parsnip or any other root vegetable
1 cauliflower, chopped
Thyme
A knob of butter (vegan or not)
A splash of milk (dairy or not) - adjust quantities depending on how thick/runny you like your mash
Salt and pepper

How to:
Boil the celeriac and cauliflower until very tender.
Drain and put into a large bowl. Add the thyme, salt, pepper, milk and butter.
Mash using a hand-held blender or a masher.
Adjust seasoning if necessary. 

Serve with the burger of your choice - we ate Aduki Bean Kiev and they were delicious!

Chocolate Fudge Bites! Nom Nom Nom

Chocolate Fudgey Bites
For snacks, I made these little devils: German Chocolate Fudge Bites and they came out so chocolatey and addictive!

Mark E Smith and Me! - "Good Evening, we are the Fall"

Damon's musical note: Music wise, the weekend's highlights included the Boredoms, the mighty Fall, Group Doueh's infectious Saharan grooves, Mount Eerie, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the monumental Earth and Matana Roberts.

The Boredoms (and me!) - Acid Police!