Spicy Hot Prawn & Apple Curry - friskier than a spring lamb!

I have had this recipe sitting waiting to be published since for ever, it seems.  The trouble is, you see, Christmas and new year got right in the way and I lost touch with reality.  *chuckle*  No, reality has always been right here - I just got distracted for a while.

So here you are all those people who were so keen to have the recipe.  I do apologise for the time it has taken.

The curry is a touch different from the norm in its use of apple, but it gives such a lovely fruity tang that goes so well with the tomato, tamarind, red onion and coconut. Some of those ingredients also give off a sweetness which somehow boosts the flavour of the prawns. Lots of savoury flavours as well, of course, from garlic, coriander, ginger, turmeric and the curry powder - which included a small amount of Tikka curry powder, prevent it from becoming too sweet and naturally the hot spiciness from the red chillis combined with the ginger and spicy curry to make this lovely light textured prawn curry super frisky! Not so frisky that it melts anything, but enough to clear the sinuses. Can't be bad!

SPICY HOT PRAWN & APPLE CURRY   (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp plus a half tbsp salted butter 
1-2 red onions, depending on size, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
sea salt
ground black pepper
a quarter tsp of ground cinnamon
4 cherry tomatoes, diced
1 sharp eating apple (I used Braeburn), peeled, cored & diced small
3 tsp medium curry powder
1 tsp tikka curry powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground ginger
a pinch of dried red chilli flakes (to taste)
500ml hot water plus more as required
1 tbsp tamarind sauce
1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaf plus a little for garnish
half tsp honey (to taste)
325g cooked, peeled, cold water large prawns, defrosted and drained if pre-frozen
hot white Basmati rice to serve.

Method :


Melt the coconut oil and butter in a large frying pan and add the onions & garlic.  Fry on a medium heat until the onions are transparent and just beginning to caramelise and the garlic is fragrant.  This shouldn't take too long if the onions have been chopped finely enough.  Part way through the cooking, add the sea salt, black pepper and cinnamon and stir through.

Once the onions and garlic are cooked to your satisfaction, add the cherry tomatoes and apple and cook on until the tomatoes are beginning to soften and break up.

Add the curry powder, turmeric, ginger and red chilli flakes and stir through.  Cook on for about 5 more minutes, to allow the spices to amalgamate and lose their uncooked flavour.  Add the water, tamarind sauce and fresh coriander and stir through.

Cook at a simmer, stirring regularly, until the ingredients have all amalgamated into a sauce and the sauce has reduced to a good thick consistency.  This can take around 20 mins, perhaps a bit longer depending on how much juice the tomatoes had and how much water you added.

Taste the sauce for seasoning and add more salt, or black pepper, or chilli flakes as necessary.  Taste again and add the honey if required.  Stir everything through once more.

When you are happy with the flavour and consistency of the sauce, add the prawns and increase the temperature under the pan, to heat the prawns through.  You aren't looking to cook them as they've already been cooked - just heat them through to piping hot.

Serve the curry with the white basmati rice and sprinkle the remainder of the coriander over the top as garnish.

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Prawn & Pineapple curry - mmmnn, fruity!

Somehow or another, we've wound up with several little bits of things left over from dishes that either didn't happen, or where ingredients have been too much and a portion of them were put into the freezer "for another day".  One such is a tin of pineapple.  Somehow or another we've managed to accumulate two of them in the tin cupboard, which really is just one too many.

So I set my mind to pondering on what could be done with said pineapple. What it was supposed to be, was part of a salad.  However, England being what it is, the "too hot for anything but salad" days have gone for now and left me with a pineapple glut.  The obvious answer was to bake a pineapple upside down cake - and I wouldn't rule out the second tin being disposed of that way - but I'm afraid I just couldn't justify two cakes in quick succession.  No, I felt sure there was a savoury context I could use a tin of pineapple in - it was just a matter of deciding what.  Once again, the obvious is a sweet and sour chicken dish, but son & heir really isn't keen on that.  Which led me to thinking about the curries that involve fruit.  Our local Indian takeaway does a curry with pineapple and lychee, so I knew it was possible.

What goes well with pineapple, then?  Coconut.  Yep, that's perfect.  Chicken, or fish?  Prawns!  Yes, I believe I've seen salads with pineapple and prawns, so they have to be nice together.  A coconutty, pineappley, prawney .... um .... tomato?  Yes, that'd work, oh and I've got my new tamarind sauce, I could use some of that too!  Coconut cream would thicken it nicely and a combination of curry powders would provide depth of flavour.  And so, the delicious prawn & pineapple curry took form in my mind - and this evening, in my kitchen.

It really proved to be as good as I'd thought it would be.  To my taste buds, it was slightly frisky with chilli heat but for hubby and son & heir, they could have taken it a lot hotter so maybe next time I'll add a few red chilli flakes to just up the heat ante a little.  I could still taste the prawns (which was, for me, a desired result) and the pineapple juice as well as the tamarind sauce gave the curry a delicious acidity, together with - oddly - a degree of sweetness which a handful of peas helped along.

Now as for Cook's Tips, I have just the one which is to make sure that you add the cooked prawns at the very last minute, when you are just about to serve. They only take a twinkling to heat up and you definitely don't want them simmering in the sauce for longer than it takes for them to do that, or you'll have pink curls of prawn flavoured rubber - and nobody likes those in their curry.

So there you are!  The curry took me around 35/45 minutes to make, so it is a good one for an evening when you've not a lot of time or energy.  I really liked this curry and am looking forward to the next instalment of it!  

PRAWN & PINEAPPLE CURRY   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 heaped tbsp solid coconut oil
1 red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
3 tsp medium curry powder
1 tsp tandoori curry powder
half a tsp ground coriander
quarter of a tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 large vine ripened tomatoes, cored and diced
pinch of sea salt
quarter of a tsp ground black pepper
110g tinned pineapple pieces, with juice
120ml hot water
1 tsp fish stock powder (or a low salt fish stock cube)
1 tbsp tamarind sauce (or 1 tbsp mango chutney)
15g coconut cream
a small handful of frozen peas
15g butter
250g cooked, peeled, cold water prawns.

Method :

Gently heat the coconut oil in a deep frying pan and add the onion and garlic. Fry, stirring regularly, until the garlic is a light golden colour and the onion has turned transparent.  This should take up to 10 minutes.

Add both the curry powders, coriander, cinnamon and turmeric and stir to combine.  Cook for 2-3 minutes until all trace of dry powder has gone.

Add the chopped tomatoes and stir well.  Cook until the tomatoes are beginning to soften, adding the sea salt & black pepper along the way.

Add the pineapple pieces, pineapple juice, water and fish stock and stir to combine.  Bring to a lively simmer and simmer to reduce the liquid by at least half.

Add the tamarind sauce (or mango chutney) and coconut cream and stir through until the coconut cream has dissolved and combined.

Add the frozen peas and butter and stir through.  You can now either simmer until the sauce has reduced to your liking, or add a little more hot water to thin the sauce to your liking.

Finally, add the prawns and stir through.  Continue to simmer until the prawns are heated through properly and serve in warm bowls with steamed white basmati rice.

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Chicken Jalfrezi - a lighter but still tasty version!

Over the last few months, my hubby has slowly taken agin the curry pastes that are widely available for home made curries.  He's begun to find them very one-dimensional but more importantly to him, they don't taste of curry. Now this curry flavour is a very definite thing that we have yet to quite pin down, but this Jalfrezi got the closest to it in any curry for a long time.  We're still not quite there, but as I liked this recipe a lot for its flavour and use of fresh vegetables, I thought I'd pass it on to you all.

This recipe doesn't result in a heavy, thickly sauced curry but one that is a lot lighter in texture and without the pools of oil that characterise so many curries these days.  Oh and I'm really not sure how much of a Jalfrezi it really is, but I'm hoping that it is close at least.  As it uses curry powder, my first word of warning is to make sure you are using a good curry powder.  One which has a number of different flavours to it is by far and away the best.  I have yet to find - and yes, I will admit that perhaps there is one somewhere - a supermarket own brand curry powder that would even remotely fit the bill. My favourite curry powders come from our local ethnic shop, where I'm hoping that the curry powders on offer are close to the "real thing", but are certainly a long way from bland.

Secondly, make sure to use tomatoes that have flavour.  Vine ripened are the best of the supermarket choices, but it is worthwhile throwing in a few cherry tomatoes just to boost the profile a bit.

Lastly, make sure to leave yourself enough time.  Once the tomatoes get cooking, you need time for them to cook down, then time for the juice to reduce and intensify the flavour.  If you take the pot off the heat and think it's finished too soon, you'll just have a vaguely spicy tomato stew and not a curry.  So, give yourself and your curry time to chuckle, burp and spit tiny blobs of curry into random spots in your kitchen, you'll be glad you did even if the clean up is tricky.  (Of course, I could have got out the splatter guard which would have made sure no blobs escaped, but I was comfy and would have had to have moved.  What can I tell you?  ~shrug~).

From first putting the coconut oil into the wok, to calling everyone to attention in order to get them sat down and ready for the meal, my curry took around 50 minutes (with a good 30 minutes of chopping beforehand).  So it's not an earth-shattering amount of time, but if you only have half an hour, you're going to be in tomato stew land.  So leave sufficient time.

I really liked this curry.  Hubby wasn't so enthused, but I've already told you about the quest for curryness that we're on there.  When cooking it, I was concerned that it didn't have enough curry character, but as our son came home from college and immediately knew it was curry for dinner, I'm assuming it was just that my nose had got used to the aromas.  It tasted good right from the off and really came together in the last 10 minutes, once the liquid had reduced and the proper curry sauce texture arrived.  It was amazing the difference that reduction made to the overall flavour.

So, enough blathering and on with the recipe!

CHICKEN JALFREZI  (serves 4)

Ingredients :

2 red peppers, one roughly chopped into chunks, the other sliced
1 large onion, half roughly chopped into chunks, the other half sliced
4 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tbsp coconut oil
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced
a pinch of sea salt
4 heaped teaspoonfuls curry powder
1 heaped teaspoonful garam masala
a quarter of a teaspoonful of ground black pepper
2 very large sweet tomatoes, chopped
6 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 tsp chicken stock powder (or 1 stock cube)
150ml hot water
1-2 tsp runny honey (optional)
10g butter (optional)
15g fresh coriander, chopped (reserve a little for garnish)
cooked white rice to serve.

Method :

Begin by placing the chunks of red pepper, the chunks of onion and the garlic into a food processor and blitz until a purée is achieved.  Set this aside.

Next, heat the coconut oil in a large saucepan or wok until really quite hot and gently add the sliced chicken breasts and sprinkle with the sea salt.  Spread the pieces across the pan and leave them to achieve a little colour, then turn and do the same again.  The slices do not need to be cooked through at this stage.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the chicken to a bowl and reserve.

Add the sliced red pepper and sliced onion to the wok and cook, covered, for 5-6 minutes stirring half way through, until they have gained a little colour and begun to soften.

Add the puree to the wok, along with the curry powder, garam masala and black pepper.  Stir well to combine and fry, stirring occasionally, until the juices are released and the mix has dried out considerably.  This should take around 10 minutes if your wok heat is high enough.

Add the chopped tomatoes and stir through, along with the chicken stock and the water.  Once combined, add the chicken pieces and stir through.  Now this is where the patience is required.  You need to have the pan hot enough that the tomatoes will cook and release their juices, then the juices (and the chicken stock) will reduce and the full flavour be created.  You will start with a quite considerable quantity in the pan, but once everything has cooked down and reduced, the sauce will thicken and the liquid will evaporate.

Marginally before the sauce reaches its final few minutes, taste for the salt level and add a little more if necessary, but remember that there will be a little salt in the butter that if you're using, should be added now.  Taste also for acidity and add the honey to your preference to correct that.  If you consider there's no sweetening required, then don't use the honey.

Once everything is combined and happy to be there, the sauce is thick and there are no pools of water on the surface of the curry, then you're ready to serve.

Serve with plain white Basmati rice and sprinkle with the reserved chopped fresh coriander as garnish.

Printable version

Citrus & spice chicken

I've been going through a whole heap of old paperwork recently - which included my many and various files and folders chock-a-block full of collected recipes.  In doing so, I have re-discovered several favourites from pre-Rhubarb & Ginger times, one of which being this citrus & spice chicken.

The recipe has developed over the years (as recipes are wont to do) but I note from the paper recipe in my folder, that the original was adapted from the Good Food Magazine's "40 Best Chicken Recipes" booklet.  Well, it's been adapted yet again - and very much for the better.  The very first recipe was basically a traybake, my first version added several ingredients such as the honey and chilli powder.  This last incarnation has separated out the vegetables to be cooked on the hob instead of in the oven, which I much prefer.

Marinate, my little lovelies!

Oven cooking the vegetables inevitably led to burned ends and undercooked middles, as the sheer quantity of meat and vegetables in the tray didn't really allow for even cooking.  Plus, it is nice to have a small degree of char on the chicken, but not so nice on the peppers and mushrooms.

This way, the chicken has plenty of air space around each piece and the cooking is much more even - particularly if you place the larger pieces to the outside and the smaller pieces to the inside of the tray.  The surface attains nice little charred corners, while the chicken itself stays moist and delicious.

Cooking the vegetables in a frying pan enables much more degree of control.  Inevitably the leftover marinade isn't enough moisture to see them through the entirety of the cook, but adding a little water from time to time not only allows the vegetables to steam, but also keeps the marinade saucy.  This way, you have the relatively dry chicken, accompanied by the saucy vegetables - which provides a lovely balance and completely without burned ends.

Ready for the oven - Bacofoil's non-stick aluminium foil is great for this!

Another huge positive to this recipe - apart from the flavour which is really tasty - is its speed.  Provided you get the chicken on to marinade in advance, it is a really simple task to prepare a couple of salad veggies, cook some rice, put the chicken in the oven and pan cook the vegetables.  From taking the marinating chicken out of the fridge to dishing up, probably only took around 45 minutes in total.  I love that - especially when there's such a pay-off by way of flavour.

So what's the flavour like?  The chicken flavour is there, no one flavour overrules it and because the curry past is used fairly sparingly and is very much tempered by the use of the yoghurt, it doesn't take precedence.  The honey gives a quiet sweetness and the garlic helps to savoury it all up nicely.  In fact, don't tell anyone, but if you add the yoghurt, then the lemon juice, then the honey, stir it all together and have a taste - mmmmn, it would make a smashing dessert!

Once the curry paste, oil and garlic are added though, I wouldn't recommend tipping it on top of your strawberries.  The oven adds the last element of flavour to the chicken, in the small degree of charring as the tops of the chicken pieces catch in the oven.  It all amounts to an absolutely scrumptious whole.

Now, as for Cook's Tips, I don't have many but there are a few worth mentioning.

The recipe calls for the juice of half a lemon.  If, however, you don't have a lemon but do have a lime - then no worries, use that instead!  You will need the whole lime's juice and the flavour will be slightly different, but no less nice.  I have used both in the past and can't decide which one I like the best.

Where the chilli powder is concerned, feel free to add as little or as much as you like.  However, if you're new to chilli powder and curry spice, I'd suggest you err on the side of caution to begin with - you can always add a little bit more the next time.

You can certainly freewheel a bit where the accompaniments are concerned.  I think the chicken and vegetables would be lovely served in a soft Indian flatbread with some salad alongside.  On this occasion, I served the chicken with some basmati rice that I had cooked in chicken stock and turmeric, along with the cooling influence of avocado and cucumber.  For my son, who isn't keen on avocado, I served a sliced juicy tomato and cucumber.  The chicken is certainly flexible enough in flavour profile, that there are a whole host of accompaniments you could serve with it.

Calories are in the range of 398 per portion, it is low in sodium and high in Vitamins B6 and C, so it could be worse!

I am so happy to have rediscovered this recipe.  I think it is going to appear fairly regularly on the menu plan and I recommend it to you.  Without the chilli powder, it would be great for children, too.

CITRUS & SPICE CHICKEN   (Serves 3)

Ingredients:

For the marinade :

150ml natural yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt)
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp runny honey
1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
2 generous tsp curry paste or powder
1 garlic clove, crushed
chilli powder to taste (I used 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder).

Other ingredients :

3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into large chunks
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into large slices
half a green pepper, deseeded and cut into large slices
1 onion cut into large slices
6 medium chestnut mushrooms , quartered
1 tbsp olive oil.

Method :

1.  Mix together the marinade ingredients in a bowl.

2.  Add chicken chunks to the marinade, stir to coat and set aside to marinate for as long as you've got - from 4 hours to 30 minutes.

3.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.

4.  Place the chicken chunks onto a baking tray, taking care to leave as much of the marinade in the bowl, but without scraping any off the chicken.

5.  Bake the chicken for 30 minutes, remembering to turn the tray half way through to ensure even colouring.

6.  Add the vegetables to the bowl and stir to coat them in the marinade.

7.  Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the vegetables, marinade and 200ml water.  Cook, covered, on a medium heat until the peppers are softened and onions are cooked through.  You may need to add more water, but only a little at a time.

8.  Once the vegetables are cooked, remove the lid and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken, which will only take 2-3 minutes if you haven't added too much water.

9.  The chicken is ready once the chunks are cooked through and they have gained a little bit of charred colour.

Serve with steamed basmati rice, avocado and cucumber.

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Meal planning through Easter

Not quite an Easter bunny - but so cute!

Easter has been a bit of a non-event for us, so far, in the planning.  I suppose we don't really make a great deal of Easter now that son & heir is beyond believing in the Easter Bunny (more's the pity - I had great fun making paper bunny pawprints to put all around the house!).

In days gone by, the family would all assemble at someone's house (usually, when we were in the country, my Nanna & Gramps' house in Kingston) and there would be a re-creation of Christmas, except without the presents but with Easter eggs.  We'd have another Turkey - usually with a Roast Beef alongside - and so Easter would be marked.

These days, having been through a phase of attending either my parents' place or my Aunt & Uncle's place, Easter seems to have fallen off the map somewhat.  I can remember enjoying Easters in the past, so I feel a bit guilty that we're not making those family memories for son & heir - but circumstances change and the wider family just isn't there any more.

Also, I've contracted son & heir's sniffles - which have developed into a full blown (and "blown" is the right word) cold.  I am so fed up with not being able to breathe and with being either too hot or too cold.  As a consequence of all that, when I sat down on Sunday to work out the week's menu plan, it came as something of a surprise to discover there was an Easter Sunday in the middle of it all!

So, after all that whining and whingeing (apologies for that!), here's what we wound up with :

Tues : Asparagus tart & pasta salad

Wed : North Indian Chicken Curry with rice

Thurs : Bacon couscous stuffed red peppers with potato wedges

Fri : Sherried chicken casserole with broccoli and crusty bread

Sat : Smoky pork & black bean wraps with salsa and sour cream

Sun : King prawn & Peppadew risotto

Mon : Five spice beef & sugar snap peas with noodles.

Mmmmn, nom nom!  Sounds lovely, I think!

The Asparagus Tart is modelled on a tart recipe I saw in the latest BBC Good Food magazine.  I can't remember what they used for their tart, except for the asparagus laid from one side of the tart to the other, like a louvred window.  I liked that idea, so pondered on what could be used underneath the asparagus.  In the end, I opted for Philadelphia cheese (their sundried tomato & basil version) with some streaky bacon, tarragon and parsley.  It looks lovely in my imagination - we'll have to wait and see what the end result is!

Wednesday's meal will be one from the redoubtable Anjum Anand.  Her Classic North Indian Chicken Curry looks perfect for the job.  It's one of those very simple to produce types of curry - just assemble all the ingredients and slowly put them into the pan one by one, heating them in succession and in various ways, until an hour or so later you've got a curry.  Sounds right up my street!

Thursday's stuffed peppers is a bit of a departure from our normal type of meal.  For all that I've done a stuffed pepper dish previously, it's been hard to find a stuffing that satisfies hubby's flavour requirements - as in "it needs to have BIG flavours".   I've decided to use couscous on this occasion because I've been fairly successful in getting big flavours into it in the past, so fingers crossed.  I've also chosen the Pointed Sweet Red Peppers as opposed to the Capsicum type, as these don't seem to have such a tough skin.

I'll have to investigate the freezer as to whether we've beaten down the potato wedge mountain that occurred when we bought another bag by accident.  If we've cleared them out, then I'll be making some home-made wedges to go with the peppers.

Now Friday's Sherried Chicken Casserole is one of those recipes that I'm vaguely excited about making.  Again, it originated with the BBC Good Food Website as Chicken, red onion & mushroom stew with sherry & butterbeans, but there are a number of alterations I know I'll be making to the recipe, so it will be a "based upon" rather than a "followed to the letter" job.

In a bid to make the cooking this week an easy matter, it is another "sit by the cooker and add stuff to the pan in sequence" recipe.  The ingredients seem to have the promise of combining really well and I think by Friday - if this cold weather continues - we'll be very happy to have a casserole/stew type meal!

Black beans

Saturday's Smoky Pork & Black Bean wraps will actually be Smoky Pork & red kidney bean wraps, as it seems to be impossible to source black beans around here!  However, I'm reliably informed by my friend Melanie (who is an ex-pat, living in Canada), that red kidney beans are an acceptable alternative.

Hubby steps into the fray for Easter Sunday, and will be making a King Prawn & Peppadew Risotto - which sounds gorgeous and I can't wait to try it.  The prawns arrived with the shopping yesterday and I was seriously tempted to thaw one packet right there and then.  

Monday's five spice beef - interestingly - uses minced beef instead of some hugely expensive cut, which I thought was intriguing (and makes a change from using turkey mince!).  Again, it is a simple dish which relies on browning through to caramelisation of the beef, for much of its flavour.  Now I absolutely love caramelised minced beef and will admit to - in my younger and fitter days - eating just that with mashed potato and some veggies for dinner.   So long as you drain the mince of its fat very well, it will be no more fattening than any other meat that uses a tablespoonful of oil for the frying, so it could almost be classified as healthy.

 

Aha!  Speaking of draining minced beef of its fat - look what hubby made for the birdies after cooking the chilli.  He drained the beef fat off and kept it, then the following day melted it down and mixed it with wild bird seed which he then packed into the empty half coconut shell.  Following half a day in the fridge - bingo!  A yummy birdy feeder that the dogs have been hankering after, something wicked.  I guess they're thinking "hey! That fat was supposed to have been in our dinner!", which they'd be absolutely right about.  Well, there's no point in clogging up the sewers when you've three waggy-tailed dustbins around.

Come and get it, you birdies!

As for additional cooking plans, well, I've every intention of making a Pea, mint & chilli dip for the weekend.  So often, I sit there in the evenings as hubby tucks into his packet of Sensations crisps and son & heir wades his way through a bag of Doritos, feeling a bit left out but not wanting to add to the fat load that my poor old body has to contend with.  So, when I found the recipe in the current Good Food Magazine - which uses a fat free yoghurt and that's it (apart from the peas, mint, chilli & a little cumin), it seemed a terrific answer to my little problem.  I can make some carrot, celery and apple sticks to eat it with - and shouldn't feel left out at all!

I'm also very conscious of the Watercress Festival at the end of the month and have promised to enter a soup into the competition.  I've been pondering on the recipe(s) for the last month or so and have a few in mind, so I'll be starting to make them with a view to finding the best one, which I'll then submit to the Festival competition.  It's a bit different, this competition, in that you actually make your soup and parcel it up, it gets collected and taken to the competition, whereupon it is judged.  I can't help thinking that a cold soup might be the best option, as it rules out any mishaps with re-heating!

Who knows, if I feel better as the week progresses, I may even make a cake for Easter Sunday.

Plus, our rhubarb is growing like a proverbial weed and is just about ready for its first crop.  I've been saving rhubarb recipes, but simply have got to make a recipe including rhubarb with ginger - I can't believe I haven't done that yet!

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Chicken Jhalfrezi - not only a healthier version, but delicious too.

Well, I finally got around to cooking the Chicken Jhalfrezi that Asda prevented me from cooking last week.  This week, they delivered all the required ingredients and I was able to set to following on from our tour of the New Forest and get currying.

I had been a bit nervous of this recipe, as I know how suspicious hubby can be of curry recipes that purport to be "lighter" or "healthier" than your average butter-rich, nut-laden, creamy curry.

However, this one had a nice mixture of ingredients that looked as though they would go well together - and I had a brand new pack of Garam Masala.  I know that these spice mixes can get a bit dull as you get towards the bottom of the pack, plus this was from a new manufacturer.  It turned out to be much sweeter and more fragrant than the Garam Masala we'd had last time - and was absolutely perfect for this dish.

The original recipe - from Mallika Basu (who I'm afraid I've never heard of) - asked for chicken thighs, but as neither hubby nor son are terribly impressed by chicken thighs, we went for the more agreeable skinless and boneless breasts.  I can't say we missed the extra flavour that the thighs bring.

The recipe suggested just naan bread as an accompaniment, but I knew that wouldn't go down terribly well as we do like a bit of rice (and rice is a lot cheaper than providing naan bread for everyone, particularly as we like Peshwari naan over the plainer variety).  So, I cooked up a small portion of basmati rice and we shared two Peshwari naans between the three of us.  In truth, however, we didn't need the bread as the rice was ample.

I really enjoyed this dish.  I used watercress as the salad greens - largely because I love the stuff and know that it is incredibly good for you.  However, hubby's comment that baby spinach would have been equally good, was valid and I will probably give that a go next time.  There is most definitely going to be a next time, as the flavour of the Jhalfrezi was so light and tangy that it went extraordinarily well with the lemon juice & salt dressed salad greens.

I am never happier (well, maybe that's a bit of a push, but I'm pretty darned happy) than when I have been able to serve something up to the family that I know was a) economical, b) nutritionally good for them and c) tastes fantastic.  This one scores on all three counts.

CHICKEN JHALFREZI (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

3 skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into small strips
3 tbsp low fat natural yoghurt (I used Greek)
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp turmeric
half a tsp chilli flakes
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 medium onions
1 large tomato (or two medium vine tomatoes)
2 green peppers (one large, one small will do for 3 people)
1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
half a tsp of grated garlic or garlic paste
1 tsp grated ginger or ginger paste
2 heaped tsp Garam Masala
25g fresh coriander, roughly chopped.

Method :

1.  Place the chicken in a bowl and add the yoghurt, tomato puree, turmeric and chilli flakes, plus the lemon juice.  Mix well, cover and leave to marinate.

2.  Whilst the chicken is marinating, peel and slice the onions, then slice the tomatoes and green peppers into 1cm slices.

3.  Warm the oil in a wok set over a high heat.  Once it is hot, fry the onions and green pepper for 2-3 minutes until softened, then add the garlic and ginger and fry until aromatic.

4.  Next, add the chicken with its marinade and stir vigorously for 5 minutes or until the meat is sealed evenly.  Add the tomato slices and continue to cook for another 5 minutes or so.

5.  Finally, add the Garam Masala and mix through.  Cover the wok and cook for a further 2 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.  Continue to cook until the sauce is greatly reduced.

6.  Stir in the coriander, taste to check the seasoning and serve on a bed of watercress or spinach dressed in lemon juice and salt.

Goan Fish Curry

Original version, minus okra

This was my first go at a) a Goan curry and b) a fish curry.  I'd say it was - for me - around 85% successful, however for my son & hubby, 95% successful.

For me, it was a little one-dimensional.  The original recipe didn't contain any lemon juice or okra and even with the tamarind paste, I felt it just needed that sharpness that lemon juice brings.  I had dithered and dathered over whether to include okra or not and was dubious about the texture of okra combined with the fish.  However, having sampled the original version, I'd definitely include okra in the mk. 2 version.

I used cod in the original version and again, I'd change that to haddock when I try it again.  The flavoursome sauce did a very good job of wiping out the delicate flavour of the cod, so I feel that haddock would stand up to it a lot better.

I served ours with rice, although I can't help but think that with the addition of a carbohydrate-based vegetable to the curry - such as potato, or sweet potato - you could easily dispense with the rice and just go for Naan bread as an accompaniment.  Served from warmed bowls, with naan to dip and scoop with, would be ideal.

Goan fish curry - very good with a Cobra beer!

GOAN FISH CURRY  (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

2 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp ground cumin

1 dried red chilli

olive oil

1 onion, halved and sliced

a small piece root ginger, finely grated

2 garlic cloves, crushed

½ tsp turmeric

400ml tin coconut milk

a handful of Okra, top & tailed, then diced

1 tsp tamarind paste 

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 green chillies, finely sliced

300g firm white fish cut into chunks

fresh coriander, to garnish

Method :

Heat a little oil in a pan and cook the onion with a big pinch of salt until soft and golden.

Add the ginger, garlic, turmeric and ground spices and fry for 1 minute.

Add the coconut, tamarind, lemon juice, okra and green chillies and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the fish and cook for 3-4 minutes until just cooked.

Sprinkle with chopped coriander and serve. 

Oh noes! Curryless in Curry Week!

Well that was spectacularly bad planning on my part.  It's National Curry Week this week (21st - 27th November) and I haven't scheduled a curry - at all!  ~gasp~

Is there a calendar somewhere that shows when National <insert foodstuff here> week is?  At least then I'd be prepared - and you all know how I love to be prepared!  There has to be some boy scout somewhere back in my lineage somewhere.

Although - have you heard (or even seen) some of the weird and wonderful dishes that Cobra Beer have cooked up in honour of National Curry Week?

Devonshire Cream Chai
with cardamom cream and chilli jam

Having teamed up with currinary (*snicker*) talent and Indian cookery writer Pat Chapman, made-for-curry beer Cobra conducted a survey which identified the nation’s top ten favourite regional foods. Various ‘Br-Indian’ versions were then created of each of the nation’s ten favourite traditional dishes. While the humble Yorkshire pudding has been named Britain’s number one favourite regional dish (not surprisingly, perhaps), the results of the survey also includes the Cornish pasty, the Devonshire cream tea, the Bakewell tart, Haggis and Welsh rarebit – all of which have been ‘curried’ in celebration of Cobra National Curry Week 2010.  The mind boggles at how they have managed to "curry up" a Devon Cream Tea, for instance.

Ha-ghee-s
*snort*

So, the ten new delicious recipes – including ‘Devonshire cream chai’, a spice-infused take on the teatime classic served with chilli jam; ‘ha-ghee-s’ (my personal favourite), traditional haggis served with curry sauce; and ‘pie, madras & liquor’, an Eastern twist on the East end favourite –will be sold in participating regional Indian restaurants across the country throughout Cobra National Curry Week 2010, 200 years on since the very first curry house opened in Britain in 1810.For those after more traditional dishes, Cobra has also teamed up with 500 restaurants across Britain to offer a two for one promotion on main meals from Monday 21st November to Thursday 25th November with the purchase of Cobra Beer.
 Log onto www.cobrabeer.com (where you can find pictures of all 10 "curried up" dishes) or www.facebook.com/welovecurry for details of the nearest participating curry house as well as the recipes and details of the curry houses selling the special dishes during National Curry Week.

Now, if only we could afford to go out for a curry .... *sigh* .... ah well, I guess we'll just have to "curry up" something at home!