Indian of course

While we were on our Honeymoon in India we spent the most lovely afternoon doing a cookery course with a local guy called Vijay Singh in Udaipur. He has a spice shop called Spice India in the main shopping area and while we were in the shop admiring the spices we noticed that he also offers Cookery courses at his home. This was a great opportunity to find out just have to make some of those delicious dishes we had been tasting each night. We choose what dishes we wanted to make from a menu of dishes we wanted Vijay to make on the course. I was happy with any of the paneer dishes as I developed a huge taste for this while I was in India. J wanted him to make a Paneer Butter Masala. Then there were a few other dishes like pakoras, chapatis and fruit yogurt thrown in to fill out the meal, which we got to eat as well as learn to make.

The whole experience was wonderful. Vijay picked us up from our Hotel on his trusty motorbike and the three of us rode on the bike to his home. I wish I had a photo of this to show you as it was a very tight squeeze. Of course in India it is not unusual to see whole families on the one motorbike but this was definitely an experience for us. We arrived at Vijay's home and were introduced to his wife, daughter and Mother. This was more of a demonstration then a course as Vijay was the one doing the cooking. Our job was to take notes and to taste the results both of which I did diligently.

Vijay was an excellent teacher and made the afternoon a pleasure with all his stories and explanations. He started out by going through the spices that all Indian families keep in their Masala Dabba Spice Tin (pictured above). For the record these are chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, turmeric, cumin seeds, salt and aniseed (I'm still not sure if I heard him right in that one). These seven spices form the basis of most Indian curries.

When we came back from our honeymoon I was dying to try out these dishes and see if I could make them to the same standard as Vijay. I am happy to report that the dishes I made were also excellent. I made a Chicken Butter Masala which we ate with the most delicious chapatis. Below the photos are the recipes I used.

Thanks to Vijay for making that part of our honeymoon so much fun. Now every time I take out my own masala dabba tin I will think of Vijay and the fun we had.

Chicken Butter Masala
75g Salted Butter
2 tsp chopped onion
2 tsp garlic paste *
1 tsp ginger paste *
4 tsp onion paste *
2 tomatoes pureed
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp coriander powder
pinch turmeric
pimch salt
2 tablespoons natural yogurt
1/2 glass water
200g Chicken breast cut up into pieces and slightly browned in a pan
(or 200g paneer cubed)
1/4 tsp garam masala

1. Melt the butter in a wok
2. Add Onion and brown
3. Add the garlic, ginger and onion paste. Add the tomato puree
4. Add spices and cook on a medium heat for about 20 minutes until reduced to a paste and butter starts to bubble through mixture.
5. Add yogurt, water and chicken and cook for 3 minutes.
6. Add Garam masals
* the paste was a puree of garlic, ginger or onion mixed with water. Vijay makes a batch that lasts for a while in the fridge

Spiced Chapatis
These were so easy and so incredibly tasty with the curry.
250g Wholmeal Flour
pinch salt
1 cup water
spicy filling
boiled potato peeled
1/4 tsp chilli powder, coriander powder, garam masala, salt, cumin seeds, anisseed
pinch turmeric
pinch lemon salt

1. Mix flour and salt and gradually add water until a firm dough is formed.
2. Knead for 5 minutes and then divide into golf ball size balls
3. Mix the spices with the boiled potato and mush together
4. With each ball of dough. Roll it out to a saucer size disk. Place some spicy potato mix in the middle and gather the edges up to make a parcel. Squish parcel back into a ball and roll out to disk shape again.
5. On a hot dry pan cook the disks for a couple of minutes each side. Brush light with some oil to keep moist.

This was delicious served with basmati rice and some riata (naatural yogurt and cucumber mixed together)

Kr. Vijay Singh
Spice India,
4, Godia Road,
Jagdish Chowk, Udaipur
spiceindia23@yahoo.com
9352759772

Impressing the parents

Well look what happens when you neglect you’re blog for a few days. They go and suspend you. I was so busy celebrating the one year anniversary of my blog that I completely forgot to celebrate the one year anniversary of my web hosting account. This little celebration should have involved contributing some of my hard earned cash for the privilege of a web presence but because they are changing billing systems I never got a reminder e-mail and so never paid up. Phew all sorted now.

J’s parents arrived safe and sound from the UK and are lapping up the warm weather here in Sydney. They are staying with us for a few weeks and have been busy scooting back and forth across the city visiting J's brother and his wife and their new baby - the first grand child. On Sunday there was some last minute change of plans and so I had to whip something up for them for dinner. We had done some pretty extensive food shopping before they arrived, to make it look like we always have a well stocked fridge and pantry, so we had a free range chicken just waiting for a good roasting. M, J’s Mum, had sent me over a recipe for a Chinese Roast Chicken so this was a good time to let her see that I do actually cook some of the recipes she regularly sends me over.

The chicken gets smothered in oil and Chinese five spices and roasted with some plums and chicken stock. The aroma while it was cooking was gorgeous. Of course the plums reminded me of one of my favourite duck dishes that I’ve had at Billy Kwongs so when I was reducing the sauce I threw in a few cinnamon quills and star anise. I served this with some lovely smoked rice that my new friends at the fish shop persuaded me to buy. The smoking definitely adds a new dimension to the rice but I did feel the need to explain to everyone that it was smoked and that I hadn’t burnt the bottom of the pot while cooking the rice.

The Chicken dish went down a treat and we enjoyed a lovely relaxing candlelit meal out in the garden while polishing off a few choice bottles of Penfolds. It amazing – next week I will be nine years in Sydney and still I am so appreciative of the great lifestyle we enjoy here with such fantastic weather.

I am avoiding an accidental green dessert with J’s parents but making a green cake. What could possibly go wrong. I will report on it’s success and also elaborate on my green pavlova incident soon.

The recipe for the chicken can be found here

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas

Well we definitely had ourselves a merry lil Christmas. We made a few visits to family and friends in the morning but by the afternoon we could park the car and hit the champers. We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas dinner at B & E's place. It was a very traditional dinner due to the fact that we had four Irish guests, four Scottish guests, one English guest and a token Aussie thrown in for good measure.


B & E, with the help of P, whipped up the most delicious dinner and all without the use of a pan that the ham would fit into. The turkey was one big bird and tasted so wonderful when it was smothered in gravy with a high red wine content. These guys worked so hard to prepare a meal for ten of us but it was great to see that they were enjoying themselves in the kitchen.

We were all very impressed with B’s apron. It’s important to look smart when you're slaving away in the kitchen.

Because there were so many Irish and Scottish people we had an abundance of potatoes all done to perfection. Of course we had to have the brussel sprouts but, as you can see, they were very under-represented at the table (you’ll hear no complaints from me on that one).

The ham was divine and was so tender and sweet. There was talk of it having been cooked in coke and cloves but I will have to report back on that one at a later date after consulting the cook. I will definitely be getting the recipe for the ham from B because it was so good and, god forbid, I should ever have to cook Christmas diner myself this is the recipe I would use.

Young Teddy had a ball at his first Christmas party. Decked out in his Christmas best he tucked into his own little festive bone.

Happy Christmas Everyone !!!

Duck!

One of my favourite dishes has always been Peking Duck Pancakes. There is something I love about being able to put together your own little parcel just the way you like it. When J and I share dinner at home there was always a mad rush to eat your share as fast as you can, just in case the other person gets it first. I just couldn't wolf down duck pancakes, so a prior 60/40 arrangement was agreed on. We could then eat at our leisure.

Over the years I have come to the realisation that there are certain foods that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot reproduce the real thing. Three that spring to mind are Sushi, Pad Thai and BBQ duck. I never imagined that any of these dishes would be particularly difficult to master but each time I've tried to make them myself they are nowhere near as tasty as what you can get in the restaurants. I always end up vowing to just leave it to the experts. And that is what I did with this BBQ duck. No doubt I could have attempted to BBQ/roast the duck myself but it was much easier to pop down to Chinatown and pick up a ready BBQ'ed duck. Some spring onions & cucumber, a dash of hoi sin sauce - wrap it all up and I'm in heaven.