A Tale of Two Curries

I wasn’t going to post this since the pictures came out so badly but our friends who came and ate this with us asked for the pork recipe so here it is. We don’t have a very large dining table so don’t entertain at home as much as we would like to. When we do have people for dinner then we tend to cook one-pot dishes such as these that can be eaten on laps so people can spread out around the kitchen. It works quite well but we’re both looking forward to having more space so we can do traditional Thai banquet-style dinners.

The other thing about having people over is that, while it’s okay for us to eat slightly cold food while we try to get good pictures of the food, it’s not something we tend to inflict on our guests, hence the hastily snapped pictures. It’s a shame that neither of these dishes look all that appetising since they were actually pretty good, especially the pork. As with most Thai curries, the cooking of the dish itself is quick and easy, it’s the making of the pastes that takes the time.

We cooked both of these dishes intending to serve six people, with some rice and vegetables but there wasn’t really enough. I’d say this was probably enough to feed four, generously. I would therefore like to apologise to my guests (if they’re reading) and hope you didn’t have to stop off for more food on the way home!

Pork and Green Peppercorn Curry
From David Thompson’s “Thai Food”

300g pork shin (I used leg since shin is almost impossible to find)
2 cups coconut milk
Lemongrass offcuts (from paste)
Pinch of salt
1.5 cups coconut cream
1 tsp palm sugar
2 tbsps fish sauce
2 tbsps picked green peppercorns
3 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
Handful holy basil leaves
1 long red chilli, deseeded and juliennned

Paste
6-10 long red chillies, deseeded, soaked and drained
Large pinch salt
6 tbsps chopped lemongrass
1 tbsp grated lime zest
2 tbsps scraped and chopped corinader root
1 tsp coriander seeds, roasted
1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted

First, make the paste.

Bring the coconut milk to a boil in the pan. Add pork, lemongrass offcuts and salt. Add water to cover, if necessary. Simmer until pork is tender (about 30 minutes) and leave to cool in stock. When cook, remove, reserve the stock and trim and slice the meat into 1cm pieces.

Add the coconut cream to a clean pan and then add the paste and fry over a medium heat until fragrant, about two minutes. Season with the palm sugar and fish sauce and then add the pork. Moisten with the reserved stock if necessary. Finish with the remaining ingredients and check seasoning before serving.

Chicken and Vegetable Curry
From David Thompson’s “Thai Food”

500g skinless chicken thighs
4 cups stock

Selection of vegetables (mushrooms, basil leaves, bamboo shoots, eggplants, beans)

Paste
20 dried red chillies, deseeded, soaked and drained
Large pinch salt
4 tbsps chopped lemongrass
4 tbsps chopped shallot
2 tbsps chopped garlic
2 tsps shrimp paste

Start by making the paste.

Slice the chicken, combine with the paste and fry until fragrant – about two minutes.

Add the stock and bring to the boil. Add vegetables and simmer until cooked. Check the seasoning and then serve.

Saag Gosht

Saag gosht is our favourite Indian dish and one we fight over when we go out or order a takeaway. I usually remember first and “bagsy” it then offer to share it with Stephen but really we should both order it as I’m not very good at sharing food. I thought it would be a good dish to use up a half shoulder of lamb that was taking up a lot of space in the freezer and reasoned that there would be enough for both of us.

The recipe was from Camellia Panjabi’s “50 Great Curries of India” which is fast becoming my favourite Indian recipe book. I find it much easier to follow than Madhur Jaffrey and have preferred the results. The only complaint I had about this is that it still wasn’t hot enough for me. I’ve found this with MJ’s recipes a lot and always increase the spicing but this is the first time I’ve noticed it here so need to allow for that next time. Otherwise, a really successful dish; less oily than a take-away but I prefer that anyway. Served with chapatis and moong dal.

Palak Gosht
Serves Four

700g lamn
2 x 0.5cm pieces of fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
100ml yoghurt
1/4 tsp cumin, ground
200g spinach
Oil
1 bay leaf
1 black cardamom
2 cloves
225g onions, chopped
1 tsp coriander seed, ground
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp salt

Puree the ginger, garlic and green chilli in a blender. Whisk the yoghurt and add to the puree along with the cumin powder.

Marinate the lamb in this mixture for an hour, longer if possible. Blanch the spinach in boiling water with salt then drain and puree.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the bay leaf, cardamom and cloves. When the oil is really hot, add the onions. Fry for 15 minutes over a low to medium heat.

Add the coriander powder and saute for 2 minutes, stirring continuously. Add the cumin, fry for 10 seconds and then add a little water. Allow the spices to cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the meat and it’s marinade, stir and cook for 10 minutes until the yoghurt is absorbed. Saute the meat for 3 minutes and then add the tomatoes and tomato puree and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add 250ml hot water and 3/4 tsp salt. Turn the heat to low, cover with a lid and leave to simmer for a couple of hours. Just before serving, add the spinach and cook for a further 5 minutes. Check for seasoning and serve.

Peri Peri Chicken

I’ve been working on this recipe for ages, months in fact and finally got round to making it a couple of weeks ago and it didn’t turn out well. I wonder if it’s because I spent so much time on it or if the combination of ingredients we just ill-conceived in the first place. I’m determined to get this right though so I’m posting this a reminder of what not to do next time. Except I can’t remember the quantities so I’ll probably have to start from scratch. If anyone has a tried-and-tested recipe then please do let me know!

Peri-Peri Chicken

Garlic
Coriander leaf
Coriander seed
Lime juice
Red chilli
Paprika

Slash chicken all over, rub with marinade and refrigerate overnight. Grill or barbecue until cooked through.

Beef Casserole with Mustard and Herb Dumplings

We went to a friend’s place on Saturday night and he cooked beef stew which was lovely. It was particularly lovely as he cooked it outside, over an open fire and we ate it sitting around another, different fire. I’m sure the stew itself would have been just as lovely if we’d eaten it inside but it’s not often you get to eat around a fire (unless you go camping a lot which I don’t) so that made the whole thing even more, well, lovely really.

As happens often when I’ve eaten at someone else’s house, I came home with the urge to cook the same thing myself. Not because I wanted to do it differently or because I thought I could do it better but because I like cooking and miss the process when I’m eating other people’s food. It’s probably also because I tend to be polite when I’m eating elsewhere and not help myself to a second portion so I want to eat more of the same. Having said that, I don’t think I was that polite on Saturday night; in addition to the lovely fires and lovely food there was also lovely mulled wine (cooked on yet another fire) which tends to help (or hinder, depending on your point of view) with the politeness.

Anyway, I wanted to make beef stew (or casserole, I don’t know what the difference is but we always called it casserole when I was growing up so that’s what I call it) and I also wanted to make mustard dumplings so I did. In addition to the mustard in the dumplings, I also put mustard into the casserole itself which I don’t usually do but I thought would work well. I could have done with more mustard in the casserole itself and less in the dumplings (I’ve adjusted the ratios below) but I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. The mustard in the casserole gave a suggestion of warmth while the flavour of the dumplings was fresher and lighter, not something you would usually associate with suet-heavy dough but reflective of the difference in cooking time. I think I’d use Dijon mustard in both next time, instead of the English mustard in the dumplings.

Beef Casserole
Serves Two – generously

500g stewing beef (shin is really good, if you can find it)
Seasoned flour (flour with salt and pepper added)
1 large onion, chopped
2 sticks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
Large sprig thyme
Half bottle red wine
1 litre beef stock
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 large carrots, chopped
Large handful button mushrooms

Start by tossing the beef in the seasoned flour and then dusting off any excess (don’t do this in advance as the meat will start to absorb the flour and it will become sticky). Add half the meat to a hot pan and fry until dark brown, remove to a plate and then brown the second half. You don’t want to add too much at once or the beef won’t fry but will stew instead defeating the purpose of “browning”. You want the meat to really brown too because that adds flavour and seals the meat ahead of the long cooking time.

If there are any very brown bits stuck to the pan that are likely to burn then (carefully) remove and discard. Add a little more oil, heat and then cook the onions for a couple of minutes over a medium heat. Next add the celery, garlic, bay leaves and thyme and cook for about five minutes – you want the onions to just start browning but not take on so much colour that they begin to caramelise and become too sweet.

Return the meat to the pan and combine with the vegetables. Now add the red wine and bubble for a couple of minutes until the alcohol has burnt off. Stir in the mustard, add the stock, season and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and cook for 3 hours, checking regularly to ensure there is enough liquid to coat the meat. I actually transferred the casserole dish to the oven at this point as our gas feed is high and I can’t always get it low enough to simmer without boiling. It went in at 150 degrees.

After the three hours I turned off the heat, allowed the casserole to cool down and then refrigerated it overnight. The next day, I added a little more water, the carrots and mushrooms, brought it up to a boil and then cooked it for another hour. You could of course do this all in one go though and then serve. Ten minutes before you want to serve, add the dumplings (if you’re using them) and then sprinkle over the parsley before serving.

Mustard and Herb Dumplings

50g self-raising flour
25g suet
Salt and pepper
Handful chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
2.5 tablespoons water

Combine all the ingredients together and form the dough into dumpling shapes. This mixture will make four regular sized (a little larger than a golf ball) dumplings but I made eight smaller ones instead. As mine were smaller, I dropped them into the lidded casserole dish 10 minutes before serving but you would need to increase that to 20 minutes for larger dumplings.

Indian Style Salmon – Again

This is a variation on this recipe, but with yoghurt and fresh ginger added to make a wet marinade. It worked really well and I think I might have preferred it to the dry version. I suppose I would say that though, since Stephen came up with the dry version and this was my idea. The spices were slightly diluted by the addition of the yoghurt but they seemed to blend together better.

Served with puy lentils (I really wanted dal and I think it would have been better but I didn’t have enough time to make any) and more garlicky greens. We ate almost a whole bag of spring greens tonight, I fear we may have to go cold turkey before the addiction kicks in for real, this was the seventh meal in a row to include them.

Indian Style Baked Salmon
Serves Two

2 salmon fillets
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
3 cardomom pods
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 – 1 tsp fresh ginger
Pinch of salt
Squeeze of lemon juice
2 tablespoons natural yoghurt

Combine all the dried spices with the salt and pound in a pestle and mortar. Add the spices to the yoghurt and lemon juice and coat the fish. Leave to marinate for two hours.

Bake the fish at 250 degrees for 12 minutes.

Chilli Wraps with Garlicky Greens

Another quick and easy dinner from the freezer of chilli with more of those garlicky greens I talked about yesterday. We usually have lettuce in Mexican-style wraps but the greens worked well, not as fresh or crunchy as the lettuce obviously but an interesting change. Since these were already in the fridge and the chilli was already in the freezer, this was just an assembly job with the addition of some cheese and squashed avocado.

Grey Goose – a Toast to Taste

Up until a couple of months ago, on the occasion that the subject of premium (i.e. expensive) vodka arose while we were chatting in the pub, my answer was always that it was a complete waste of money since vodka was for people who wanted to get drunk without tasting anything and if you mixed it with tonic or in a cocktail then you couldn’t taste it anyway even if you tried.

Then a coincidence came my way. I love coincidences; they make the world seem more interesting. For my wine (and spirits) diploma that I am studying, I was sent the subject for a coursework assignment: “The Premiumisation of White Spirits”. So I had to start studying the stuff. As part of it, I had to choose a particular brand on which to do a case study. I chose Grey Goose, a super-premium (i.e. even more expensive than premium) vodka produced in France* which is a huge seller in the US and is starting to conquer the rest of the world too. A few weeks later, completely out of the blue, arrived an invitation to a Grey Goose “Toast to Taste” event which sounded somewhat mysterious. So I had to say yes. For research purposes you understand, not because I would condone any of that sort of silliness. After all, they offered to send a car to pick me up so it seemed rude to turn it down.

So having arrived at work at an unreasonably small hour that morning to allow me to disappear early and get to the event on time, I was a little bleary eyed when I arrived and wasn’t really in the mood. That soon changed though. The car dropped me off in a lovely Georgian square and I started hunting for the correct door number. When faced with a rather anonymous-looking door, I wasn’t sure that I was in the right place until I spotted a brass plaque embossed with the Grey Goose logo. Nice touch.

I knocked and it was answered by a man wearing grey. I stepped inside and into a large but gloomy hallway that seemed reminiscent of the entrance of a hotel in a murder mystery novel. Along the right hand wall was an enormous floor to ceiling key rack hung with what must have been hundreds of keys. Some small, some big, some rusty, but all looking like they had a story to tell. I was handed a key with a red ribbon, told to stand near other people with red ribbons and led through to a tea room.

The tea room was light, airy, tastefully decorated and full of beautiful, impeccably dressed people sipping drinks and chatting amongst themselves. I felt like I’d stumbled onto the set of a stylishly Anglo-French film. Several people wearing grey flitted amongst the everyone else offering drinks, snacks and generally making sure that everyone had a good time. When offered a drink, I chose coffee and it arrived soon after in a perfect cup on a perfect saucer. So far so surreal.

After a few minutes of looking around and drinking my coffee, a lady appeared and summoned me to follow her. Then I realised why I was supposed to have been standing with other red-ribbon people (which I hadn’t): we were being led off to discover the “secrets of the house” together as a group with other similarly-ribboned guests. Down stairs into the basement, where we met the Keymaster. Behind him were three doors and he chose certain of us to go into each door after studying the keys that we had been given. I ended up in a French cafe with a woman sitting at a table reading a magazine. Interactive of course… I ended up in the role of someone she had met years ago and how she remembered the bread we had eaten and the water we had drunk on that day as if it was only yesterday. Having done my homework, I realised this was all about evoking the essence of Grey Goose’s ingredients: French wheat and limestone-filtered water. Very clever. Very memorable too.

Then back upstairs to the tea room, where cocktails had appeared. The cocktail du jour was Grey Goose Le Fizz which had been created by one of the Grey Goose “Brand Ambassadors”. Made with Grey Goose vodka (of course), elderflower cordial, lime juice and soda then served elegantly (naturally) in a Champagne flute, it was refreshing and very drinkable. Bit more chit-chat, bit more looking at the French pictures on the wall and the bottles of Grey Goose arranged here and there like object d’art. I tried an extremely delicious macaron and a couple of carefully prepared and expertly cut small sandwiches.

Soon the lady appeared and gathered us red-ribboned people together again and this time we were led upstairs where she handed one of the group a letter and motioned to us to enter a door. Enter we did, and we were in a large room where a woman was reclining on a chaise longue, reading a book. Soft music started to play, along with recital of a poem / narrative of how she loved to wander into the wheat fields and dance.

So she did. When we turned around, the other half of the room was full of wheat. Half of my brain was thinking “ah, very clever, more wheat worked into the story” and the other half was thinking “Wow, a wheat field inside a house! Inside a house!!!”. She danced around in the wheat field for a while and then the girl who had the letter handed it to her and she read it out. Poem about wheat. Then we filed back down to the tea room which I had started to think of as the “nexus” in a strange time-travelling world.

Another Le Fizz and some chit-chat later (during which I observed that the Grey Goose logo was frosted onto the windows as well as being on the brass plaque outside) we were ushered in an elevator and up to the top floor. Here a “laboratory” had been set up and we were asked to smell things in jars, and write down thoughts and feelings while attached to a “monitor”. More about taste and smell and how it makes us feel. Which in retrospect is very interesting – part of what I wrote about in my assignment was the fostering of emotional attachments to brands.

Back down to the nexus and probably another Le Fizz I think and then listened to a talk by the Grey Goose maître de chai Francois Thibault. He’s the man who is in charge of Grey Goose production. Other vodkas, gins, etc, would have a master distiller but Grey Goose, being very French, has a maître de chai. All about taste and extracting the essence of the finest French wheat when making Grey Goose. And about Cognac. Grey Goose is bottled in Cognac and blended with limestone-filtered spring water from the area, so the Cognac association is heavily played. French. Luxury. Long history of premium spirits production. etc.

A somewhat surreal and all-round brilliant afternoon. I came away thinking that should I find myself buying vodka in the near future that it would definitely be Grey Goose. Then chastised myself for having been led astray from my previous standpoint.

A few days later not just a bottle of Grey Goose arrived by post but also little tasting bottles of their flavoured versions – Lemon, Orange and Pear. I mixed Kerri a Le Fizz which she really enjoyed (and ordered another of) and then played around with the others, making a delicious cocktail with the pear vodka. I gave myself the credit for inventing it but it turned out similar to one in the accompanying little recipe book and the ingredients weren’t dissimilar to the Le Fizz although the resulting taste was quite different: Grey Goose Le Poire vodka, elderflower cordial, small squeeze of lime, shake with plenty of ice then add a splash of soda. We didn’t have vermouth, so didn’t venture into martinis, but will certainly do so soon.

Grey Goose is available in Waitrose for £32 a bottle and in bars for probably considerably more. You may notice its blue-and-grey adverts around London as this event is part of its first big UK marketing campaign. I saw a lot of them on Westfield’s electronic advertising boards recently when walking through.

* Though some people think that vodka comes from Russia or Poland and is made from potatoes, it doesn’t actually have to come from anywhere in particular, nor be made from anything in particular. And although a lot of it does come from Eastern Europe, Absolut is of course Swedish and Finlandia… well… Finnish. Various others are made all over the world. It is often made from grain (wheat, barley or rye) and cheaper stuff from sugar beet.

Lamb Chops and Garlicky Greens

This was supposed to be a celebratory meal, cooked by me, to celebrate Stephen completing the latest module of his wine exams. I chose lamb chops because they’re one of his favourites and I was planning to make sautéed potatoes too but I got stuck at work and Stephen ended up both shopping for and cooking his own celebratory dinner.

There isn’t too much interesting about this since we eat it a lot but the garlicky greens are our new favourite vegetable and something we’ve been eating a lot lately. In fact, we (well, Stephen) cooked up a whole load of these tonight to use through the week. They’re good but they don’t require a recipe as such, just slice up some greens and rinse them. Soften some garlic in a little butter, add the greens, stir and then put a lid on the pan. Cook for about five minutes on a medium heat and then serve. Chilli works well with the garlic too, depending on what else you’re eating.

Chicken Tagine

Chicken tagine seems to have replaced ordinary roast chicken as our favourite Sunday lunch, well, it has for me anyway. I think it’s something to do with the fact that having disliked the flavour of aniseed for so long, I’ve finally grown to love fennel and now want to eat it at every opportunity. I love that the fennel, onions and preserved lemons seem to melt into the sauce in this dish, making an almost creamy sauce, without the added fat. Wonderfully comforting on a cold day.

I played around with this recipe a little, using both fresh fennel and fennel seed to produce a deeper flavour that developed both in the mouth as we ate and continued overnight so that the follow day’s lunch was even better. I also marinated the chicken for a few hours which I didn’t last time and, although I don’t think it makes a huge amount of difference, I think it does make some. Even more olives and preserved lemons this time too, to really boost the zingyness.

This is my favourite attempt so far, next time I’d like to increase the chicken flavour a little but I think that’s easily achieved with a better stock (I didn’t have much time to cook the stock this time so what I had was a little watery). It’s just over a week since we ate this and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it soon. If things go quiet around here again then you’ll know it’s because we’ve been living entirely on chicken tagine.

Chicken Tagine
Serves Four

Spice Mix
2 tsps cumin seeds
2 tsps coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1.5 tsps ginger
Salt and pepper

Olive oil
1 chicken, jointed
2 large onions, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 bulb fennel, sliced into eight pieces
Pinch saffron
6 preserved lemons, deseeded and finely chopped
Large handful of olives, stoned and halved
750ml chicken stock

Couscous or rice
Toasted, flaked almonds

Start by making up the spice mix. Toss the chicken in the spices and marinate overnight (if you have time) or for as long as you have.

Brown the chicken pieces in some oil over a medium heat. There’s no need to remove the chicken so when it is brown all over, just add the onions and allow them to soften (about 3 minutes) before adding the garlic and fennel. Cook for another 3 minutes or so and then add the saffron, preserved lemons, olives and chicken stock.

Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and cook with the lid on for 1.5 hours. This should be about the right amount of stock but check occasionally to make sure it hasn’t cooked out entirely. If you’re left with too much liquid then reduce it down by cooking without the lid on for the last half an hour.

Just before serving, add a large handful of roughly chopped coriander and serve over some couscous or rice, sprinkled with toasted almonds.

Venison Sausages

Oh dear, we ate this on Bonfire night, which is quite a long time ago now. I seem to have got out of the habit of posting again, sorry.

The most interesting thing about this was the fact that we used those strange purple potatoes but now I see they didn’t even make it into the picture. They were actually quite good, with a decent flavour and a good texture but I coudn’t get past the colour of them. They are marketed as being good for kids who won’t eat their vegetables but most kids like potatoes don’t they? I bought them for interest sake really (I’m a sucker for novelty) but I won’t be buying them again.

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