Chickpea Curry

I am about six weeks away from leaving the Southern Hemisphere, so am desperately trying to use up as many spices and other store cupboard ingredients I have as possible. Throwing away food is something I hate, and I want to minimise any waste as much as possible.

This recipe comes from my need to use up what lurks on my kitchen shelves. That description doesn't do the finished result justice though- I liked it so much I made it again the following day, which is a very rare event in my kitchen.

Ingredients
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 inch piece ginger, peeled and grated
a good lump of butter or ghee
2 cardamom pods
1 clove
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
pinch asfoetida
1/2 tsp cinnamon
chilli powder- to your taste
200g tinned chopped tomatoes
1 tin chickpeas, drained
6 tbsp Greek yogurt
1 tsp salt

Method
Heat the butter in a saucepan, and fry the onion, garlic and ginger over a medium heat until golden. Add the cardamom pods and clove, and cook for another minute. Stir in the remaining spices, and then the tomatoes. Turn up the heat, and simmer until the tomatoes have reduced to a thick and pulpy consistency. Turn down the heat, add the chickpeas, and stir to coat in the sauce. Mix in a tablespoon of the yogurt. Once it is incorporated, stir in another tablespoon, and continue until you have used all 6 tablespoons. Stir in a cupful of water, and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until you have a thickened sauce. If it gets to thick to quickly, add more water, and if it looks a bit thin, keep cooking until it has reduced. Add the salt when you are satisfied with the consistency, and if you want to adjust any other seasonings do so.
I would usually suggest finishing with chopped coriander leaves, but feel it is not so much in the spirit of a store cupboard recipe. But if you have coriander in your fridge or garden, then they are a good addition.

Szechuan Beef Claypot

I recently tried Szechuan Beef claypot at Festive Kitchen, one of the many Chinese Restaurants on William Street in Perth. It almost reached my heat tolerance, but not quite, and was addictively delicious- hence my attempt at recreating it at home.

Festive Kitchen has mostly good reviews on Urban Spoon- I like it a lot. I noticed a few negative comments regarding the service, however from both my visits, I found the staff to be very friendly and efficient. As well as this beef dish, I can recommend the soft shell crab, which comes crispy and with an incredibly liberal sprinkling of garlic, chilli and spring onion, and the deep-fried pork leg, which has a gloriously gelatinous half meat half fat quality.
The restaurant itself is a little more expensive than the noodle bars that Festive Kitchen neighbours, but for a treat it's worth a visit.

I found a recipe that looked similar to the dish we had eaten on the blog Yi Reservation. Despite a plethora of Chinese supermarkets nearby, I couldn't find anything labelled Sichuan Chilli Bean Paste, but I did find Sichuan Chilli Bean Sauce (Lee Kum Kee brand), so I bought this and hoped for the best. I also added a little extra than suggested on Yi Reservation, as sauce suggests more dilution than paste. I also left out the radish/potatoes, as the version I had at Festive Kitchen was starchless.

I don't own a wok, and because I am leaving the country in 6 weeks, do not want to buy any kitchen equipment. So instead of frying the flavourings and meat in a wok and then transferring to a casserole, I did all the cooking in the casserole. I have written the recipe out using this method, but for the original way, see the link to Yi Reservation above.

I was very pleased with the result- when I make it next time (and there will be a next time), I will probably add a few extra dried chillies. I stirred in a little extra chilli bean sauce mid cooking to heat it up, but it is also quite salty so I think extra chilli from the start would have been a better solution.

Dried spices

Ingredients
1-1.5kg beef- something suitable for casseroling
2 tbsp groundnut, vegetable or sunflower oil
5 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
2 inch ginger
2 tbsp Sichuan chili bean paste/cauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 small rock sugar, or brown sugar
4 tbsp Chinese cooking wine.
1 lite water or beef stock
4 star anise
6 dried chillies
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorn
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 cloves
1 piece dried orange peel
4 bay leaves
2 black cardamom pods

Chopped spring onion, to serve

Method
Cut the beef into 2-3cm chunks. Blanch in boiling water, and then refresh in cold water. Drain and set aside.
Heat the oil in a casserole, and gently fry the garlic, ginger and chilli bean sauce for about 3 minutes over a low heat. Add the beef to to casserole, and stir to coat in the sauce. Add the soy sauce, sugar and wine, and cook for another two minutes. Add the spices and stock. Bring the pan to a simmer, and then turn the heat down to low, and cook until the beef is tender (1-2 hours).
Sprinkle over the chopped spring onion before serving with rice.

If you have leftovers, you can also turn it into spicy beef noodle soup, simply by adding some freshly cooked noodles to the broth.

Mughlai Lamb Biriani

There are times when I just want to create a meal using what I have to hand in the kitchen, or what looks particularly good when I am out food shopping. But I also enjoy following the instructions of a well written recipe, especially if it is something I would have never been able to come up with myself without guidance. Of course any 'original' recipe that I make now will have been shaped by reading cookery books, and making recipes from times and cultures that are unfamiliar to my own. Layering up the rice and spicy lamb for this biriani and letting it steam reminded me of making an Iranian polo, reminding me of how little is new in cooking, but constantly borrowed and adapted.

My parent's copy of Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery is a long standing favourite for me, everything I have made from there has been a delicious success. We have had it for as long as I can remember, and I have finally made the lamb biriani, a recipe that takes about 6 hours to make, but is worth every minute.

Ingredients: 
425g basmati rice
6 litres water
3 tbsp salt
1 tsp saffron threads
2 tbsp warm milk
3 medium onions, peeled
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1” fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
13 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp sultanas
4 tbsp sliced almonds
1 kg  boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 2-3cm cubes
250 ml plain yoghurt ( I used Greek)
5-6 whole cloves
½ tsp black peppercorns
½ tsp cardamom seeds (from about 6-8 pods)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
3cm cinnamon stick
1/6 nutmeg, grated (probably about ¼ tsp)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 oz/ 25 g unsalted buttercut into 8 pieces
3 hard boiled eggs

Method
 Wash the rice in several changes of water, until the water runs clear. Drain and put into a large bowl. Add approximately 2 litres of wate. Add 1 tbsp salt to the water. Mix and leave to soak for 3 hours.
Now 'toast' the saffron threads over a medium heat in an oil-free frying pan. After about a minute or two, they will darken slightly. Remove from the pan, and set aside. Heat the milk to lukewarm- this is probably easiest to do in a microwave. Crumble the saffron threads into the milk, and leave to infuse.

Now we prepare the garnish. Cut two of the onions in half lengthwise, and finely slice into half moons. Put 6 tbsp of oil in a frying pan over a medium high heat. Add the onion rings, and fry until they are crisp and golden. Remove with a slotted spoon onto some kitchen towel to absorb any excess oil. Put the sultanas in the same pan, until the puff up. This won't take very long at all. Remove, setting on some more kitchen towel. Finally, add the almonds, and cook until they are golden. Put with the onions and sultanas.You can set the garnish ingredients aside now in a container while you continue with the rest of the recipe.

Chop the remaining onion coarsely. Put chopped onion, garlic, ginger, 2 tbsp of sliced almonds and 3 tbsp water into a blender or food processor and blend until you have a very smooth paste. Set aside.

In a heavy bottomed casserole, sear the lamb in batches so it is properly browned (not just greyed). As you finish each batch, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. When all the lamb is done, add a few more tbsp of oil to the pan, and fry the curry paste for about 3 minutes. If it sticks, add a little water. Return the lamb and any accumulated meat juices to the casserole. Add the yogurt, one tablespoon at a time, until it is all incorporated. Add a teaspoon of salt and 150ml water. Stir and bring to a simmer. Cover, and turn the heat down to a low setting, leaving to cook for 30 minutes.

Using a spice grinder, or a pestle and morter with a lot of strength, grind the cloves, peppercorns, coriander seeds and cinnamon stick. Add the grated nutmeg.
After the lamb's 30 minute cooking time, add the ground spices to the pan along with the cayenne pepper. Remove the lid and increase the heat to a medium setting. Let the sauce thicken and reduce to about 300ml, stirring to prevent sticking. Turn off the heat. If needed, skim off any excess fat.

Preheat the oven to 150°C.  Bring 3.6 litres of water to a rolling boil in a large pot. Add 1 tbsp salt. Drain the rice that’s been soaking for 3 hours and rinse under cold running water. Slowly scatter the rice into the boiling water. Once all the rice has been added, bring the water back to a boil and cook for exactly 6 minutes. Drain.

Put the rice on top of the meat, piling it high in the center, like a hill. Take a chopstick or the handle of a long spoon and make a 1” wide hole in the center of the peak, like a well, right down to the bottom of the pan. Drizzle the saffron milk in streaks along the sides of the hill. Lay the pats of butter on the sides as well and scatter 2 tbsp of the browned onions over it all.

Cover with aluminum foil, sealing the edges well. Bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Towards the end of cooking time, peel and quarter lengthwise the hard boiled eggs.

To serve, gently mix the rice and lamb together. Decorate with the almonds, onions and sultanas, and hard boiled eggs.


 

Spaghetti and Meatballs

for the sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped finely
2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves finely chopped
2 tsp dried oregano
2x800g tins of chopped tomatoes
pinch of chilli powder (optional)
pinch sugar (if needed, see below)

 for the meatballs
500g beef mince
500g pork mince
1 crushed clove of garlic
small bunch of flat leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped finely
3-4 anchovies, finely chopped/minced

1 tbsp olive oil
half a glass of red wine
750g spaghetti or other long pasta
Basil leaves
Freshly grated parmesan.

Start with the sauce. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, gently fry the onion, garlic, celery and carrot until they are translucent and softened. Add the  rosemary and oregano, and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the tinned tomatoes, and sprinkle in the chilli powder. Turn the heat up to a simmer, and leave to gently bubble until it is thick and pulpy. Stir at frequent intervals so the bottom does not burn. Taste near the end- if the tomatoes turn out to be not so sweet, add a little bit of sugar. Be generous with the pepper grinder, but hold off on adding salt until the very end of cooking time.

While the sauce is cooking, mix together the meat, garlic, parsley and anchovies, along with a good amount of salt and pepper. Form into balls a little smaller that a walnut.

 In a hot frying pan, quickly brown the meatballs in batchs, setting them aside as the are done. When they are all browned, put them in the sauce and stir the in gently, being careful not not break them up. With the heat still under the pan used to brown the meatball, pour in the red wine, let it bubble up and cook off the harsh alcohol smell, then pour this into the sauce as well. Let everything cook together over a low heat while you get on with the pasta. Taste the sauce, and adjust the seasoning if you feel it needs it.

Drain the cooked pasta, and mix with the meatballs. Tear up to basil leaves and mix these in too. Serve with lots of parmesan.


If you make a big batch of sauce and only cook a small amount of pasta, I recommend using some of the meatballs and sauce to make a homespun meatball sub. Get a submarine roll, or french bread, fill with reheated sauce and meatballs, and sprinkle with a mixture of parmesan and mozzarella. Bake in a hot oven for a few minutes until the cheese is melty.

Coffee and Hazelnut Cake

Coffee and walnut cake is a classic teatime or mid-morning treat, and quite rightly. But it does surprise me that hazelnut, not walnut, is not paired with cakes more often, the two go together beautifully. Extrapolating from my time as a Barista, people like flavouring their lattes with hazelnut, so a hazelnut and coffee cake should also be popular.

In defense of the walnut, its nubbly and oily texture is far superior to the sharper, drier hazelnut. No matter, they just need a but more work before you add them to the sponge batter. So toast them to make the flavour really stand out, and rub off the unpleasant scratchy skins as thoroughly as you can. They need to be chopped quite finely, to avoid sudden, unpleasant hard lumps as you eat. But that's it, and its worth the small extra effort.

The recipe is essentially a Victoria sponge base, with some instant coffee, nuts and hazelnut liqueur. I looked up Nigella Lawson's recipe, and she uses espresso for a more intense coffee flavour. Not being a coffee drinker (just a coffee cake eater), I prefer the sweeter, more muted version, but you can replace the instant coffee with 4 teaspoons espresso if you like things a bit stronger. Also her icing uses 3 tsp espresso coffee in place of the instant I used.

Ingredients

For the sponge  

75g hazelnuts 

225g  soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)

225g caster sugar
200g plain flour
2 tsp coffee granules, dissolved in 1tbsp boiling water
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 medium eggs, beaten
2 tbsp Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur) or milk

For the buttercream frosting

350g icing sugar
175g unsalted butter, very soft
2 tsp coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water
3 tbsp Frangelico
25g hazelnuts, from the 75g above
1-2 tsp cocoa

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C. Line two 20cm sandwich cake tins with parchment, and butter the sides.
In a dry (non-oiled) frying pan, toast the hazelnuts over a medium heat, until their skins darken and they start to release their scent. Transfer them into a bowl- if you leave them in the hot pan they will continue to cook and probably burn. When they are cool enough to handle, rub them with your fingers to remove as much of the skin from them as possible. Chop 50g of them finely, and reserve the remaining 25g for decoration.

Cream the butter until it is very soft and light, and gradually beat in the sugar. Beat in a quarter of the beaten egg along with a spoonful of flour. Continue this until all the egg is used up. Now sift in the rest of the flour along with the baking powder and the bicarb. Fold this in, and then add coffee, nuts and Frangelico. Divide between the two cake tins, and bake for about 25 minutes.

Make sure the cakes are cool before you start decorating. For the icing, beat the butter to make sure it is truly soft. Sift in the icing sugar, beating it into the butter in stages. Once all the icing sugar has been incorporated, stir in the hot coffee liquid and frangelico.
Put one of the sponges face down on a plate. Spread the top surface with about a third of the icing. Place the other sponge, facing the right way up, on top. Spread with the remaining frosting, and decorate with the remaining hazelnuts. Sift the cocoa powder on top.

Perfect Shortbread

I haven't made shortbread in years, but it is one of the few things I remember making more than once when I was small. The memory of eating pure sugar and butter mix sticks in my head more than the actual shortbread, however, and my fondness for it comes more from tartan wrapped packages of shortbread in hotel rooms rather than homemade. Nonetheless, I read this article on how to make the perfect shortbread, and I was curious. It is an excellent recipe, definitely a biscuit that stands up by itself, as opposed to being the foil to cream and fruit.

I did not have any trouble finding rice flour in the supermarket, but if your local doesn't stock it, I would suggest trying a health food shop, or an Asian supermarket.
My notes are in italics.

Ingredients
115g butter, at room temperature
55g caster sugar (I like to use golden for flavour)
Good pinch of salt
130g plain flour
40g ground rice
Demerara sugar, to finish

Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 150C. Put the butter into a large mixing bowl, and beat with a wooden spoon until soft. Beat in the sugar and salt.
2. Sift over the flour and ground rice and mix to a smooth dough; if it doesn't come together, add a little more butter. I found I needed more butter here, and used my hands to finally bring in together.
3. Line a 15cm cake or tart tin with baking parchment, and pat, or lightly roll, the dough into a shape slightly smaller than the tin. Alternatively pat out to 1cm thickness and cut into biscuits and put on a lined baking tray. Put in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes until firm.
4. Bake for around an hour (about half that for biscuits) until cooked through, but not browned. Take out of the oven and cut into fingers, slices or squares. I made mine into biscuits, and at 150C in my (very weak) oven they took over an hour to cook.
5. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then sprinkle with demerara sugar and transfer to a wire rack.

Mini Jam Doughnuts

The last few weeks have been somewhat eventful, and while I have been keeping up with cooking, I have again neglected writing about it. I needed something to shake me out of this non-blogging phase, so I made proper jam doughnuts, something I have always wanted to try.
The deep frying makes the recipe sound complicated, but they are not really that hard. If you keep them small you don't have to worry about overcooking the outside and still having a raw-dough middle. If you don't want to faff about with putting the jam inside you could even just make plain doughnuts. I actually enjoy the process of making mini packages, finding the almost mindless work of filling and shaping relaxing. But maybe that's just me.
I uses Nigella's recipe, as is often my way. I did change it slightly, switching raspberry jam for strawberry (far superior, in my opinion), and adding a little nutmeg and cinnamon to the sugar.
One note- the amount of jam sounds tiny, like me, I am sure you will be tempted to add more. Any extra will make it impossible to close the dough around the jam and you'll end up frustrated (and sticky).

Ingredients
125ml milk
15g unsalted butter
250g bread flour
1/2 packet (1 1/2 teaspoons) easy blend or instant yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt

225g caster sugar
pinch ground nutmeg
1 egg
2 tablespoons raspberry jam
vegetable oil for deep-frying


Method
Warm the milk and butter together in a saucepan, taking it off the heat when the butter is melting. Put the flour, yeast, salt and 25g of the sugar in a bowl. Beat the egg into the warmed milk and butter and pour this into your bowl of dry ingredients, mixing it with a wooden spoon.

Either using your hands, or a dough-hook of a freestanding mixer, knead the dough until it is smooth and silky.Pat the dough into a round ball and put into a buttered bowl, covered in clingfilm and leave to rise somewhere warm, it should double in size and this could take 1-2 hours.

When it gets to that stage, punch the dough down and kneed again to make the dough smooth. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a 2cm thickness and cut out circles with a 4cm round cutter. You can re-roll the dough to make more circles. Make the dough circles into flatter rounds in your hands and then put an 1/8 teaspoon jam in the centre and fold in half and carefully roll it back into a a round ball shape. Sit the doughnuts on a baking sheet as you make the rest. Alternatively, you can do what I did and divide the dough into 16 pieces (halved 4 times), and using your palms, shape into a circle about 5cm. Add the jam, and gather up the edges to seal. Keep pinching the dough to make a smoothish sphere.








Heat the oil in a deep fat fryer or saucepan.If you're using a pan, the depth of oil should be about 3-4cm. Cook them in batches of 4-5 at a time, on a low heat. Each batch should take around 3 minutes, turn them over halfway.

While the first lot are cooking, mix the sugar and nutmeg on a plate. As soon as they are cooked, roll them in the spiced sugar and transfer to a plate or mouth.