Kao Phat Prik

I am slowly transporting all my cookery books from my parents' house to my flat- despite the lack of space for more books, I look forward to the day when the entirety of my collection is no longer based in London. I've just become reacquainted with Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook. I recently discovered this book was first published nearly 40 years ago- amazingly,it hasn't become at all dated.
I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by all the recipe books I have, and all the recipes I want to cook- and the lack of time to do it in. Recently, a dear friend and I came to the realisation that 3 meals a day doesn't feel enough to try everything. I'm trying to focus on a few recipes books, and really get into them, rather than feeling swamped by a huge collection of books. I've decided to start with The Complete Asian Cookbook- it's certainly got enough recipes to keep me going for a while.
I picked quite a simple starting point, with Kao Phat Prik, or chilli fried rice. I happened to have both leftover cooked rice, and some red curry paste in the fridge already, so I was partway there, ingredients-wise. I had made this red curry paste, but you could use any, homemade or bought.

Charmaine Solomon suggests garnishing with chilli flowers- I confess I left this part out, and just used the coriander leaves.

Ingredients
4 cups cold, cooked rice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 red chilli, sliced
I green chilli, sliced
1 tablespoons red curry paste (I upped this a little)
1 pork chop, finely diced or minced
500 g  peeled and deveined raw prawns, roughly chopped if large,
2 eggs, beaten and seasoned,
salt and pepper
3 tablespoon fish sauce
1 bunch chopped spring onions
handful chopped coriander leaves

Method

 Heat the oil in a wok and fry the onion and red chilli until softened. Add the curry paste, and cook until the oil begins to separate.  Add the pork and stir-fry until cooked. Add the prawns to the pan. Once these are cooked through, add the rice, and stir so it is coated with the curry paste and the pork and prawns are well combined. Push the rice to the edge of the wok, leaving a space in the centre, and pour in the beaten eggs.. Stir until they start to set. Mix with the rice and toss over high heat until the eggs are cooked. Sprinkle with fish sauce, and stir in the spring onions.  Take off the heat and stir in the coriander leaves.

Curried Smoked Mackeral Pilaf

Almost, but not quite, kedgeree. It is a little easier (no poaching uncooked fish first), and a little less nursery-food-gentle, with mustard seeds and a little more spice. I made this a lot in my first year at university, and have revisited more recently. I am not sure why I stopped making it in the first place, since starting again I have been having it almost once a week because I like it so much.

1 big knob of butter

1-2 white onions

1 tsp brown mustard seeds

1 bay leaf

Pinch turmeric

1 tbsp (more or less, to taste) curry powder (I used hot, but mild or medium can be used)

300g basmati rice

1 pack smoked mackerel fillets

300ml  water

300ml milk

3 eggs

Small bunch flat leaf parsley

Half a lemon

A little extra butter, if desired. 

Peel and slice the onion(s). Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan that has a well-fitting lid. Add the onions, and cook over a low heat until softened and slightly golden- about 10 minutes. Meanwhile boil your eggs- I tend to give them  8 minutes, which results in a still oily yolk, but boil for up to 10 minutes if you prefer them firmer. However you cook them, make sure you cover them in cold water straight away after they have finished boiling, so they don’t keep on cooking.

While the onion and eggs are cooking, remove the skin from the mackerel, and flake into medium sized pieces.

Add the mustard seeds to the pan, and cook for about 30 seconds, then stir in the curry powder, rice and bay leaf. Stir to coat the rice in the spices, and then add the mackerel, stirring to combine again. Pour in the water and milk, season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat up to bring the liquid to a boil, then turn the heat down to the lowest setting, place the lid on, and leave to cook for 15 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, peel and roughly chop the eggs, and remove the stalks from the parsley and chop the leaves.  When the rice has finished cooking, add a few pieces of butter (if desired), and  squeeze the juice from the lemon into the pan, and use and fork to fluff up the rice and mix in the butter and juice. Taste for seasoning, and adjust if necessary. Fork through the parsley and the eggs, and serve.

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.


 

Albalu Polo- Iranian Lamb and Sour Cherry Pilau

I love reading about and cooking Middle Eastern food, in particular Iranian. My recipe book collection has a high proportion of books about food from this part of the world. Unfortunately I am about as far as I could be from my books, but I do have a mental catalogue of the dishes I want to cook. This sour cherry dish is one of them.

I've never seen fresh sour cherries on sale- not only are they not commonly grown, they have a limited season. However, I've used bottled sour or Morello cherries with good results. With regard to the lamb, I’ve used both shoulder and leg in this type of dish, and I definitely prefer shoulder. The quantity of meat is pretty frugal for Western diets, if it bothers you, increase the quantity of lamb.

Now for the most important element- the rice. Cooking rice is a serious business in Iran, alongside bread it is their staple food. The Iranians don't export their superior rice varieties, but keep it in the country. Rice dishes from Iran can be grouped into three types, characterised by the cooking method:

Kateh- simply cooked in salted water with butter

Damy- Similar to the above, but other ingredients are stirred into the rice before cooking, such as lentils

Polo-This is the method used in the recipe below, and the tastiest. You soak the rice for at least an hour, and then par-boil it. You return it to the saucepan, and steam it over a low heat for 40 minutes or so. By the end of cooking time, you are left with very light, fluffy rice and a golden brown crust on the bottom- the tah-deeg. Crispy rice shouldn’t be so tasty, but it is. You break it into pieces and divide it as fairly as you can.

Ingredients
450g basmati rice
One large onion, peeled and chopped medium fine
Olive oil
Pinch saffron strands, ground
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch ground nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
4oog lamb shoulder, cut into small pieces
1 jar morello/sour cherries, about 500g
1-2 tbsp light honey or sugar
unsalted butter

Method.
Soak the rice in twice its volume of cold, salted water. Leave while you get on with the lamb. Fry the onion in a little olive oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan or casserole. Once it has softened, stir in the lamb and spices, plus salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add enough water to cover- about 500ml. You don’t need to brown the lamb like you would for an English stew. Half cover with a lid, and cook over a low heat for 1hr-1hr and a half until the lamb is tender and the liquid is reduced. About 20 minutes before it is ready, add the cherries and sugar. At the end of cooking, you should have quite a thick sauce, reduce a over a high heat if it seems thin. Taste for salt/sugar/spice adjustments.

Put 2 litres salted water on to boil. Drain the rice, and rinse in a sieve until the water runs clear. Once the water has reached a rolling boil, add the rice and cook for 4-7 minutes, until the rice is very nearly cooked. It should still have a bite in the centre, but be almost ready to eat. Drain, and mix in a little butter. Heat some butter in a heavy bottomed( NON-STICK!) saucepan that has a lid. With the pan still on the heat, line the base with some of the rice-just enough to cover. Spoon over a half of the lamb, then cover with half of what’s left of the rice. Layer the second half of the lamb on that, and finally the remainder of the rice. Shape the top of the rice into a slightly domed shape with a wooden spoon, the highest part in the centre. Cook on a medium high heat for 2 minutes, and then turn the heat down to the lowest heat, put the lid on and cook for 40 minutes. While it is cooking, put a chopping board or baking sheet in the freezer (something metal is best). When the cooking time is up, put the pan on the frozen surface for 1 minute. This helps the bottom of the rice come loose from the pan. Serve, either straight from the pan, or up-end it into a dish, where, if you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a nicely moulded cake of lamb pilaf.

Caramelised Onion, Camembert and Pancetta Risotto

 Rich and sleep inducing, risotto is one of my favourite dishes. This particular risotto is creamy and melting from the camembert,with sweet onions contrasting against the savoury bacon or pancetta.

Ingredients
200g pancetta cubes or bacon, cubed
Butter for frying
4 onions
2 sticks celery
2 cloves garlic
250g risotto rice
1 glass dry white wine
1.5l chicken stock
150g camembert
4 tbsp grated parmesan, plus extra for the table

Method
 Start with the caramelised onions- you can do them quite far in advance, if that suits. Peel and finely slice 3 of the onions, and cook very slowly in a heavy based in a good lump of butter until golden and easily crushable.  Set aside. Fry the bacon over a high heat until the fat is turning golden and crisping. Set aside with the onions.
Peel and chop the remaining onion, and chop the garlic and celery. Cook over a medium low heat  in some more butter until the onion has turned translucent. Meanwhile, put the stock in a pan over a medium heat so it is on a constant gentle simmer. Turn up the heat under the frying vegetables and stir the risotto rice in. Keep stirring, and cooking over this heat for about a minute, to 'toast' the rice. Pour in the wine, and as soon as the rice has absorbed it and the harsh alcohol smells have disappeared stir in the first ladleful of stock. Turn the heat down and continue in the usual risotto-making fashion, stirring constantly and adding a small amount of stock every time the previous amount has been absorbed by the rice. The rice is cooked when it is no longer chalky. It should be soft but not mush. A few minutes before this stage, stir in the onion and bacon. When the rice is ready, stir in another good lump of butter, the Parmesan,  and the camembert cut up. Put the lid on and leave for 2-3 minutes so all the lovely flavours and textures come together. Serve immediately.

Courgette, Goats' Cheese and Thyme Risotto

Slow cooking in olive oil and butter coaxes the flavour out of courgettes, I think it is the best treatment for them. I really recommend cooking them separately and then stirring into the risotto at the end of cooking instead of chucking them in with the onions and garlic. It does involve an extra saucepan, the courgettes will end up watery and flavourless, leaving you wondering why you used them in the first place.
I had a little cream left in the fridge that needed using up, so I added it to the risotto at the end. It's still rich without it though, so whether you use it or not is up to you.

Ingredients
3 medium sized courgettes
Olive oil
Butter
Thyme
2 tsp lemon juice
1 onion, peeled and chopped medium-fine
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
500g risotto rice
small glass dry white wine
1.5 litres chicken or vegetable stock
4 tbsp parmesan, + extra for the table
200g soft goats cheese, crumbled
Butter
2 tbsp cream (optional)

Method
Finely slice the courgettes, and slowly fry in a knob of butter and a tsp of olive oil. Turn from time to time, but mostly let them gently cook by themselves until they're melting. In the last five minutes of cooking add in the chopped thyme. Take off the heat and squeeze over the lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
In a heavy based saucepan, melt another spoonful of butter and fry the onion and garlic in it over a medium low heat until softened. Put the stock in another saucepan and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat up under the onions, and stir in the rice. Cook for about a minute, stirring, so that the grains 'toast' slightly. Pour in the wine (keep stirring), and once it has absorbed into the rice, add the first ladleful of stock. Once that has absorbed, add another ladle of it, and so on. Stir all the time, so it cooks evenly, and to achieve the lovely creamy texture of a good risotto. Once the rice is cooked (soft but not mush) stir in the courgettes, Then take off the heat and add another spoon of butter, the 4 tablespoons of parmesan and the cream, if using. Mix it in, put a lid on the pan, and leave for 2 minutes. This final stage is the mantecura, the thickening of the risotto. Sprinkle over the goats cheese just before serving.

Chorizo and Tomato Rice with Goat's Cheese

The title I've given this dish is rather dull, but I promise it tastes anything but. It's something I first cooked in my first year of university, and have since adopted it as one of my fall-back recipes when I can't decide what I want to cook or eat. The sort of goat's cheese I use is the very ordinary soft log that is easily obtainable in the supermarket, it goes well here, a soft, cool contrast to the heat of the chorizo.

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Approx. 100 grams cooking chorizo, sliced into thickish rounds
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika
1 tin tomatoes
Strip of zest from orange, plus juice of half the orange
1 can tomatoes
Dash white wine- optional
100 grams basmati rice
To finish:
2 tbsp chopped coriander leaf
30 grams soft goats cheese


Method
On a medium heat, warm the olive oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan that has a fitting lid. Add the onions to the pan and cook for around 5 minutes until soft. Put in the garlic and cook for another minute. Turn the heat up and add the chorizo. Cook until slightly crispy and the paprika-spiked oil starts to run. Add the cinnamon stick, bay leaf and coriander, cook for 30 seconds before tipping in the tinned tomatoes. If they are whole, break them up with a spoon in the pan. Add the zest and juice from the orange, plus the wine if using. Let everything simmer for a few minutes, season with salt and pepper. Stir in the rice and add 100ml water. As soon as the liquid starts to bubble hard, turn the heat down immediately to the lowest setting and clamp the lid on. Leave it alone for 15 minutes.  In the meantime, you can crumble up the goats cheese and chop the coriander and do any clearing up. Once the time is up, take off the heat and fork through the coriander. Decant into a bowl, sprinkle over the goats cheese and eat.
Serves 1.