Madhur Jaffrey's Raiti ( Kheere ka raita )

The only raita I ever make as it is so tasty, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

570mls Plain yogurt
13cms Cucumber peeled and coarsely grated
2 Tablespoons finely chopped mint
Half a teaspoon ground roasted cumin seeds
Quarter of a teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste.


Beat the yogurt gently in a bowl until creamy and add all the other ingredients, cover and pop in the fridge - yum!!

Debs

Chicken Pakora ( Murg Pakora )

There are so many recipes out there that it was quite difficult to choose one - where to start! After spending what seemed like hours staring at pictures of pakora's on Google image, this was the recipe for me.

This is a great site which I will return to time and time again I think, anyway, here is the recipe which I followed to the letter, recommendations for alterations after the blurb.

Ingredients

250gms Chicken - cut into largish chunks
1 Teaspoon ground cumin
1 or 2 Green chillies
1 Tablespoon grated ginger
1 Tablespoon grated garlic
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Small cup chick pea flour
1 Teaspoon riceflour
1 Teaspoon coriander
1 Teaspoon red chilli powder
Oil to fry
Salt to taste



Blend the chillies,cumin, ginger, garlic, lemon juice and salt to a fine paste and stir chopped chicken through to cover. Place into a bowl and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Prepare the batter by mixing the flours, chilli powder, salt and coriander with water,  heat the oil in a deep pan and dip each piece of chicken in the batter to coat.

Pop each piece into the hot oil and fry evenly until golden brown, drain on kitchen paper and serve.

Hmmm, well for a first attempt they did not go quite as planned so what went wrong. Looking at the recipe it called for garam masala but it was not on the ingredient list - no garam masala! There was no indication as to how much water to use and honestly I think that my batter was way too wet so next time I'll make it much thicker and stickier. Last but not least I decided to use a large frying pan rather than deep fry so they needed to be turned - big mistake - put these babies in the oil and leave well alone. With turning them over, they started to lose their batter coating.

So, a few lessons learnt here - but - they tasted lovely, I would probably up the spice mix a little as we like our food quite spicy but otherwise it's a sound recipe.
I served mine with a tasty raita - recipe to follow.


Debs

Arancini

I had never even heard of these until the other day whilst watching a re-run of the original Masterchef Australia and there they were. There was a challenge to cook snacks at a fairground and one of the contestants was knocking up these little beauties. They sounded really yummy so today was the day to experiment! 
I actually didn't quite know where to start so just googled Arancini and up it all popped - I plumped for Antonnio Carluccio's recipe as it sounded authentic and off we went, here's how it goes:


Ingredients 
For the Risotto:
350gms Risotto Rice
1 Small onion - finely chopped
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Generous glass of white wine
1.5 litres of vegetable stock ( I used chicken stock )
130gms Parmigiano Reggiano finely grated
Salt and pepper
1 egg beaten

Breadcrumbs to coat
Oil to fry - olive or vegetable depending on taste

In a small saucepan, heat the stock and keep it simmering. In a heavy pot, sauté the onion in oil till golden. Add the wine, stir, and simmer until it is reduced. Add the raw rice and stir with a wooden spoon. When the rice is evenly coated with oil and almost ready to stick, add a ladleful of hot stock. Stir. For the next 20 or so minutes, keep stirring and adding enough hot stock to wet the rice, but not drown it. When the risotto is al dente, take it off the heat. Stir in the grated Parmesan, salt and pepper. Allow to cool before mixing in some or all of the egg - just enough to bind the mixture.

When the mixture is nice and cool, with wet hands form a little patty in your hand, pop a blob of Mozzarella into the middle, place a bit more mixture on top and from into a nice neat ball. Cover with the breadcrumbs and fry for about 5 minutes until golden brown.

These are the first four I made, one really fell apart, another was a bit crumbly but two were good. A small admission on my part though, I omitted the egg!! Foolish I know but the mixture was quite sticky and I didn't think it was needed,  hmmmmm , adding the egg for the next batch.....

Ok, so added the egg and they held together so much better - lesson learned the hard way here. The recipe said that you could make ten arancini - I made twenty and they were still a really good size. 

This is the first recipe that I've road tested for my new venture and I'm really pleased with it, I think it needs a tweak, I'm going to make these the day before and pop them into the fridge which I think will make them a little more stable and hold together better when fried. I'm going to serve these with some kind of sauce, I was going to use a chilli dipping sauce but I may try them with a romesco sauce ( love it!! ), I don't know yet - maybe a simple tomato sauce.

Anyway - all done for today just got to clear up and get some reviews!!

Debs

It's food but not as we know it!

I'm not sure how I feel about watering down my blog with my other endeavours but I am spending a HUGE amount of time doing this so here is a link.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Jellyfishjools

Can't seem to get away from food but at least this is not fattening.

Debs

Hairy Bikers Christmas Pudding Vodka Recipe.

This was loved so much a couple of years ago that it wouldn't be Christmas without a glass after dinner!.

Ingredients

·                                 300g/10½oz mixed dried fruit (sultanas, currants, raisins)

·                                 75g/3oz caster sugar

·                                 2 cinnamon sticks

·                                 2 tsp ground mixed spice

·                                 6 cloves

·                                 ½ whole nutmeg, finely grated

·                                 1 orange, zest only, finely grated

·                                 1 unwaxed lemon, zest only, finely grated

Preparation method

1. Mix the dried fruit with the sugar, cinnamon sticks, mixed spice, cloves, grated nutmeg and citrus zest in a largish sealable jar ( you can just pop it all into a large bowl and cover with cling film ! ).
2. Pour over the vodka.
3. Place in the fridge and leave for 3 days, stirring once each day.
4. Line a sieve with a double layer of fine muslin and place over a large, clean jug.
5. Pour the dried fruit and vodka mixture into the sieve and allow to drip through into the jug.
6. Pour into a sterilized bottle.

It all looks pretty murkey at first but - although it doesn't clear - it does look far more appetising by the time you get to drink it.

I'll post a photo when the straining and bottling takes place.

Debs

Michel Roux Jr's Panna Cotta with Mango Coulis (mostly)..

Ingredients 

3 gelatine leaves 

2 tablespoons dark rum

600mls single cream

2 vanilla pods split with seeds scraped out

100g caster sugar

peel of one orange - no pith

500g wild strawberries ( optional given the season )

For The Coulis

2 large ripe mangoes

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 lime

Serves eight.

Soak gelatine leaves in the rum until soft. Whilst gelatine is soaking place cream, vanilla, sugar and orange peel into a large pan and quickly bring to a simmer, stirring to make sure that it does not catch. Take off the heat immediately and stir in the gelatine and rum mixture. Leave to cool stirring occasionally to avoid a skin!

Once cool strain into dishes or glasses and leave to set in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

Yes, this recipe states that it serves eight.....eight very small portions, It smells divine at this stage and I found it quite hard not to slurp one straight away! Into the fridge with you babies and on with the coulis..

Peel and chop up the mango and place in a blender with the sugar and lime juice - blitz to a smooth puree, pass through a sieve and pop into the fridge. 

Well, as usual we ate it before I remembered to photo it, but it looked exactly the same as above only served with bright yellow mango coulis! Did I like it mmmm, I think that three leaves of gelatine is a little excessive , next time I'll use two and a half as I like my panna cotta a little softer. The mango coulis was - in my opinion - horrible. It gets a nasty slimy consistency when blitzed that I can't stomach. Some fresh mango simply served with it would have been lovely or even better a nice raspberry coulis - I have never had anyone complain about that!

Debs

Ahh missed you blog....

Well, it has been an awful long time since I wrote anything here and there have been times when I've missed it so much. Having said that it can be all consuming and much of my time has been taken up with a new venture - namely jewellery making ( after a fashion ).

Given the time restraints of a new job, making jewellery which happens to look like food :), its no surprise that really something had to give. Anyway, I found myself missing this so much that it was time to resurrect it, albeit in a less intense manner and start blogging again.
Sam is now living in beautiful Devon and working as chef under Jim at The Trout..

http://www.thetroutinnbickleigh.co.uk/page8.html

Lovely food and a great pub! I miss him too much though, ah well, they have to fly sooner or later. I cook rather less than I used to so have decided to pick it up a little. I really don't have the time to devote to it any more unfortunately so I'm going to concentrate on learning a little more French cooking and posting my successes on here - might be a little flimsy on content of course! Today I have made a lovely panna cotta from Michel Roux jr's book ' Cooking With The Masterchef '  - nice little book but not enough photo's.

Debs