Felt in the mood for something somewhat flavourful over the past few days, so we decided to cook something of an Indian-inspired nature. My favourite book in this genre, for its simplicity, as well as for how the dishes actually taste, is Curries Without Worries by Sudha Koul: she deals with having to cook with ingredients readily available in grocery stores in the US in the 80's: much of the country has since improved, but here the improvement has been slow, and we are still stuck with the fact that for some stores, fresh ginger is an exotic ingredient.
Anyway, I've now cooked from this and other books often enough that I will improvise around a recipe, and this is what I did last night:
Chicken thighs, skin removed
Spices (cumin, cayenne, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, curry powder, home-made garam masala, which recipe I ought to post sometime)
Unsalted butter
(no, I don't always have homemade ghee in the fridge)
(no, the local grocery stores don't stock ghee)
(are you kidding?)
Coarsely chopped onion
Several cloves garlic, minced
Couple of inches of fresh ginger, minced
3-4 cups diced tomatoes
8 small potatoes, cubed
1 cup or so cauliflower florets
1-2 cups chickpeas (prepared, or canned)
1 cup yoghurt
I sort-of followed the recipe for whispering windows buttered chicken, without the marinating in yoghurt first, and adding yoghurt later instead of heavy cream: I also increased the spice levels and variety a bit. I threw in the potatoes, cauliflower and chickpeas to add texture, especially since I wasn't going to do a pullao rice or other dishes to go with it: and since I was planning on leftovers, I wanted to make it a complete meal so that we can just heat a bowl of it for lunch.
I served it with kasmati rice (a branded version of basmati) and condiments: banana, cashews, golden raisins, shredded coconut.
I kept the heat level down (the only really hot ingredient was the cayenne pepper,
which I added with a light hand) so that there was a chance the sprogs would eat and like it. Some chance. Actually Boo liked it okay (she wasn't incredibly enthusiastic, but at least she ate several mouthfuls of it). Skibo, on the other hand, refused to let it touch his lips. Complete refusal. Absolute NO. Not even with the promise of ice cream later!
I am so looking forward to the little ones developing a taste for decent food! Not that I want them to grow up too quickly,... but on food, I can't wait.
N.
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5 comments:
Looks like a lovely recipe N. I might have to try it.
I cooked an Indian meal last night - a chicken tikka with sag paneer (I had to use ricotta cheese instead of the paneer, as I didn't have time to make my own and because it was a little too "unusual" for the supermarket to cope. Ho hum. But it still tasted okay).
I can't get enough of all those aromatic spices. It's so much fun to cook as well.
I've never heard of Kasmati, but I'll be looking out for some. I'm always up for trying new foods.
p.s. how do you make your own ghee?
Rebecca: Kasmati is a particular brand of basmati rice sold here in the US: it happens to come in a nearly airtight jar, which is nice, and the price is reasonable. However, any basmati would work as well.
Ghee is essentially just melted butter with the solids allowed to float to the surface, then spooned off. Cool and keep in the fridge.
N.
Oops. The sediments float to the bottom not the top. Or rather, they sink. Melt a pound of butter and simmer on extremely low heat for 15 minutes. Cool to room temperature, strain into a jar with a tight fitting lid. Keeps, they say, for months.
And I actually read your blog before posting this morning: I was going to head over there and mention this entry, but you beat me to it!
N.
In that case, I probably won't find Kasmati over here then!
From what you write, it seems really quite simple to make Ghee. So that will be my next task...!
RT
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