Madhur Jaffrey’s baked beef curry • Wagamama’s chargrilled pineapple slices

Can you guess who it is yet?

Family feasting time

Is there a better way to spend a grey and dreary weekend than at home  tucking into a mama-made curry and snuggling on the sofa watching IT Crowd boxsets? I think not.

The apple mango hasn’t fallen far from the tree in our case – my mum is also a first-class curry fiend. I bought her a copy of Curry Easy for Christmas as I’ve been really impressed by its simplicity and the depth of flavour in the recipes. This Saturday we sat down to an aromatic dinner of home-made “baked beef” and “okra with shallots”– both were very rich and tasty. Mum also made some fresh naan breads using dough from her bread maker – superior skills.

The undoubted highlight of the meal, however, was pudding. A little ray on sunshine on a wet, grey February day, this tasted like caramelized piña colada on a plate – moreishly sweet and exotic – and I liked it a lot. I think it’s time to dust off my Wagamama’s cookbook… Here’s the gist of things if you’d like to give it a try:

Wagamama’s chargrilled pineapple & coconut broth

(serves 2-4)

• Put a can of coconut milk in a pan with 50g white sugar, the zest of half a lime and juice of a whole one. Add 5cm of lemongrass (outer leaves removed) finely sliced.

• Simmer ingredients on a  medium heat for 5 minutes then set aside to cool.

• Heat a griddle pan till almost smoking. Sprinkle 25g sugar over 6 pineapple rings (fresh or tinned) and cook for 1 minute on each side.

• Strain and reheat the sauce and pour over the pineapple to serve.

Marks: 9/10 all-round

Curry Club, the return

Boom! Curry club is back! It’s been a funny old summer – four weddings and two funerals worth to be precise. Doesn’t have much of a ring to it, but therein lies the rub.

There’s been a whisper of autumn crispness in the air today so we seized the day and decided to make a warming Rajasthani red meat curry from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Easy (which sounded similar to the amazing dish I ate at Cinnamon Soho). On the side I made some tasty pan-grilled courgettes. The final result was delicious and hot, hot, hot. The recipes were of course, easy…

Rajasthani red meat curry (serves 4–6 people)

• Mix 1 tsp cayenne pepper and 2 tbsp of sweet (or smoked) red paprika.
• Cut up 900g of stewing lamb (shoulder is best) into chunks, rub on the spice mix and leave for a couple of hours.
• Heat 2 tsp oilve oil in a frying pan and fry 5 inches of cinnamon stick, 6 cloves, 8 green cardamon pods and 2 black cardamon pods. After a couple of minutes add one chopped red onion and cook until browned.
• Add 3 tsp ginger and garlic paste, plus 1 tbsp of ground coriander and cook for one minute.
• Add the lamb and cook until browned.
• Add 1 litre of water, bring to the boil, cover with a lid and simmer for an hour (or more) untl the meat is lovely and tender.
• Sprinkle chopped coriander on top and serve with a spoonful or two of greek yoghurt.

Pan-grilled  courgettes (serves 2–4 people)

• Five small courgetters, sliced into quarters
• Fry the slices in olive oil until the skin is turning a chargrilled colour. Lay the slices out and sprinkle with lemon juice, salt, pepper, a sprinking of roasted and ground cumin, and a dash of cayenne pepper.

Try it if you dare.

Marks: 8/10

Joyti’s momo recipe with Tibetan sepen chilli sauce

Joyti and Binod

Pupils at Sacred Heart School

Chicken momos

Home-made chilli sauce

Curry-themed birthday goodies courtesy of lovely friends – looking foward to experimenting with them

Momo delights

Curryclub took a walk down memory lane this weekend with a tasty guest recipe from my friend Joyti, who hosted me at her family home for 3 months when I was teaching at Sacred Heart School near Darjeeling, in India,. All of her home cooking was delicious, but her family-recipe momos (which I’ve since found out are Tibetan, not Nepalese) were always a  particular treat; so much so that my friend Alex and I used to compete to see who could eat the most.

Joyti kindly sent me her recipe last week and I also found this website with plenty of momo tips:

http://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-food/momos.html. I also found a great online recipe (http://roshellechefaldente.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/delightful-momos-with-hot-sepen.html) for the distinctive sepen chilli sauce that usually accompanies momos and whipped a batch up with four small, smoked chillis and one big fresh red one, which was deep and rich, rather than mouth-scorchingly hot.

It was great fun crimping the momos up like tiny Cornish pasties and they were seriously delicious for such a simple recipe – the pleasure of biting into the juicy, gingery middles is hard to beat. They didn’t work very well as leftovers unfortunately  so I’d recommend cooking and eating them fresh.

Joyti’s momo recipe for 4 people

1. 500g  minced meat (chicken or any other meat).
2. 250g onions(finely chopped).
3. ginger grated- medium piece.
4. salt to taste.
5. Put all the ingrediants together and mix.

Dough

1. 500g plain flour- knead the flour with enough water to make the dough elastic.
2. Roll out small rounds of the dough and fill with 1–2 tsp of mixture, and pinch closed.
3. Grease steamer lightly and steam momos  for roughly 20 minutes.

Marks: 9/10

Curryclub is on holiday for the next couple of weeks (in Scotland and in Wales); in the meantime, here’s a fascinating article on how chillis became “cool”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/20/chilli-farm-festival-crop-harvest

Tangdi (marinated chicken legs) • Amchoorwaley Karela (stuffed bitter gourd)

Peeled bitter gourds

Ripe red seeds

Stuffed bitter gourd

Bitter gourd ingredients aplenty

Karela seed and potato curry

Earlier this week I picked up some bitter gourds on Drummond Street and I’ve been looking forward to experimenting with them. As the name suggests they are incredibly bitter (no s**t, Sherlock), and a bit of an acquired taste, but I’ve been looking forward to cooking them as they remind me of my time teaching near Darjeeling  in 2006, with the charity Mondochallenge (www.mondochallenge.co.uk).  I plumped for the exciting-sounding Amchoorwaley Karela recipe from Food of the Grand Trunk Road, and also their Tangdi (marinated chicken legs) for the meat component.

The preparation for both of these recipes was a bit of a slog – especially skinning all the chicken legs and marinating them for 5 hours, and peeling all the bitter gourds – but it was fun to use my newly acquired dried mango powder, which tasted much more sour than expected. My lack of tandoor also meant a very slow cooking time for the chicken (1.5 hours at gas mark 4, then some time under the grill to crisp up). One of the bitter gourds was much riper than the others and it was incredible to see the contrast between the white unripe seeds and the blood-red ripened-up ones.

The end result was great – less bitter than I remember. The gourds tasted like slightly sharp aubergines, and the potato, karela seed and peanut stuffing was citrusy, sour and nutty all in one mouthful. The chicken legs were lovely and tender, and the marinade was very more-ish and not too hot.

Joyti, who I lived with near Darjeeling, has very kindly sent me her recipe for momos (Nepalese dumplings), and  I’m looking forward to giving them a try next Sunday. Just need to buy a steamer and find a decent chilli sauce recipe first (suggestions welcome!)…

Marks: 8/10

Kathi chicken rolls

What a fab weekend…a happy, sunny Bristol wedding, an evening in with steak and chips, Mr Ben and Mr Jerry, pancakes for breakfast, a walk along the Thames from Richmond to Kew, curry for dinner and a long chat with an old friend. I was still feeling bit tired this evening after all the merriment of the wedding, so I made a nice easy chicken dish from Food of the Grand Trunk Road. The recipe included home-made parathas, but I made a shortcut and substitued them for wholemeal pitta breads. We ate the whole lot before I remembered to take any pictures –sorry. All in all a whole-hearted success.

Miracle paste

Here’s the recipe if you’d like to give it a try, with a few adaptations:

• Fry 1tsp cumin seeds with 1.5 chopped onions and cook until brown.
• Add 1tbsp garlic and ginger paste and cook for 2minutes.
• Add 1tsp chilli powder, 1/4 tsp tumeric powder and 1tsp ground coriander and cook for another minute.
• Add 500g boned chicken thighs, cut into 2cm cubes. Sear on all sides.
• Add 2 chopped tomatoes and cook until soft.
• Add 1/4 mug of water and cook until evaporated and the chicken is tender.
• Serve inside parathas or wholemeal pitta breads with fresh coriander, ginger julienne, natural yoghurt and a pickle/chutney of your choice (or chilli sauce).

Mark: 9/10. Easy and delicious

Aubergine and yoghurt raita • Indian-style bread and butter pudding

Curryclub’s latest members

Chilled aubergine and yoghurt raita

Indian-style bread and butter pudding

Despite the weather being cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey we had a brilliant Easter weekend: oodles of chocolate; Scrabble by a log-fire; and a visit to the new David Bowie exhibition at the V&A (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/david-bowie-is/). The audio-visuals are fantastic, and your clever personal MP3 player changes the soundtrack as you explore the show, depending on your position.

We rounded off with an Indian feast fit for a king (well, my parents, anyway, who are much more important). Here’s the menu, all cooked to a soundtrack of the Thin White Duke:

• Michael Hathorne’s lamb curry – complete with fenugreek leaves this time. Still delicious, despite a slight burning incident (damn Le Creuset pan).  I’m wondering if the 40g of dried fenugreek leaves is an error, as my version was very strongly flavoured with only half the amount.
• Mango and chilli salad – fast becoming a regular dish for us. Seasoned with red chillis and lime juice this time around, it was seriously refreshing
• Madhur Jaffrey’s chilled aubergine and yoghurt raita – pretty oily, but oh so delicious. I’ll be sure to make this again.
• Saag – some tasty, token greenery to counteract the Simnel cake and Easter eggs.
• Indian-style bread and butter pudding – adapted from a Delia Smith recipe this was the star of the show. MrCurryclub added a pinch of saffron, orange zest, several cardamom pods and a dash of rosewater to the mix, along with some lovely yellow-yolked home-laid eggs from his parents’ chickens in Kent. The end result was a great, waist-line increasing success!

Marks: 9/10 for whole shebbang

Lucknow-style black leg chicken biryani

Tomato and cucumber raita, chilli and mango, and a fennel salad

Chicken biryani

MrCurryclub’s identical twin brother came down from Inverness to stay this weekend. The weather was damp and chilly, and the boys were feeling a bit fragile after Saturday’s rugby marathon, so a warm welcome to Curryclub was in order. I decided to make a chicken biryani from the Cinnamon Kitchen’s cookbook, with  Maddhur Jaffrey’s refreshing tomato and cucumber raita on the side. Our lovely house guest whipped up a fresh mango and red chilli chutney, and a refreshing salad of fennel slivers, lemon juice and olive oil.

The biryani recipe was a bit fiddly, but well worth the effort, despite a slight turmeric-in-eye incident (don’t ask). It was really satisfying to dust the cobwebs off our bottle of exotic-looking rosewater, although I’m yet to find out what the alternative ingredient – screwpine – is. The whole dish was lovely and rich, without a “black leg” in sight, and the tangy salads were a great addition. The quantities in the recipe seemed a bit off, however, so I used half the suggested amount of water and salt for cooking  the rice (1.5 not 3 litres, and 1.5 tbsp rather than 3). We substituted green chillis for red ones, and didn’t have any mace unfortunately, but this wasn’t a noticeable omission.

Marks: 8/10 for the whole shebbang

Chicken liver masala with pao bread (kaleji pao)

New table cloth from Calcutta courtesy of my lovely sister-in-law (she also made the butter dish)

I’ve got  tigers on the brain this week… My sister-in-law has just got back from a great trip to Bandhavgarh National Park and I spent last night watching this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nhwyz/Natural_World_20122013_Queen_of_Tigers_Natural_World_Special. I’ve been desperate to go on safari in India  ever since seeing tigers in the wild at Jim Corbett National Park in 2007.

For now I’m making do with tonight’s Curryclub effort, though: chicken liver masala with pao bread (or kaleji pao)  from Food of the Grand Trunk Road. I was stuggling to find a good recipe for a saag side-dish online, so I  improvised my own using this recipe from the blog Santosh’s Kitchen: http://santoshbangar.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/sarso-ka-sag-makki-ki-roti.html.

First I fried up a tablespoon of garlic and ginger paste with 2 tbsp vegetable oil, one chopped onion and one chopped tomato. I also added one chopped green chilli and a generous amount (approximately 2 tbsp) of dried fenugreek leaves. When it had all softened up and come together I added a whole large bag of supermarked spinach and stirred on a medium heat until cooked, adding dashes of water as necessary. I then pureed the whole lot with my hand blender – yum.

Curryclub is going on tour to Italy this week, so I’ll be taking a weekend off from cooking next Sunday; normal sevice will be resumed the week after.

Marks: 8/10 for saag and pao bread, 7/10 for the liver (I’m usually a big liver fan, but the spicing in this dish didn’t have enough bite for me)

The perfect tonic – chana keema, naan bread & pomegranate raita

Pomegranate raita

Chana keema and naan bread

It’s rare for me to be up past midnight nowadays (how embarassing), but we went to a 30th birthday party on Saturday night and didn’t roll home till 4am. A hearty feed was required.  Mr Curryclub and I combined forces to make not one, but three new recipes: chana keema (lamb mince stir-fried with chickpeas) from Food of the Grand Trunk Road, by Anirudh Arora and Hardeep Singh Kohli, and pomegranate riata and naan bread from the Cinnamon Kitchen’s cookbook.

The naan breads were concrete hard, but the other dishes were fab. A recipe from the Punjab section of the book – an area in the far northwest of India bordering on Jammu and Kashmir –the chana keema was totally moreish. Flavoured with smoky black cardamon, bay leaves, green and powdered chill, garlic and ginger paste (jars of which I’ve just discovered in my local deli), ground coriander and cumin, this was the perfect warming dish for staving off the winter chill and the hangover gremlins. The recipe was seasoned with a teaspoon of garam masala and livened up with lemon guice, ginger julienne and a sprinkling of fresh coriander. The raita was similarly likeable – simultaneously tart and sweet, it was definitely worth the effort of picking the seeds out one by one like a chimp.

Belly full, I realized that I haven’t bought any takeaway curries at all this year – progress indeed.

Marks: 8/10 for the whole meal (excepting the naan breads – the leftovers were much tastier with pilau rice)

Madhur Jaffrey’s “Moghlai Lamb with Spinach (Palaag Gosht)

Delicious aromas not included

Dinner in progress

Washing up “lite”

A perfect end to a lovely sunny weekend catching up with friends and celebrating milestones, exploring the New Forest and rubber-necking to see the giraffes at London Zoo. I can’t think why I’ve never made this recipe before – it’s very very easy to cook, doesn’t require too many ingredients or spices, and  doesn’t produce gargantuan amounts of washing up. A rich and scrumptious treat.

Marks: 9/10

Recipe adapted from the Ultimate Curry Bible

Marinate 600g of boneless lamb shoulder/neck meat with 4tsp grated ginger, 7 crushed garlic cloves and 2tbsp ground corainder for 30 minutes.

Slice 1 large onion into slim half-rings and fry until golden in 4tbsp olive/vegetable oil. Remove and leave on kitchen paper. Add meat to remaining oil in pan with 1/2tsp tumeric powder, 1tsp cayenne pepper and 1 tsp salt, and cook for 10 minutes on a medium heat with the lid on.

Gradually add 4tbsp of natural yoghurt, waiting until each spoonful is absorbed, then add chopped, fried onions and 450g thinly sliced raw spinach. Cook on a low heat for 50 minutes, or until the lamb is tender.