OMG!! I cooked so much...then I ate so much!! Makes a change, huh? This is the problem with the weekend - I have so much extra time on my hands and I would rather spend it cooking than dealing with housework or going out into the cold descent of Winter.
This blog is going back a few weeks now. Boyfriend had a friend over (who happens to be my friend's boyfriend so woo!) to watch the football so I decided to go crazy in the kitchen, since I had an extra mouth to feed anyway. I'd been dying for an excuse to make my rosemary and olive focaccia, and also I wanted to try out a new recipe for curry puffs that I got from TV.
 |
| Focaccia, nice and oily, with fresh rosemary and olives |
Focaccia, as the starter, was heaven. I do love that stuff, and I made loads so that I could take some into work the next day. Fact: the key to a civil servant's heart is to bring them baked goods. Feeding them is akin to networking. We had it as a starter during the football match, complete with some of mummy's olive oil to dip in. I could actually just eat these two things together for the rest of my life.
One of the things I made for the main course was vegetarian curry puffs, but with a twist. Typically I make them with a shortcrust pastry, or even with store-bought puff pastry. However I'd seen somewhere that using bread dough as the pastry makes them super authentic, so I decided to give that a go. I whipped up my normal mixture of bread dough, adding a bit of turmeric for colour. For the filling, I made my usual curry puff stuff, with loads of potato, spinach, onion and carrot, and of course lots of chilli powder. Then I stuffed the bread dough, folded it up, and dusted some semolina flour over the top. Then I just baked them for about 40 minutes, and that was part of the main course done!!
 |
| Curry puffs, fresh out of the oven. Mum was so jealous! |
Since the theme was clearly Indian food, I decided to make a chickpea curry and tandoori chicken on the side. Tandoori chicken is super easy, as long as you remember to marinate it in plenty of time. Don't bother making your own tandoori paste, it's way too much work when you can get it pretty cheaply from the supermarket. I actually had some tandoori powder to hand, so I mixed it with a little yoghurt and marinated the chicken from the morning. Shortly before dinner, I stuck them in the oven for a good forty-five minutes, with the final five minutes under the grill to crisp up the skin (TIP: use boneless chicken thighs for this, they are so juicy and tender!!)
The chickpea curry was pretty standard: I used dried chickpeas with spinach and loads of different veggies to create this. I went heavy on the mustard seeds, and then used my standard combination of turmeric, cumin, garam masala and lots of garlic, followed by a generous amount of tomatoes to thicken up the curry.
And, just in case there wasn't enough food, I made some last minute chapattis to soak up the sauce. An easy combination of chapatti flour and water, and some of my secret herbs, kneaded for a good long while to develop the natural gluten in the flour. These are rolled out thinly and fried in a very hot, dry frying pan, for about 30 seconds on each side. Magic!!!
 |
| The final result: chickpea curry, curry puff, tandoori chicken and homemade chapatti |
As you can see from the above picture, it was quite a brown dinner, but we ate so much and enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe next time I'll focus on the presentation though - this whole look is very square...
Comments
Post a Comment