Quick Lamb Curry

This simple lamb mince dish is based on one from Simple Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey – an old book that I came across at work recently, with loads of terrific and EASY Indian dishes.

There is no rocket science here; the key is in the use of fresh spices – get your mortar & pestle action on!

You could serve this as is, in a bowl, or make it a bit more glamorous with rice, tortillas or naan bread, raita, and maybe a side dish of sauteed mushrooms or mashed potato!

Minced Lamb With Peas

2 tbsp olive oil

1 brown onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tbsp freshly grated ginger

1 tsp cumin seeds, ground

1 tsp coriander seeds, ground

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp cinnamon, ground

1/4 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tomatoes, chopped

4 tbsp low-fat Greek yoghurt

500 gms minced lamb

cracked pepper, to taste

1 cup water

juice of 1 lemon

3/4 cup frozen peas

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan or frying pan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and ginger; stir until lightly browned.

Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne pepper, and stir for 10 seconds. Add the tomatoes and yoghurt. Cook over medium heat until the tomatoes have softened, stirring often.

Add the lamb and cracked pepper. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes, breaking up all the lumps.

Add the water and bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add lemon juice and peas, return to a simmer and cook gently, uncovered, for a further 10 minutes.

Serves 4

Happy Fooding!

Ravishing Runny Raita…

This yummy, slightly hot dipping sauce or raita, was originally supposed to be a “chutney”, but it turned out way too runny to be spread on anything. It is, however very very tasty, and spooned or poured over an Indian dish or a bowl of plain rice, it is very moreish and delicious.

Makes a great dip for poppadoms while you are waiting to serve your main curry.

Green Raita

12 tbsp low-fat Greek yoghurt

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

4 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

4 tbsp fresh coriander, finely chopped

1 large green chilli, finely chopped

1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

Place all ingredients in a bowl and blend thoroughly with a hand blender, until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Happy Fooding!

Restaurant Review: Gurkhas Nepalese

11 of us went to the relatively new Gurkhas Nepalese Restaurant in Highgate for dinner last weekend, following pre-drinks at the Brisbane Hotel, which is only a stone’s throw away.

Four of us chose to have the $38.50 banquet so that we could try a few different dishes. The starter was delicious mo-mos (steamed dumplings), with a meat filling and a bit of spice, and little paneer-filled spring roll type things that were divine.

Service was good, our main waiter was super friendly and very happy to change the listed banquet dish of Butter Chicken to Chicken Tikka Masala instead. We also had goat, cooked on the bone – the meat was lovely and tender, but I’m not so fussed about having to deal with big chunks of bone in my meal when I’m out – and very nice Palak Paneer, one of my favourite Indian dishes.

The Tarka Dal was beautiful, quite an unusual blend of spices and unlike any dal I’ve had before – quite runny in texture, but it tasted really, really good. We had plain and saffron rice, and plain and garlic naan bread.

Serving sizes were not overly big – we ate the lot and I was full, but only just.

We could choose whichever dessert from the menu that we wanted (I didn’t have one, as Indian desserts I do not find appealing at all, but the rice pudding and ice cream was enjoyed by the others).

I like my food very hot and spicy, and these dishes were not particularly so – I guess a banquet is designed to suit a blander palate than mine – but it was very happily enjoyed by the other three, who were not very familiar with Indian style foods. Next time I would order my own individual dishes so that I could ask for things to be made extra hot!

Currently Gurkhas is BYO only, with a corkage charge of $2.50 for each wine-drinking guest (this is VERY cheap for Perth), and we were informed that they have applied for a full liquor licence, but the process takes a long time. There is no bottle shop close by, so being licenced will be a plus for those like me who always forget to take a bottle and then have to rush off to the nearest bottle-o to grab something!

Overall a good value eating place, close to the city, relaxed atmosphere with friendly staff – not stupendously fantastic, but then again not horribly overpriced and pretentious like some Perth restaurants. Gurkhas is certainly worth going back to.

Happy Fooding!

Still on the Vegetable Crusade….

Chopped veg

With my mountain of vegies to play with, I found this easy Pumpkin & Lentil Curry dish from the 4 Ingredients website – I mean you can’t get much simpler than this really – but I decided than rather than just pumpkin, I’d throw in a variety of vegies, because, well, why the hell not?!!

I was also feeling very lazy, so didn’t even peel the skin off the pumpkin…..

The result was okay, nothing too flash – actually it doesn’t look so great but it tasted better than it looks. A bit stodgy, but healthy and filling.

I’m off to an ANZAC Day picnic today, and yes I probably should have made Anzac biscuits, but I just couldn’t be bothered. I made olive tapenade and a zucchini slice, homemade bread and coleslaw instead.

Happy Fooding!

Surprisingly Good!

The weather has been perfect this week – hot during the day, but still cooling down enough to sleep properly at night. Being at work sucks when the weather’s great though!

I wanted to try this easy broccoli side dish, Madras Hari Bhari (love that name!). I actually ate this as my main course, being still in a 95% non-meat phase at the moment – I say only 95%, because I can’t resist the occasional party pie for a snack I’m afraid. And not the gourmet homemade variety either – I just like the Woolworths own-bakery ones and I like to eat them cold straight out of the packet (yeah I know it’s gross, but they just taste so GOOD that way!).

Although this was super easy, when I threw it together I thought oh I don’t think this is going to be too exciting, but in fact it tasted great. Mild curry flavour and ready in half an hour. This made enough for 4 as a side dish, but could easily be increased to make a big bowl of it as a dinner party accompaniment or a vegie dish at a party. You could also add cauliflower as well.

Happy Summer Fooding!

Mild Thai Vegies

It is really, really hot here at this time of year. I love it, as I hate the cold, but many are not happy right now. Over Christmas we had about 10 days in a row of 37-42C with no relief, and even night minimums only getting down to 23-27C.

Finally a minor cool change came through on New Year’s Day, and since then it hasn’t been too bad, but even with a bit of a cool breeze, it is still way too hot inside my tiny place to think about using the oven much. The aircon is very inefficient and there is no insulation, making it freezing in Winter and stinking hot in Summer!

On New Year’s Day, when I was in post-Hawaiian-party recovery mode and pretty much doing nothing all day, I wanted to make a healthy vegie dish to go with my crumbed salmon (which I did in the microwave rather than the oven). I also needed to make do with whatever was in the fridge, as the shops were not open and I had not yet fully re-stocked from being away for 2 weeks.

I made up this curried veg dish – Massaman curry paste is very mild, so this is not a spicy dish at all, and you could use whatever vegies you like.

Massaman Thai Vegies

1 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, cut into wedges

2 cloves garlic, sliced

2 tbsp Massaman curry paste

400 mls coconut milk (low-fat)

400 mls tinned, diced tomatoes

7 baby potatoes, cut into quarters

2 small carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 red capsicum, sliced

kernels of 1 corn cob

2 tbsp fresh basil, torn

2 tbsp fresh mint, torn

Heat olive oil in large saucepan, and saute onion and garlic for 5 minutes. Add curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add coconut milk, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Add capsicum, corn kernels, basil and mint, and simmer for a further 10 minutes or until potato/carrot is tender, stirring occasionally.

Serves 4

Happy hot weather fooding!

Thai Pork Stir-Fry

The other night I made this very easy pork mince dish from taste.com – I don’t usually think of mince when I think of stir-fry, but this did turn out well and has a lovely mix of Thai flavours in it. Instead of serving with rice noodles, this would be good served in lettuce cups, as it pretty much is the same ingredients as a Thai larb dish.

The ingredients here are not anything super unusual, but the flavours come from using fresh foods. If you didn’t use fresh lemongrass, ginger, garlic and chilli, for sure this would taste quite uninteresting and bland.

Another serving idea, which would make this go a bit further if you had more people to feed, is to serve it as a kind of Thai fajitas – the noodles in a separate bowl, with warm tortillas, Greek yoghurt or sweet chilli sauce, and maybe a bowl of shredded lettuce.

Serves 4 – so plenty of leftovers for me!

Happy fooding!

Aloo Dhal Curry

This website promotes Australian potatoes (including some varieties that I’ve never heard of!) and every now and then puts out a leaflet of recipes in the supermarket, which is how I came across this vegetarian lentil curry recipe. And, it tastes amazing!!

Below is my tweaked version – mainly I’ve just changed a few quantities to suit my taste or the weight of vegies I happened to have, and of course I upped the garlic lol. I also found it took longer than the stated cooking time, but then I did cut my vegies in quite large chunks so that could be my fault, not theirs.

Anyway, this is lovely and flavoursome, and hearty warming Winter fare for this last burst of cold weather (which I really hope is the last….). Or you can check out my similar-but-not-exactly-the-same Potato & Lentil Curry, a great vegetarian curry standby that is a no-fail easy dinner.

Aloo Dhal Curry

1 brown onion, cut into wedges

4 cloves garlic, crushed

3cm piece fresh ginger, peeled & grated

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp coriander seeds, ground

1/2 tsp cumin seeds, ground

2 tbsp olive oil

450 gms potatoes, cut into large dice (leave skin on)

500 gms pumpkin, peeled & cut into large dice

1 1/4 cups brown lentils, rinsed & drained

425 gm can diced tomatoes

2 cups water

cracked pepper, to taste

1 bunch (about 1 cup) fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium heat, and saute the onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cayenne, ground coriander and cumin for 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add all remaining ingredients except coriander leaves. Bring to a simmer, and cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Add coriander and stir through to serve.

Serve with yoghurt or raita and naan bread, if desired.

Serves 4.

Happy Fooding!

Cuban Chicken

Something quite unusual for me, this recipe grabbed my attention because of the inclusion of banana. I am totally not into “sweet and sour” usually, or any sweet additions to meat dishes (like pineapple – ugh), except for prunes or dried apricots in a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern type dish ie lamb.

When I saw this chicken recipe (I totally love my RSS feed to Best Recipes – I get so many great recipes and ideas from this site), I thought hmmmm that sounds so easy and interesting. Wasn’t sure if I would like the addition of so much banana, but figured what the hell, let’s give it a go.

WELL, it was delicious!!! Super simple and quick, and the banana was subtle and not overwhelming. Definitely one to make again. Below is my version, almost the same as the original but slightly different quantities and using real garlic – I mean, what the heck is the point of “garlic powder” when you can use real crushed up stuff.

I served this with pearl couscous, which I’ve been wanting to try for a while as well – I use regular couscous a lot, especially for a quick-fix healthy salad for lunch – but had never cooked the large pearls. I followed this microwave version of how to cook it – and it was lovely – great as a substitute for rice or noodles with a chicken dish like this one.

Cuban Chicken

2 tbsp olive oil

6 chicken thigh fillets, chopped into large chunks

1 large brown onion, thinly sliced

1 pkt dried Spring Vegetable soup

1 cup orange juice

1 cup water

splash of light soy sauce

3 cloves garlic, crushed

cracked pepper, to taste

3 ripe bananas, cut into 2cm slices

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan; saute onion and chicken until browned. Add remaining ingredients except banana and bring to a simmer. Cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Add banana slices and cook for a further 2 minutes until banana is heated through.

Serves 4.

Happy Fooding!

A Mild Curry for a Chilly Winter’s Evening

Simmering away.

My friends are totally used to me pulling out the camera while they’re cooking and saying WAIT I have to take photos before we starting eating, haha. Here is a yummy new dish I had last week, made from a recipe in the latest issue (Jun/Jul Issue 63) of Donna Hay Magazine.

This is not a budget-conscious curry using cheap cuts of meat – it calls for scotch fillet steak. The upside is that it cooks very quickly, so the whole meal is ready in about 45 minutes. The cauliflower is only just cooked and still a tad crunchy, rather than being overcooked and soggy.

The meat was very tender (from a real butcher rather than a supermarket), and despite the curry paste (yellow, which is not fiery like red or green) and green chilli, this is a VERY mild dish, not spicy but just flavoursome.

Beef, Cauliflower & Potato Curry

1 tbsp olive oil

4 x 200 gm scotch fillet steaks, trimmed and sliced

1 red onion, cut into wedges

2 tbsp yellow curry paste

1 large potato, peeled & chopped

2 x 415 gm cans coconut milk (I would use low-fat)

300 gms cauliflower, trimmed and cut into florets

100 gms cherry tomatoes, halved

1 long green chilli, sliced

1 tbsp lime juice

fresh coriander leaves, to serve

Place the tomato, chilli and lime juice in a bowl and mix to combine.

Heat oil in a deep-sided pan or saucepan over high heat. Add the beef and cook for 3-4 minutes or until browned. Add the onion and cook for a further 1-2 minutes.

Add the curry paste, potato and coconut milk and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes. Add the cauliflower and cook for a further 10 minutes or until the potato is tender.

Add the tomato mixture and heat through for 1-2 minutes.

Serve with rice, topped with coriander leaves.

Happy Fooding!