How far away until Valentines day?

Last night I cooked Chicken Rogan Josh. It should have been with lamb but the only lamb we have was lamb chops and I couldn’t be bothered to cut the meat off the bone. Jamie says it would be ok with chicken so I trusted him and even though it was delish I think Lamb would have made it even better. You need a stronger meat then chicken for this curry.

Recipe #53 and #54: Chicken Rogan Josh (with home made curry paste)

I had a helper in the kitchen last night who ground the toasted spices into a powder for me with the tiny tiny mortar and pestle. (I love the mortar and pestle from the movie Julie and Julia; the one Paul Child gives Julia on Valentines day. Hmmm I love that movie and Julia Child. She had such romance with Paul, I love that he sat in the kitchen while she cooked away. Sorry back on track...) Rogan Josh curry paste. The recipe for this past can be found at Jamie's website.

First I toasted coriander seeds, cumin seeds and black peppercorns and gave them to my handy helper for the night; Tris, who ground them into a fine powder for me. They went in the blender with: roasted capsicums, ginger, garlic, coriander, paprika, smoked paprika, turmeric, fresh red chilli (seeds and all), garam marsala, salt, peanut oil and tomato paste and whizzed until it formed a paste.

Next was to get on with the actual curry. Sauté onions, fresh red chilli (seeds and all), fresh ginger, bay leaves and coriander stalks in peanut oil with a nob of butter until the onions are translucent. Add the chicken (or lamb which I would advise) and cook until slightly browned, add some balsamic vinegar, S&P, can of diced tomatoes then the curry paste and cook for about 2 min until fragrant. Next add 800mL of chicken stock (or water) and a couple of handfuls of red lentils and cook for about 40 min for chicken and split lentils or an hour for lamb and whole lentils. Tase to see if more salt is needed.

Serve with basmati rice and home made condiments of yoghurt and cucumber. Mmmm EAT, LAUGH and LOVE it.
**Heads up: Even better the next day!

Saving my ABC's for another day

Recipe # 7 & 8- Korma Chicken (with Jamie style homemade curry paste). I had no alphabet songs going through my head staring at the spice section in Coles yesterday.

I made my own ground almonds for the curry which worked well and we added dried coriander leaves in stead of coriander stalks and half a red chilli instead of a green one. I avoided putting my fingers in my mouth this time while chopping the chilli but we did have our mouths burning within the 2nd mouthful!

Hmm there is still Vindaloo to cook.... haha we might have more then our mouths burning with that one :)

Curry, Curry, Curry!

I have already cooked all the curry's in Jamie's Ministry of Food about 100 times. The night before last all I did was dream about curry's, Cooking curry, eating curry, serving curry... curry, curry, curry! It was curry mania if someone tapped into my dream waves.

Recipe #1: Vegetable Jalfrezi. Sounds exotic, don't you think? This exotic curry started off with Erin and I going to Coles on our lunch break to find fenugreek seeds, brown mustard seeds (no not ordinary mustard seeds. Brown mustard seeds) green chilli's, red chilli's, groundnut oil and whole coriander seeds. We stood in front of the spice wall in Coles which is in alphabetical order and tried to find the spices in F, B, S and C. After going through the alphabet about 3 times in our heads singing the song we were taught in school we still had no fenugreek seeds or brown mustard seeds. I gave up on fenugreek seeds and got plain mustard seeds instead. Next was groundnut oil. We stood in front of the oil section found peanut oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, virgin olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil... Wtf is groundnut oil? well let me tell you... Its actual the same thing as peanut oil. Only they call it groundnut in stead of peanut in the UK. (I didn't find this tiny piece of information out until I was back at my desk after the shopping experience).

Back at the office I had a slight stress out that I couldn't do my exotic Jalfrezi, so I called mum. Mum's always know best. I have learnt this over the years that if Mum says take an umbrella you do anyway because for some reason or another her sixth sense knew that the hot day would turn rainy and you would be left walking home from the bus stop looking like a drowned rat. She found the damn groundnut oil and fenugreek seeds... It was her sixth sense I have yet to inherit.

After feeling sightly travel sick from reading on the bus I started cooking my exotic dinner, beginning with the home made curry paste.

Firstly, the spices needed to be toasted then crushed to a powder in a pestle and mortar. I thought this was easy having only ever watched Jamie do it on his shows. I put all the whole toasted spices in Mum's small pestle & mortar and began. They started flying everywhere! The mortar was too small and the pestle was too small... Everything was just too small! I have come to the conclusion that my Mum likes tiny appliances. Every appliance in our kitchen is small. Small oven, small sandwich press, 1 cup processor and now I have discovered the small pestle & mortar. However, I overcame the obstacle of small and did manage to smash, crush and powder the herbs.

Next was add the other ingredients and process. Now this is where Mum's tiny processor called Oscar came out of the cupboard. Small Oscar was perfect for the job!

Everything was added to the pot and cooked for 45min. To reveal a delicious looking and exotic tasting Vegetable Jalfrezi which was served with Poppadums and yoghurt. Now, you think I'm being cocky saying it was exotic tasting but the fool proof test is... Mum had seconds!