Pork meatball curry

 

I see you're wearing a white shirt and eating curry.  I too like to live dangerously. 

I am a member of the Quarantine with Jam and Claire Facebook group.  Jam is Jamila, and once every few weeks, she co-hosts a cook-along session on Facebook Live.  One of those sessions is Substitution Cooking, which she co-hosts with Alice Zaslavsky, who blogs as Alice In Frames and first entered Australian loungerooms on Master Chef.  Here they are in yesterday's Substitution Cooking session: 

I haven't ever cooked along before, although I have just watched, but yesterday's recipe took my fancy - a pork meatball curry with a Thai-style curry sauce.  I already had all of the ingredients and I am always scratching my head as to what to make for dinner, so this was the perfect time to jump in and cook along.

The recipe we used was based on Smitten Kitchen's Braised Ginger Meatballs in Coconut Broth.  It's not something I would have been attracted to from the title, especially as the original is described as a soup rather than a curry, but when described as a pork mince curry, I was there.

Here's my meatballs and sauce at the nearly done phase.  The meatballs are baked; quite a bit of fat came out of the meat during the process.  I liked the idea of the meatballs being baked rather than fried, and they stayed quite juicy.  The curry sauce is based on coconut milk and chicken stock flavoured with lime, chilli, turmeric, garlic and ginger.  Despite this not being a dish I would have chosen myself, I am glad that I cooked along with the Substitution Cooking Group and made it - it was delicious, and I'd make it again.  

To make this delicious, fragrant curry, you will need:

900g pork mince (I used half and half pork and pork and veal mince)

2 eggs

3 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger

4 cloves garlic (I just used minced garlic in a tube)

2 tablespoons fish sauce

400g can coconut milk

2 cups (500ml) chicken stock

1/4 cup thinly sliced peeled fresh ginger

2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced

zest of 1 lime and juice of half a lime

2 teaspoons ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon white sugar

a few handfuls of baby spinach

salt to taste

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and line a baking tray with baking paper.

For the meatballs, in a large bowl, mix together the mince, breadcrumbs, eggs, 2 tablespoons ginger, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 tablespoon fish sauce and salt to taste.  Use your hands - it's the easiest and best way.  Roll the mince mixture into golf-ball sized balls and place an inch apart on the baking tray.  Bake the meatballs for 15 minutes or until golden.

In the meantime, make the sauce.  In a large high sided fry pan or a Dutch oven, mix together the coconut milk, sugar, 1 tablespoon fish sauce, chilli, 1/4 cup ginger, chicken stock, turmeric, 2 cloves minced garlic, lime juice and zest, and season with salt.  Simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove the meatballs from the oven, and place into the sauce.  Simmer for a further 15 minutes.  Just before serving, add the spinach to the pot and stir through until just wilted.

Serve with rice and extra fresh chopped red chilli, if desired.  

 

Chicken Jalfreze

 

Life never gives us what we want at the moment we consider appropriate.

EM Forster, A Passage To India

Just when I had hope that we could go about our business with caution, and had enjoyed a couple of meals out with friends and caught public transport without fear, there has been a spike in virus cases and I feel like I am back at square one. My suburb has not gone back to tougher restrictions, but I no longer feel the same sense of freedom, as though I can return to some semblance of normality and it will be ok. It doesn’t feel ok at all, and as the weeks go by, it becomes harder to believe that it ever will be.

One of the recipes posted by colleagues on our Intranet socials recently for the Pandemic Cookbook was Chicken Jalfreze. I love a good curry and it’s certainly good curry weather here at the moment, so I was keen to try out the recipe.

I was glad I did - this curry has just the right amount of heat and hit the spot on our typical cold, grey winter evenings.

To make this curry for yourself, you will need:

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 tablespoon of oil 

500ml of passata

1 large onion, chopped

1 green capsicum, chopped

1 red capsicum, chopped

2 red chillis, chopped

2½ teaspoons curry powder

2 teaspoons garam masala

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 cloves garlic, chopped

½ teaspoon chilli powder

 

Heat oil in a large pan and cook chicken pieces until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

Place in the slow cooker. 

Add passata, onion, capsicums, chillies, curry powder, garam masala, coriander, cumin, garlic, and chili powder. Stir to combine. 

Cook on low heat for about 6 hours. If you prefer a thicker sauce, add some cornflour combined into a thick paste with a bit of cold water at the end and stir through the sauce until you achieve the desired thickness. (My sauce was already very thick.)

Serve with rice and non-traditional veggies, like me!

 

 

Adam Liaw’s Chicken and Pumpkin Curry

There’s nothing like a good curry when the weather turns frosty, and I have seen a few great recipes lately.

Adam Liaw’s Chicken and Pumpkin Curry recipe on Instagram caught my eye, as Ihad all of the ingredients (more or less).

The recipe is simple and tasty, and the list of ingredients is not too long for a curry.

To make this curry, you will need:

Rampeh

8 macadamia nuts (I used cashew nuts)
2cm galangal (I skipped it)
2cm ginger (I used a squirt of ginger from a tube)
5 garlic cloves (again, I used a squirt from a tube)
1 onion

Other ingredients

1 chicken, jointed (I chopped up a couple of chicken breasts)
1/2 butternut pumpkin (I used Kent pumpkin)
10 curry leaves (I used the zest of a lime instead)
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons Baba’s meat curry powder (I used Keens Mild Curry Powder)
400ml coconut cream
800ml water
(I also added about 250g snow peas toward the end of the cooking time)


Put the rampeh ingredients into a food processor and blitz to form a paste.

Put a tablespoon of oil into a deep frypan or wok and heat until sizzling. Fry the rampeh in the pan for 10 minutes, then add the remaining ingredients to the pan and bring to a boil; reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer for 40 minutes.

Serve with steamed or boiled rice.

Jamie Oliver’s Corner Shop Curry Sauce with Chicken

One of this week’s recipes on Jamie Oliver’s Keep Cooking and Carry On was Corner Shop Curry Sauce with Chicken. It looked so good that I made it this weekend.

You can find the recipe here.

The curry sauce contains onion, ginger, garlic, chickpeas, coconut milk, curry paste and tinned tomatoes.

The verdict: hearty, filling and flavoursome. I used red curry paste as jalfrezi curry paste does not exist here. This recipe is quick and simple to make and a definite keeper.

Creamy Coconut Beef and Vegetable Curry with Rice

Winter has come to Melbourne almost overnight.  After enjoying beautiful balmy, sunny days, a couple of days ago, the cold and rain hit.  People have become walking bundles of clothes (mostly black - it is Melbourne!), and I have dug out the scarf, wool coat, hat and flannelette PJs.  Some people enjoy the cooler weather, but I am not one of them.  Unfortunately for me, it is likely to stay cool now until January next year, but the really cold months are now through to September/October.

One of the only good things about winter for me is the food.  Soups, stews, curries and hot puddings with warm custard go down a treat in winter.  It is also a good excuse to find a pub with a warm fire and snuggle in with your favourite drop. 

I recently made this Creamy Coconut Beef and Vegetable Curry, based on this recipe from Taste, which is perfect for the cold weather.  It's made in the slow cooker, so is easy on the labour.  Next time, I'd thicken up the sauce (mine may have been thin as I used frozen vegetables, adding extra moisture), but flavour wise, it fit the bill.  Ginger, coconut and tomato flavours combined with the curry paste made this a wonderful dish.

To make it, you will need:

1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
1/3 cup rogan josh curry paste
1.5kg chuck beef, cut into 4cm cubes
400g can chopped tomatoes
250ml chicken stock
500g packet frozen vegetables
1 tablespoon cornflour
270ml coconut cream
boiled or steamed rice 

Heat the oil in a large frypan, then add the ginger and cook until softened.  Add the curry paste and cook until aromatic.  Add the beef and cook until it is just browned.

Put the beef mixture into a slow cooker.  Add the tomato and stock, and stir to combine.  Cook on high for 5 hours.  Add the vegetables and cook for another hour.

Combine the cornflour with a third of a cup of coconut cream, and add to the slow cooker.  Cook with the lid off the cooker for 10 minutes or until thickened (which did not happen for me!).

Serve the curry with the rice.

Hairy Dieters' Lamb, Potato and Spinach Curry

I recently acquired two of The Hairy Dieters cookbooks and have been making a few recipes from them.  Recently, I made the Lamb, Potato and Spinach Curry from The Hairy Dieters - How to Love Food and Lose Weight.  You can also find the recipe online here.

Although less calorific than your standard curry, it is full of rich flavours so that you don't feel like you are missing out.  It also has the convenience of being a one pot dish, as your meat and vegetables are cooked in the same pot.

This curry was quick, easy and tasty, and not so heavy on the calories - a winner all round.

Chickpea and Vegie Curry

Although I am not a vegetarian, I really enjoy vegetarian meals.  I intend to make a more conscious effort to observe Meatless Monday or some other day at least once a week when I serve meatless meals.

One of the delicious vegetarian meals I have enjoyed recently is a Chickpea and Vegie Curry from The Good Life by Sally Obermeder and Maha Koraiem. I always like a good curry, and this one is full of healthy ingredients - and is meat-free.

To make this warming, hearty vegetarian curry, you will need:

25g flaked almonds
2 tbspns olive oil
2 chopped brown onions
1 tspn grated ginger
2 tbspns curry paste
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbspns lime juice
400g tin chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
1 zucchini sliced into 1 cm slices
60g broccoli florets
270ml coconut milk
140g baby spinach leaves
chopped fresh coriander for garnishing


Toast the flaked almonds in a small frying pan and set aside.

Heat the oil in a saucepan on medium heat and add the onions, garlic, ginger and curry paste, stirring frequently, until the onions soften.  Stir in the tomatoes with a pinch of salt.  Simmer until the mixture thickens, then add 1/2 cup of cold water, the lime juice, zucchini, broccoli and chickpeas.

Cover the saucepan and cook for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through.  Add the coconut milk and stir.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the spinach and heat until just wilted.  Season the curry with salt and pepper.

Remove the curry from the heat and allow to stand for a few minutes to thicken before serving over cooked rice and scattered with the toasted almonds and coriander. 

EwE - Thai Vegetable Curry with Tofu - Where's The Beef

For Eating with Ellie this week, Margaret chose the theme of Where's The Beef?  Interpreting this to mean vegetarian meals, I selected Ellie's Thai Vegetable Curry with Tofu.

I served this curry with brown rice for a bit of added oomph.  I really enjoyed it, and it was my lunch for work during the week that I made it.

To see what the others made for Where's The Beef?, visit the LYL section of the EwE website. 

Vegetable Curry

I like a good curry, and as a change for work lunches recently, I made Michelle Bridges' Vegetable and Tofu Curry.  I got the recipe from her book, Total Body Transformation, but you can find it online here.

The flavours are bold and there is enough body from all of the vegetables in the curry to make it quite hearty.  It is also low in calories, so it is a pretty healthy lunch.

It doesn't look that attractive, but if you like curry, this could be a way for you to enjoy it regularly without dialling up the fat and calories. 

EwE - Wrap It Up - Carribean Chickpea Curry Wraps

Eating with Ellie is taking a different turn.  From now on, instead of choosing particular recipes, we are allocated a theme each week and can make whatever we want from Weeknight Wonders that matches the theme.  I have never participated in a group like this before, so I will see how it goes.

This week's theme was chosen by Kayte.  It is "Wrap It Up".  I took it quite literally, and chose Carribean Chickpea Curry Wraps.  These are comprised of a wholemeal tortilla wrapped around a hot and spicy curry of chickpeas and butternut squash.  

On the whole, I enjoyed this dish, but would tone down the spices a little next time.  I found it slightly too hot for my tastes, and added a dollop of yoghurt to my wrap to cool things down a little.

To see what the others made of this week's theme, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

WWDH - Red Curry of Swordfish - err, Dory

Kayte's pick for this week's Wednesday with Donna Hay is Red Curry of Swordfish.  I have never seen swordfish in the shops, so combined with Kayte's warning of it being expensive, I went for "firm white fish" - in this case, dory.

I served my curry with boiled brown rice and boiled mixed veg.  From my perspective, it was delicious.

To see what the others thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the WWDH website.

Curry Noodles with Tofu and Coconut

I recently bought tofu for part of a recipe that I never made, leaving me with the  dilemma of what to do with the tofu before it expired.  I initially considered making a chocolate date and tofu cake that I had made years ago for a person at work with very specific dietary restraints.  However, remembering the people who recoiled in horror from the tofu cake, I decided to dig deeper.  And lo, I happened upon this recipe for Curry Noodles with Shrimp and Coconut in The New York Times.  The author helpfully suggests at the start of the recipe that you can substitute the shrimp (prawns in Oz) for, among other things, tofu.  Bingo!  I also had some coconut milk that needed to be used up, so I had found the ideal recipe to use up some odds and ends in my fridge.

I didn't bother with the herb garnish on my dish, as they did in the lovely photograph accompanying the newspaper recipe, because herbs are way too expensive to use just for show.  Regardless of my dish not being as pretty as the one in the newspaper, it was very tasty - I mean curry and coconut - how can you lose?  I was lucky in that I had the spices needed to make this recipe in my pantry cupboard, ready to roll, as spices aren't cheap either.

If you are a fan of coconut or curry, or even better, coconut curries, this is the dish for you.

WWDH - Thai Red Beef Curry

 

 

For Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, I chose Red Thai Beef Curry from p104 of Modern Classics Book I.  You can also find the recipe online here. 

This thick, rich beef curry uses store bought curry paste for convenience, and contains pumpkin to beef it up a bit.  I served the curry atop a helping of boiled brown rice.  I used light coconut cream to try and cut down on some of the calories.

This was melt-in-your mouth delicious, and I would definitely make it again.  If you are a lover of curries, you can't go past the taste and convenience of this Donna Hay recipe.

To see what Margaret and Sarah thought of this curry, visit their websites.

Chicken Cauliflower Curry with Seven Vegetable Cous Cous

It's probably time to mix things up a bit and allow your teeth to recover from all of my sweets.  Today, I am going to share two delicious dishes that I made on the weekend - Chicken Cauliflower Curry and Seven Vegetable Cous Cous.

The recipe for the Chicken Cauliflower Curry can be found here.  My inspiration for making it is - what can I cook using ingredients that I already have in the house?  A quick Google search led me to this delicious curry, which has zing without being too hot, and is relatively healthy too - no cream, coconut milk or buckets of oil.  I made the recipe as is and was worried there wouldn't be enough sauce - never fear, once you have simmered the curry for the prescribed time, there was enough sauce to cover it (though it wasn't "saucy" as such).


I teamed this delicious curry with a colourful Seven Vegetable Cous Cous:

You can find the recipe here.  I skipped the harissa (which some people said overpowered the dish), and replaced the lima beans with tinned cannelini beans.  I also skipped the squash (as I didn't have any), so technically, I made a six vegetable cous cous.  Seven is apparently a magic number in Morocco, hence the origins of the seven vegetables, but you can add and subtract whatever you want from this dish.  You could even add some cooked chicken for an all-in-one meal. 

While the cous cous would make a fabulous main in its own right, I served it as a side dish to the curry: 

Doesn't it make you happy looking at all of those colours on the plate together?

Both dishes contain  raisins, which some people may baulk at, but I love a fruity main course.  You could leave the raisins out without ill effect, or substitute cranberries.

Enjoy!

Fish curry from Two Asian Kitchens

I am not a huge Masterchef fan - in fact, I missed most of the first series. One reason for this is that I initially couldn't stand watching the judges taste the contestants' dishes - watching other people eating is not a hobby of mine.  However, Masterchef has grown on me, and I now watch it whenever I can, but don't beat myself up if I miss it.

Adam Liaw, last year's winner, was a former Disney lawyer in Japan who gave it all up to appear on Masterchef.  His first cookbook, Two Asian Kitchens, has just been released.  The "two kitchens" of the title are the old and the new - the traditional and the modern.  

There are some really interesting dishes in Adam's book, but unfortunately, when I went to tag them, I tagged most of the book - a complete waste of time.  At least it shows me that I am happy with this purchase.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I adore a good curry.  Accordingly, it seemed fitting that my first dish from Two Asian Kitchens was a curry - namely, Aunty Chin's fish head curry.  Adam gave you the option of using 600g of white fish instead of a fish head, and I gladly accepted this substitution.  I wouldn't know the first thing about eating a fish head, and it doesn't appeal to me; however, the curry itself did.

One thing to note about this curry is that it has a fair amount of heat - it is not scaldingly hot, but it definitely raises the temperature a notch or two, as it contains 1 teaspoon of chilli powder and 5 birds eye chillis.  It also contains okra, a type of bean that I had never heard of before.  It was luck rather than good management  that I found okra in an Asian supermarket.  Adam used whole okra beans, but as they seemed kind of big, I sliced the okra beans into pieces.  I also left out the curry leaves, as I couldn't find any.  Don't fret though - this dish contains a make-your-own curry powder, so it is still definitely a curry.  I also substituted the coconut cream for coconut flavoured evaporated milk, to make the curry a little more calorie-friendly.  There was also some pfafffing with tamarind liquid - I just used the tamarind pulp.

I enjoyed the mix of hot and sweet and acidic flavours in this curry - it was a perfect balance.  However, as I am a bit of a chicken when it comes to heat, I would tone down the chillies next time.  I served my curry with boiled rice and bok choy. 

To make this curry (with my modifications), you will need:

 Curry powder

5 tsp ground coriander
3 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp pepper

Mix all the spices together in a bowl and set aside.

Curry

600g white fish fillets
3 tablespoons tamarind pulp
3 brown onions, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
5 red birds eye chillis, sliced lengthways and seeds removed
2 tbp oil
1 tbp grated ginger
1 handful curry leaves (I left these out)
250g okra, stalks trimmed (and in my case, sliced)
1/2 pineapple, peeled, cored and cubed
2 tomatoes, cored and quartered
270ml coconut cream (or coconut flavoured evaporated milk)
3 tsp fish sauce
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Rub the fish with 1 tbp fish curry powder.  

Blitz the onion, garlic and chillis in a food processor to create a smooth paste.

Heat the oil in  a large wok until smoking, and cook the fish on both sides until lightly browned.  Remove the fish from the pan and set aside.

Add the ginger to the wok and toss in the oil.  Add the curry powder and curry leaves to the wok and toss for a few seconds until fragrant.  (Be careful and do this in a well ventilated kitchen - I almost choked on the "fragrancy" of the mix!)  Add the chilli paste and fry until the oil separates from the paste.  

Add the okra to the wok and fry for 2 minutes until softened, then add the tomatoes and pineapple and cook for 3 minutes.  Add the coconut cream/evaporated milk, tamarind, fish sauce, salt and sugar and bring to the boil.  Return the fish to the wok and bring the mixture to the boil.  Immediately turn off the heat, and cover the wok.  Leave the wok covered for 20 minutes until the fish is cooked through.  Stir through the lemon juice before serving.

Jane Kennedy's Korma

I hate the cold weather, but I do love all the rich, hearty winter foods.  Stews, curries, roasts and puddings - here we come!

I adore a good curry - I like a little bit of kick, but not so much that your eyes water and it plays havoc with your digestive system.  When I was looking for inspiration for this week's meals, I turned to Jane Kennedy's OMG! I Can Eat That?  This book takes traditionally boombah foods (ie foods that make your backside huge) and turns them into more calorie-friendly options. She has a few great sounding curries, and I selected her lamb korma curry.  The twist is that lamb is hideously expensive, so I substituted beef - making mine a beef korma curry! 

To make this curry, mix 250g Greek yoghurt, 2 teaspoons grated ginger, 3 crushed cloves garlic, a pinch of sea salt, a teaspoon of ground chilli powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of  turmeric together in a bowl. Coat 1kg lamb (or beef!) with the marinade, then cover and place in the fridge to marinate for 1 hour.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frypan.  Add 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, 3 bay leaves, 5 cloves, 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (I skipped these) and a cinnamon stick to the pan, and cook for 15 seconds.  Add one sliced onion to the pan, and cook until the onion is golden brown.  

Put 1 x 400g can of tomatoes, a bunch of coriander (all of it!!  I love it - no waste), 2 sprigs of mint (I skipped the mint) and 1 tablespoon of dessicated coconut into  a food processor and puree the ingredients.  Pour the puree into the fry pan with the onion, together with 1 teaspoon ground coriander, 2 teaspoons garam marsala, 1 tablespoon cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon of chopped chilli (I just added the whole chilli - after all, what was I going to do with the rest of it?).

Add the marinated meat to the pan with 500ml warm water, and simmer the mixture for an hour or until the meat is tender.  Just before serving, stir through the juice of half a lemon.

To serve with the curry, I made Jane's cauliflower "rice" - simply cut up half a cauliflower into florets, microwave on high for 5 minutes (don't add water), then blitz the cooked cauliflower in a food processor:

The cauliflower is not quite the same as rice in texture or flavour, but it is a good vehicle for soaking up all the curry sauce.  Yum!

A Tale of Two Curries - Thai Red Chicken Curry & Beef Vindaloo

For a change of pace, I am going to post about a couple of savoury dishes today. Both of them are curries - despite hating curry or anything highly spiced in my youth, I now adore them, although I don't like my curry so hot that it makes your eyes water.

The first curry, appearing at the top of this post, is a Thai red chicken curry. It is a reader's recipe from page 20 of the January/February 2010 edition of Australian Good Food magazine, from Jane Kelly of Mildura. It cheats in that it uses commercial curry paste rather than requiring you to bang away at a long list of spices in a mortar and pestle, but that suits me - curry in a hurry is always welcome!

The red curry paste gives this curry a nice kick, without making your eyes water. The green of the peas and beans in this recipe contrasts satisfyingly with the red curry, making it a visual as well as a gastronomic treat.

The recipe (with a few tweaks) is as follows:

1 tablespoon oil
1 chopped onion
1 carrot, halved lengthways and thickly sliced
500g chopped chicken fillets (I used thigh cutlets)
150g halved green beans
2 tablespoons thai red curry paste
375ml light coconut milk
120g (1 cup) frozen peas
2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
chopped fresh coriander and rice to serve

Heat the oil in a frypan or wok, then add the carrot and onion and cook until the onion is soft.

Add the chicken, beans and curry paste to the pan and cook until the chicken is cooked through, stirring as necessary.

Add the coconut milk, peas and sweet chilli sauce to the pan, stir well, then reduce the heat and simmer for ~5 minutes until all ingredients are heated through.

Serve the curry on a bed of rice, topped with coriander garnish.



My next dish is Jane Kennedy's beef vindaloo from Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah. This curry tastes fantastic! It has the just right amount of flavour and kick, and is a satisfying meal. Unlike Jane, I served it with standard rice, because I was not in the mood to make Jane's cauliflower "rice" (as Jane believes that rice is a serious "boombah" food for her, she makes faux rice from cauliflower).

This book contains Jane's own recipes that she designed to feed her family and herself great, tasty food without piling on all the calories. Australian audiences would know Jane from her television work in Frontline, a spoof of current affairs shows, and her work behind the scenes with Working Dog Productions.

Accordingly to this article, Jane has had her beef vindaloo recipe laboratory analysed, and it has only 60% of the calories of a standard takeaway beef vindaloo. As it is the dish which she is most proud of, I won't provide the recipe here - if you are interested in the recipe, you will have to check out her book.

Have a great weekend!

Southern Indian Prawn Curry - Dinner and a Movie - Monsoon Wedding

Colour, flavour and texture - don't we all love this in our food? This month's Dinner and a Movie film, Monsoon Wedding, offers plenty of colour, texture and flavour with its Indian backdrop and interwoven storylines involving some very complex relationships between the members and staff of a Punjabi family preparing for a wedding.

Marc of No Recipes is our Dinner and a Movie host this month, and I loved his choice of movie. I had never seen Monsoon Wedding before, and I have to admit that I found it a little slow in the beginning, but once it began to hot up as the wedding came closer, I became engrossed in all the twists and turns of the various story threads woven into the film.

My favourite storyline was one of the peripheral ones, involving a blossoming romance between the family's housekeeper, Alice, and PK Dubey, the wedding planner. Initially, I found Dubey to be a repulsive character, who was not attractive in either personality or looks. However, once he took a shine to Alice, the finer side of Dubey came to the fore, and I found myself egging him on and hoping that Alice would notice and accept his advances.

To correspond with both the Indian ethnicity, the kaleidoscope of colours and complexity of flavours in this film, I chose to make a South Indian Prawn Curry from The Hairy Bikers Ride Again by Dave Myers and Si King.

To make this curry, you will need:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 finely chopped onion
a finely chopped, thumb-sized knob of ginger
2 green chillies, seeded and finely chopped
4 chopped fresh tomatoes
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons dessicated coconut
500g peeled raw prawns
chopped fresh coriander

Cook the chopped onion in the heated oil in a frying pan until translucent.

Place the ginger, garlic and chilli into the frypan with the onion and cook for around 1 minute, then add the tomatoes, tamarind paste, turmeric and honey and stir until combined. Cook the curry slowly for 10 minutes, then stir through the coconut.

Add the prawns to the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes, and season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle the cooked curry with chopped coriander, and serve with rice.



You can check out the Dinner and a Movie roundup on Marc's blog here.

Warm and comforting - Beef Massaman Curry and Shepherd's Pie

Are you supersticious? The higher part of me would like to say that I am not, but when I noticed that I would have 13 posts for May if I stopped now, I knew that something had to be done about it, as if 13 posts for a month was akin to walking under a ladder or crossing paths with a black cat. (That said, a friend of mine, Stevie, has the loveliest, enormous, fluffy black cat called Russell, whom I have had the pleasure of cat-sitting on one occasion, and who loves nothing better than a brush. Hmmm, maybe I am not supersticious after all.)

To avoid the 13-post curse, for post number 14, I am going to regale you with some of my savoury ventures. I know, I know, these are not as aesthetically appealing or half as much fun as the cakes, but on the bright side, they will help you to get you "5 a day" and grow up to be big and strong like me (ignore my twig arms, OK?).

The picture at the top of this post is of Bill Granger's Beef Massaman Curry from his latest book, Feed Me Now! There is no picture of it in the book, so now you know what the dish would look like, sans food styling. It is from the chapter called "Freeze Me", so the curry is appropriately photographed in the Tupperware dish in which I intended to freeze it.

Coming from a book with a title like "Feed Me Now!", I assumed that this curry would be quick and easy to make, and left it until 6.30pm to commence. Wrong!!!! It takes the best part of two hours cooking time, leaving aside the preparation matters, so needless to say, I ate baked beans on toast the night that I made this and froze the lot for another night.

Whinging about the time involved aside, this curry is delicious. It is not particularly spicy and it is certainly not "hot", so if these descriptions of a curry float your boat, then this is not the curry for you. Presumably Bill has made it mild because his books are family orientated, and he is trying to share family recipes. This suits me - I don't particularly like things being so hot that my nose and eyes run relentlessly. You could of course spice it up to your liking.

To make Bill's beef massaman curry, you will need:

1.2kg trimmed blade steak, diced
2 teaspoons Chinese five-spice powder
60ml oil (I always just spray the pan with oil, so depends on what you like)
2 diced onions
2 tablespoons massaman curry paste (I used curry powder - perhaps this is why mine wasn't too spicy??)
400ml coconut milk (I used light without incident)
300ml beef stock
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
400g potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large carrot, sliced
2 tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts (I left these out)

Toss the beef in the five spice powder to coat, then brown in batches in a wok in which 2/3 of the oil has been heated. Remove the meat from the wok and set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the wok and turn down the heat to medium. Cook the onions until soft, then stir in the curry paste until the mixture is fragrant. Add the coconut milk, stock, lime juice, fish sauce and brown sugar to the wok, and bring the mixture to the boil. Add the browned beef to the pan, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the potatoes, carrots and peanuts (if using), and simmer the curry for another 30-40 minutes until the vegetables and meat are tender.

You can now either cool and freeze the curry, or serve immediately with rice, Thai basil and more peanuts.

My second savoury creation for your delectation is a good old fashioned shepherds pie. Shepherds pie was a staple at home when I was growing up, and there are endless variations of the recipe, but the crucial element is that the pie must be topped with mashed potato (or other root vegetable).

My shepherds pie recipe this time came from here, which proclaims shepherds pie to have originated somewhere in the British Isles.

I made the pie in a dish that was a teensy bit small to take it all, so you can see that it overflowed somewhat:

Doesn't all that tomato sauce look good??

If I made this again, I would add some spice to the potato toppping, which was a tad bland for my liking, and perhaps spiced up the meat with some chilli as well to make the dish a winter zinger. However, once again, if you are feeding the family, the kids are most likely going to eat this if you make it as the recipe states - my memories of being a child tell me that kids do not appreciate "zing".

Many of you are heading into summer (I am "Down Under" so it is the first of winter tomorrow), and these dishes are not very summery, but when the weather gets cooler, I can recommend them as enjoyable and filling meals that can easily be modified to suit your family's (or individual) tastes. For singletons like me, they can also be frozen and reheated as required.

Lamb curry

Christmas is nearly here - I can't believe how quickly the year has flown! I am in the midst of a Christmas baking frenzy, as I am still working on my Christmas boxes, which have to be finished by next weekend. In the meantime, I am juggling that with the usual round of Christmas functions and doing the things that I enjoy doing - oh yeah, and going to work. I have two weeks off very soon, when I will join my family for Christmas - can't wait!

I have posted a lot of sweet things lately, and there will be more (I went through around 2kg of sugar today). However, just to mix things up a bit, I thought I'd post about one of the savoury dishes that I have made recently, which has slightly more nutritional value and is a little healthier than my cakes. This dish is a lamb curry, based on the Sri Lankan pork curry recipe in the November 2008 edition of BBC Australian Good Food magazine. The recipes in this magazine are good because they tell you how evil (or not!) they are at the end of the recipe, and this one is relatively low in fat and calories - I don't think the substitution of lamb would have changed this much. As always, I changed the recipe to match the ingredients that I had rather than going out and buying more.

Regular readers will know that I like a good curry, and I am always keen to try new ones. This one is simple but lovely, being packed with tomatoes and zucchini. I served it with boiled rice. To make it, you need:

2 tablespoons cooking oil
1.5kg pork shoulder, cubed (I used 1kg lamb instead)
1 finely chopped onion
2 crushed cloves garlic
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
3 diced tomatoes
3 zucchini, quartered lenghtways and sliced
1 bunch chopped coriander
salt and pepper
cooked rice to serve

Heat the oil in a frypan, then brown the meat in batchesand set aside. Cook the onion in the frypan for 5 minutes until soft, then add back the meat with the garlic and curry powder. Cook for around a minute, then stir in the stock and the tomatoes. Cover the frypan, reuce the heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.

Add the zucchini, and cook the curry for a further ten minutes. Stir through the chooped coriander and season the curry with salt and pepper to taste. Serve on a bed of rice.