Coconut vegetable stew

This coconut vegetable stew reminds me of my childhood.  Pure comfort food, and very healthy.  It can also be easily adapted with different ingredients - next time I'm going to throw in some chicken as well. 

For four people, you will need:

1 tablespoon of coconut oil 

1 stalk of curry leaves (optional)

1-3 green chillies, slit vertically down the middle (depending on how hot you want it)

1 teaspoon of peppercorns

1 bay leaf

1 small stick of cinnamon

2 cardamom pods

2 cloves 

3 potatoes, cubed

2 carrots, cubed

1 large handful of green beans

half a cup of green peas

2 cups of vegetable or chicken stock

A tin of coconut milk (you can add more to taste) (I use Ayam brand)

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the coconut oil in a heavy based frying pan and add the curry leaves, green chillies and whole spices.  Fry for a minute or two until the mixture smells fragrant, then add the potatoes, carrots and beans. 

Add 2 cups of stock, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.  After this, add half a cup of fresh or frozen peas, stir in the coconut milk and cook for another 10-15 minutes.  At the end, taste for salt and add if necessary (depending on how salty the stock was), with lots more freshly ground black pepper.

Tomato rice pilau

It's comfort food time of the year and this tomato rice is as close to comfort food as you can get. I made this to eat with my coconut vegetable stew, according to an old recipe that my Nana used to make, I remember the flavours from when I was very young.

To make rice for four people you will need:

1 cup of good quality basmati rice (it's all about the quality of the rice)

1 tablespoon of oil

1 large tomato, grated or blended till pulpy

1 small stick of cinnamon

1 bay leaf

2-3 cloves

1 teaspoon of black peppercorns

1-2 cardamom pods

1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and when hot, add all the whole spices.  When they start to smell nice, add the tomato and stir fry for a couple of minutes until the mixture is mushy. 

Rinse the rice well and add to the pan.  Top up with a little less than 2 cups of cold water (the normal ratio of rice to water is 1:2 but with tomato adds to the quantity of liquid).  The water should sit an inch above the level of the rice.  Add a teaspoon of salt, and bring the rice to boil, uncovered. 

As soon as it boils, turn the heat down to low, cover the pan at an angle so a little steam still gets out, and cook for 10-12 minutes until the water is fully absorbed.  At this stage place the cover on tightly, and leave on the stove for another 10 minutes or so until the rice is fully steamed.  Fluff up with a fork and serve.

Oven roasted lamb cutlets

This is one of those perfect, easy to throw together one-dish winter meals.  That everyone in my family loves.  Amazingly.  

To make enough for four people, you will need:

1 kilo of lamb cutlets

2 heaped tablespoons of full fat greek yoghurt

2 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste

1 tablespoon of oil 

1 heaped tablespoon of bottle masala (or good quality, freshly ground curry powder)

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of sugar

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

A punnet of cherry tomatoes

Fresh coriander and lemon to garnish

Make a marinade with the yoghurt, tomato paste, oil, crushed garlic and seasonings and coat the lamb.  I do this in a snap lock bag which inevitably tears... and then I saw on Masterchef last week that you can use two bags, one inside the other to prevent this, which had never before occurred to me.  Leave for anything between 30 minutes to overnight, depending on how much time you have.

To cook the lamb, you can grill, pan fry, BBQ or bake it.  For this recipe I put the lamb in a big oven dish and bake it in a 200 degree oven for around 10 minutes, then I take it out, throw in the cherry tomatoes and put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes until the lamb browns and tomatoes go a bit mushy.  

When the lamb is done, take it out and leave it to rest for a few minutes before serving.  Serve topped with fresh coriander and lots of fresh lemon juice. 

Mince samosas

These samosas are the best in the world.  Definitely worth a try... but if you are completely time poor like me, you can use this filling and make curry puffs using puff pastry instead.  I have also recently experimented with baking these samosas too, brushing them with oil and cooking them in a hot (around 200 degrees celsius) oven until done (about 30 minutes). 

To make the mince filling for around 40 small samosas, you will need:

500 grams of beef mince, 3 star (the mince needs some fat)

1 tablespoon of oil

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

a tablespoon of ginger, crushed

1 green chilli, split vertically down the middle 

1 heaped tablespoon of bottle masala (or very good, freshly made curry powder)

1 cup of fresh or frozen peas

1 tablespoon of full fat yoghurt 

1 teaspoon of salt

Fresh lemon juice to taste

(One potato, boiled and mashed, optional)

For the samosas you will need:

1 packet of frozen spring roll pastry

a bottle of peanut oil

To make the mince, heat the oil in a large heavy frying pan. Add the ginger, garlic and chilli, fry until it smells nice, then add the bottle masala, followed by the mince.  Keep frying to break up the mince.  Lower heat and cover and cook for a few minutes, then remove the lid, turn the heat back up and fry the mince until it is quite dry and the fat is released (it starts to fry in its own fat).  Throw in the peas and cook until they are done, then add salt, stir in the yoghurt and squeeze in some lemon juice (to taste). You can stir in some chopped spring onion and/or coriander at this point too, and another option is to add in some mashed potato to make the mixture softer.  Set aside and leave to cool.

To make the samosas, defrost the pastry and cut the sheets into 4 strips.  You need two layers of pastry on top of each other per samosa.  In a small bowl, make a thick paste of flour and water and set aside, this is your 'glue'.  Also get hold of a damp tea towel to cover and keep the stack of pastry damp so that it doesn't dry out.  

Starting at the top, fold the pastry strip down into a triangle, and take the opposite corner and fold over to make a slightly bigger triangle.  You should now have a small cone that you need to fill with a heaped teaspoon or so of cold mince.  Once the mince is in the pastry, keep folding the pastry down into triangle shapes, taking the opposite corner each time.  Keep the corners tight so the mince filling stays inside, and use the flour and water paste to 'stick' the folds together.   When you have just a small bit of pastry left, apply some paste and tuck it into the last fold, like an envelope.  The photo above should demonstrate each fold from start to finish where my explanation has failed. 

When you have all your samosas done, you will need to shallow fry them on high heat in a large, heavy frying pan using about an inch of oil.  They won't take more than a couple of minutes on each side to brown.  Drain them on kitchen paper when they are done.

If you have made a big batch of samosas you can also freeze them uncooked in small batches, to make it easy for them to be defrosted and fried up.  You can also easily warm up leftover samosas in the oven to keep them crispy.  We don't really have this problem as they disappear pretty quickly.  

Easy yellow fish curry

This fish curry is incredibly easy to prepare, and would have been the staple dish in many Indian households where fish was easy to access. In my grandmother’s house, the fresh masalas would be ground and the coconuts opened and scraped first thing in the morning.  The fish seller would come to the door with a selection of the day’s catch, and by lunchtime the curry would be ready.  

I use my bottle masala for this recipe, if you don’t have any, use a very good curry powder (one without salt, sugar, flours, preservatives or anti-caking agents) or try a simple mix of red chilli powder, turmeric and ground cumin and coriander.

For up to 4 people you will need:  

500 grams of fish fillets (I used Spanish Mackerel)

3 tablespoons of oil (coconut oil works well)

a stalk of curry leaves (optional)

1 tablespoon of bottle masala

1/3 teaspoon of turmeric

1/2 teaspoon of salt

a stock cube

1 teaspoon of tamarind paste

1/2 teaspoon of sugar

a tin of good quality coconut milk (I use Ayam brand)

Place the fish fillets on a plate and sprinkle with the bottle masala, salt and turmeric. Turn over to coat, and leave to marinate for 30 minutes or so (you can also cook immediately if you don’t have the time).  In a large frying pan, heat the oil and fry the curry leaves if you have them.  Turn the heat to medium-low and place the fish fillets in a single layer.  Fry for a minute or so and turn over to brown the other side.  Next slowly add around 200 ml or so of coconut milk, crumble in half to one stock cube and stir gently to mix, ensuring you don’t break up the fish too much.  Let the curry cook on a low heat for 10 minutes or so.  At the end, add the sugar and tamarind paste and stir again.  Taste for salt, sugar and the right amount of ‘sour’ from the tamarind, before serving.  If you don’t have tamarind you can use some freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice.