Basic Mild Lamb Curry

(serves 4)
In winter curry is a really nice hearty food that warms you up. This is a great basic Southern Indian curry recipe suitable for most palates and ideal for those cooking curry for the first time. It is mild in two ways. The grassy flavour of mutton is greatly reduced and so people who don’t like the taste of lamb may find it actually quite nice. It is also not very spicy, so those who don’t fancy spicy foods might still find it acceptable.  

Ingredients

1. Lamb Belly (500g)
2. Potato (2 Large)
3. Carrot  (1)
4. Onion (1)
5. Shallots (4)
6. Coconut Milk (1 Cup)
7. Curry Powder
8. Caraway Seeds
9. Cumin
10. Turmeric
11. Vegetable Cube

Preparation

1. Cut the lamb into one inch cubes. Trim off any obvious large layers of fat. It’s easiest to do this when the meat is semi-frozen, but warm to room temperature using water before proceeding with the next step.
2. Place the lamb pieces in a pot and pour in boiling water from a kettle until the water level is a inch above the meat. Stir, wait 5 minutes, and pour the water away.
3. Take the meat out of the pot and dry the pot over the stove.
4. Peel and julienne 4 shallots. Using a low flame, pan fry the shallot slices in 4T of oil.
5. When the shallot begins to brown add 4T Curry Powder and 2T Cumin to the pot and stir fry. Add water a bit at a time until you end up with a watery paste.    
6. Add 5 cups of water. When this comes to a boil, add the lamb belly pieces followed by 1t turmeric, 1t caraway seeds, 1 vegetable cube, 2t sugar and 2t salt.
7. Cover the pot and keep it on a low simmer for 45 minutes. 
8. In the meanwhile, peel and cut the carrots into half inch thick discs and the onion into twelve wedges. Peel and cut each potato in 4. Dice one of the quarters into tiny cubes (you want them to disintegrate).
9. After the 45 minutes is up, add the vegetables and 1 cup of coconut milk and simmer for a further 30 minutes. Boil uncovered and use this period to manage the thickness of curry to what you prefer.
10. This curry can be prepared ahead of time and reheated for serving. Depending on the curry powder you may need to add more salt. Remember to taste before serving. 

Notes

• Your curry is ideally served with rice, which you will also have to cook. A long grained rice is ideal, like Indian Basmati or Thai Jasmine rice. Any kind of sturdy bread, like Paratha, Naan, or even French Baguette would be an alternative staple.
• In case you are wondering what kind of curry powder to buy, you can refer to the contents of the curry powder I use pictured above. Once you examine what curry powder is made of, you’ll realize that the addition of 2T of cumin in the recipe serves to dilute the overall amount of chili, thus making the curry less spicy.
• The coconut milk also makes the curry less spicy, so if you want a more spicy curry, use only half a cup of coconut milk.
• If you are the type who wants the full flavour of lamb, skip step 2 whose purpose is to reduce the grassy overtones of the lamb. You can also use a lamb stock cube instead of a vegetable stock cube. As for myself, I usually use 1T of red miso in place of the vegetable cube. This really enhances the taste of the whole dish.
• This recipe can easily adapted to make chicken curry. Leave out the caraway seeds and use a chicken cube instead. Chicken doesn’t need to be cooked for that long so skip the entire 45 minute simmer and add the chicken pieces together with the vegetables in step 9.
• If you want a more northern taste to your curry, use plain yogurt in place of coconut milk and cherry tomatoes in place of the carrots.

 

Toaster Oven BBQ Chicken Wings

(serves 2-3)
This is a recipe for BBQ wings, the type you’d find in a sports bar. For years I tried to cook these wings at home in the same style with limited success. Then one day I discovered the secret to marinating chicken wings. Most recipes use the method of brushing the wings with sauce as you cook them, because its very difficult for flavours to penetrate  chicken skin and reach the meat within, but this recipe doesn’t. The secret is counter-intuitive: you have to cook the wings before marinating them. 

Ingredients

1. Chicken Wings (20 mid joint, 700g)
2. Shallots (4)
3. Garlic (1 bulb)
4. BBQ Sauce (1/3 cup)
5. Cumin
6. Mustard
7. Liquid Smoke
8. Whiskey

Preparation

1. In a medium sized pot, mix 1/3 cup of BBQ sauce with 1.5 cups water, 1t mustard, 1t cumin and 1t salt.
2. Peel the garlic and shallots and put them whole into the pot.
3. Rinse your chicken wings and add them to the pot.
4. Bring the pot to a boil. After 5 minutes of boiling, carefully fish out the chicken wings without damaging the skin. Put the wings in a Tupperware-like of container.
5. Continue to simmer the sauce until it has halved in volume. This should take perhaps fifteen minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in 1t liquid smoke and 1T whiskey.
6. After the sauce has cooled sufficiently, pour it into the container with the wings. Cover and leave the wings to marinate in the fridge overnight, or in any case for at least six hours. Shake once or twice to allow the marinade to reach between the wings.
7. Preheat your toaster oven to 200^oC (390^oF) degrees.
8. Arrange the wings on a wire rack in the toaster oven tray and bake for 25 minutes. You’ll need to do this in two batches as the wings should not touch each other.
9. Warm up the leftover marinade in the microwave or in a saucepan. You can serve the wings either with the BBQ sauce separate or coated with the BBQ sauce.

Notes

• The most important thing you can do is cover your toaster oven tray with foil, so you don’t have to wash off the carbonized BBQ sauce.
• Do not boil the wings for more than 5 minutes. You want the wings to be cooked, but not the skin to soften too much.
• If you are cooking the wings in a full sized oven, it will probably take less than 25 minutes. They are done when you notice dark splotches develop. You can of course also simply cook the wings over a actual BBQ.
• The same method works for all kinds of sauces you might want to flavour wings with, like teriyaki or oyster sauce. Just boil for five minutes and marinate overnight in the fridge.

 

Chicken Avocado Salad

(serves 6-8)
Chicken Salad is everyone’s favourite. It tastes even better if you make it with brined chicken and avocado. In this recipe, I’ve replaced some of the mayonnaise with a combination of chicken stock and cream cheese to give the salad more layers of flavour. Cumin is also used  to evoke a slight oriental undertone. You can serve it on its own, as a sandwich or as a side dish. You can’t get any more versatile than that.

note: this recipe assumes you have already poached chicken according to my brined chicken breast recipe.

Ingredients

1. Poached Chicken Breasts (2 havles)
2. Potatoes (2 large)
3. Avocado(2)
4. Leek (0.5 cup, chopped)
5. Soft Cream Cheese (4T)
6. Mayonnaise (3T)
7. Cumin
8. Chopped Parsley

Preparation 

1. Peel your potatoes, cut them in half and then boil them for about 20 minutes. After the boiling is done and the potatoes have cooled, cut them into 1/2 inch cubes.
2. In the meanwhile, cut your poached chicken breast also into 1/2 inch cubes. In a salad bowl, drench the chicken in half the concentrated stock left over from the dry poaching process.
3. Slice the leek into rings and stir fry them in a pan with 3T of olive oil over a low flame till they break apart into limp rings. Turn the heat off and while the pan is still hot add 4T cream cheese (Philadelphia, tub version), 3T mayonnaise, 1/3 t of cumin and the other half of the concentrated chicken stock. Stir till everything in the pan is well mixed and allow to cool. This is your dressing.
4. Cut around the seed of each avocado such that the avocado is halved but attached via the seed only. Twist to pull each avocado into two pieces. One half will still have the seed attached, bulging out. Repeat the same process with this half so the seed becomes attached to a quarter of the avocado, at which point you should be able to wriggle out the seed with your hands. With the flat end of the avocado pieces on the cutting board, slice away the hard skin. Next, cube your avacado to the same size as the chicken and potato.
5. Add all the components to the chicken in the salad bowl, sprinkle on 1t white pepper and 1T parsley flakes. Gently fold the salad with a large spoon till the dressing covers every piece of the salad.
6. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours before serving.

Notes

• I’ve kept this chicken salad recipe simple. I urge you to experiment to get your own personal version. Apple, walnuts, raisins, pine nuts, boiled egg, raw red onion bits and ham are some things commonly found in chicken salad.
• If you want a tasty chicken salad sandwich, skip the potatoes and put everything else between slices of bread. I sometimes also serve my chicken salad with pieces of toasted milk loaf as pictured.
• You should use the riper avocados with black skin. The green-skinned ones can’t be eater raw. Leave the avocado to the last as avocado changes colour quickly if left exposed to the air.
• No salt is needed as the chicken is brined and the stock is salty. If you chicken is left over from another source, you’ll need to make a 1/4 cup of stock using 1/4 of a chicken cube.

 

The Spice Page

The strange thing about spices is they all taste terrible by themselves but when mixed in minute quantities with food, out of nowhere they produce new depth, and make dishes more wholesome. I’ve only put in spices that I use regularly and this by no mean a comprehensive list. Hopefully, there’ll be new additions from time to time. This page is only a starting point, so don’t be afriad to experiment with different spices and foods, you’ll discover your own ‘killer combos’.

1. Cardamon (also cardamom) is a spice from the Indian subcontinent, belonging to the ginger family. Cardamon has a unique bitter smoky flavour and being from India, they are naturally used in a lot of curried dishes, like biryani. In western cuisine, they are typically used to enhance the flavour of meat fillings, especially in savoury pies and pastries. They come either in whole seeds or ground seeds. I recommend using ground cardamom, because no one enjoys biting into a cardamom seed. Did I mention they are bitter? Use only a pinch at a time.
2. Cinnamon is a tree bark that is dried and sold as sticks or as a powder. As a stick, it is used as a fancy way of flavouring Italian style cappuccino but more often than not, it is used in powder form. The ‘warmness’ of cinnamon makes it partner well with many hot desserts and pastries, especially those which contain cooked fruits like apple pie. Cinnamon is also used in baked savoury dishes, but less frequently.
3. Cloves are the dried flower buds of a tree found in the former Dutch Indies. Its strong peppery bittersweet flavour makes it perfect for gamey red meat roasts (lamb, venison etc.). Its pointed shape and hardness allows it to be planted directly into the meat before baking. When used for soups, it is often planted into an onion for easy retrieval after it has surrendered its flavour. Cloves are a versatile spice, and they are also used in many hot alcoholic drinks like hot toddy and mulled wine.
4. Coriander Seed powder, unlike cilantro, only has a mild citrus smell and also a relatively mild taste. This mildness makes it a good all-purpose spice and coriander is used with everything from coffee, to meat seasoning, to soups. It is also used as a base to be mixed with other stronger spices, such as in the case of curry powder. When you wish to add body to your soup or stew without substantially adjusting the taste, you can’t go wrong with coriander seed.
5. Cumin seeds are usually ground up and used as the active ingredient in curry powder. It is used for specific dishes in a large number of different cultures but it is not used much in traditional western cuisine except for making creamy vegetable soups, especially cream of carrot soup. If your recipe calls for curry powder, you can more often than not simply substitute in cumin.
6. Fennel Seed has been described as a mild anise, which themselves are described to have the taste of licorice. It is traditionally considered one of the best spices for fish dishes in old world cuisine. Nowadays many modern bouillabaisse recipes have substituted fennel seeds for fennel bulbs. Fennel seeds are also used in Italian sausages and Chinese five spices powder.
7. Nutmeg is a brown powder ground from the seed of a tree by the same name. It has the appearance of an unrefined brown sugar like muscovado. You’d usually use it if you want to give a spicy kick to a egg dessert,  like custard or sabayon. It is also be used to marinate gamey meat and as an ingredient in hot alcoholic drinks like mulled wine. Mace is made from the outer cover of the nutmeg seed  and can be thought of as a milder form of nutmeg.
8. Paprika is the bright red powder ground from dried sweet and hot peppers. It is however not as spicy as it looks. It is used most in Eastern European cuisine, in dishes such as Hungarian goulash. Paprika is also used to make chorizo, a type of sausage from the Iberian peninsula. That’s why they are so red. I don’t know why, but I usually use paprika when I am marinating lamb or chicken.
9. Pepper – what’s there to say? Use it (black) all the time. Also try the japanese pepper powder, called Sansyo.
10. Saffron is reputedly the most expensive spice in the world. Luckily you only use a little at a time or you end up with a cough mixture taste. Saffron can be bought in powdered form or in threads, which should be then crushed into powder. Saffron is a standard ingredient in French bouillabaisse and Spanish paella and certain yellow risottos.
11. Shichimi Togarashi, translated as seven spices powder, is a japanese mix of pepper and chilli, with other ingredients such as tangerine zest and sesame seeds. Whenver a recipe calls for pepper or paprika, you can try using this instead to get that extra kick.
12. Turmeric is a bright yellow spice of the ginger family that actually tastes like, well dried ground up ginger. It is used in many far-eastern dishes where the rice is dyed yellow. Turmeric also gives chutneys their distinctive yellow tinge. There is a misconception that turmeric can be substituted for saffron, but all they share is the ability to make things yellow.