Cooking a good curry at home is really simple if you break it down to 1, 2, 3.
1. A good base sauce
2. Marinate in spice and cook
3. Finishing touches
A couple of things to make in advance...
Garlic and ginger paste (if using)
Just blitz equal amounts of these in a blender to a smooth paste. You can add a little water to loosen if needed. Store this in jars in the freezer, or fridge if you're going to use it in a week. It's a shortcut for when you come to marinating your meat.
Curry powder and garam masala
See my post from 4th March
I'm going to do 2 curries: a lamb rogan josh and an almond infused chicken. Both use the same base sauce but the spice mix and finishing touches are different.
1. Base sauce
The base sauce is versatile and can be used in any of your curries. So make a big batch and make it good, then freeze it in individual portions. I'm making sauce for 2 curries here, about a litre of sauce which I'll freeze in 2 X 500ml batches.
You will need:
2 onions (big juicy white ones)
75g butter or 2-3 tbsp ghee
A stick of celery
2 carrots (or one massive one as these are pretty small)
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped coriander
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp mace
1 tsp chilli powder
2 heaped tsp of your curry powder
500ml chicken stock
Use the slow cooker for this, or a big saucepan if you don't have one. Start by cooking the onions in the butter until they've sweated down a bit.
Then grate the carrot and dice the celery and add them. When they've cooked off a bit throw in the rest of the ingredients apart from the stock. Cook for another 10 minutes on a high heat and add the chicken stock.
Then turn it down to medium and leave it to simmer away for a few hours. Leave the lid off and let it reduce and thicken. The final step to your curry sauce is to blend it until smooth, after which you can decide whether it needs further thickening by reducing.
Right now you have a perfectly good sauce, just like the one you pour over your chips (you bloody heathen), but today separate it into 2 storage tubs, let it cool and freeze it.
On to the curries...
Lamb Rogan Josh
2. The spice mix and the cooking
-2 cloves of garlic
- 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
(Or 3 teaspoons of ginger and garlic paste)
- 1/2 tsp of chilli powder (more or less depending on how hot you like it)
And...
- 1/2 tsp asafoetida
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 3 cloves
- 3 cardamom pods
- 1 inch of cinnamon stick
Or...
2 tsp your home made garam masala
So if you haven't made garam masala split the cardamom pods and grind everything up in a pestle and mortar. I did all the dry ingredients first before mincing the garlic and ginger and smashing them into the ground spice. If you have made garam masala and garlic and ginger paste then just add the two together.
Mix in with a tablespoon of tomato purée and coat the lamb completely with the paste.
I used diced lamb leg for this, but if you're cooking for a long period of time any cut will do to be honest. Neck especially is a great cut.
3. Cooking
Seal the lamb by frying it in butter or ghee. I cooked my curry in the slow cooker so I rinsed out the hot frying pan with a little bit of water once the lamb was out and added it to the slow cooker, as I don't want to leave any of that flavour behind in the pan. If I was cooking in a pot on the stove I would seal the meat in that and just add the sauce straight in on top of it.
Now pour in your curry sauce and mix in another tablespoon of tomato purée. Turn the slow cooker on, walk away and wait for the house to smell amazing.
3. Finishing touches
When the lamb is falling apart tender it's time to finish this dish off. Fry some curry leaves in a little ghee and add them to the pot with some fresh chopped coriander. Stir in a spoonful of yoghurt and you're done.
Almond Infused Chicken
2. The spice mix and the cooking
Nice and simple one. You don't want to overpower the dish and that amazing base sauce and home made garam masala is going to do most of the talking.
2 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
Cut 2 chicken breasts into cubes about an inch thick and marinade it in the garam masala and paste over the course of the day.
While you're at it finely chop some fresh mint and add about a tsp to 2 tbsp Greek yoghurt. That can infuse in the fridge too.
For the rest of this dish you will need:
2 tbsp ground almonds
Some veg oil
Butter
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1 green chilli
Before you get started add a little water to the almonds to make a paste.
Heat 2 tbsp oil and a tbsp butter together in a big pan, add the onion and fry it until translucent. Add the chicken and all its marinate and sear it so it's white all over.
Prick holes all over the chilli with a sharp knife and throw it in. Pour in the base sauce and almond paste and bring it up to temperature before covering and turning down to a simmer.
3. Finishing touches
After 10 minutes add the yoghurt and stir with the lid off for another 10 mins.
Check to see the chicken is tender and the sauce is reduced enough then serve.
Of course you can buy ready made spice mixes in the supermarket, but in case you hadn't worked out my now I'm a bit of a slow food kinda guy and I love playing about in the kitchen, so naturally I made my own spice mixes.
I'm going to do 3 common mixes in this post, just the ones I use most often, but before I do them I'm going to blend up an essential ingredient for all 3 - pepper. Seeing as pepper features in all the spice mixes and I use it on its own in pretty much everything I cook it makes sense to me that you take a bit of time getting the right blend. My pepper mix is made up of 4 different varieties: black, white, pink and green.
Now black pepper we all know, this is what we probably all use 99% of the time. White pepper is just the same as black pepper, but the skin is removed prior to drying which gives it less of a harsh flavour. That black pepper harshness is still important though so I'm using equal amounts of black and white, 2 tsp of each in this little batch. Then I'm using 1 tsp green and 1 tsp pink peppercorns. Green is the unripened berry of the plant and has a slightly sour note to it. Pink, being the ripened berry is sweeter and so it counters the green, it's a classic sweet and sour balance. I grind them all together in a spice grinder to a fine powder.
Now on to the mixes, starting with...
Garam masala
It's almost certain I don't make garam masala like anyone else, there's no hard and fast recipe for it as most seem to vary region to region and have been handed down through generations. Here's my take on it though, working round some of the central themes which include a large amount of coriander and cumin with cinnamon, cardamom and pepper added.
2 tbsp whole coriander seed
1 tbsp cumin seed
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp cloves
5 bay leaves
6 black cardamom pods
8 green cardamom pods
1 tbsp pepper
2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 a nutmeg
1 tsp amchur powder
The amchur, ginger and the pepper are all as ground as they're going to get, so no need to add these to the spice grinder. The cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves are going to need a bit of working to make them small enough to get crunched up by the grinder so start them in a pestle and mortar.
The nutmeg needs grating and adding to the grinder so that it can be ground to the same texture as the rest. The cardamom seeds are removed from their pods and added to the grinder along with the coriander and the cumin which just go straight in. If you can get these black cardamom then I thoroughly recommend them, they are larger and have a strong almost tobacco flavour to them. Add the crushed contents of your pestle and mortar and get to work.
This is an essential ingredient in Indian cuisine, but there's nothing says you can't mix a teaspoon of it into a tablespoon of mayonnaise or yoghurt to make a dip for crisps.
Next up is another important Indian mix:
Curry Powder
You wouldn't make a curry without curry powder.
1/2 tbsp cumin seed
1 tbsp coriander seed
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 whole dried chilli
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp ginger powder
6 dry curry leaves
1/6 tsp asafoetida powder
3 green cardamom or 2 black cardamom pods
3 cloves
1 tsp pepper
Once again the chilli, cloves and curry leaves need starting of in the pestle and mortar.
The cardamom needs getting out of its pods and adding to the grinder, but the turmeric, ginger, asafoetida and pepper don't need grinding. Now here's the trick that will utterly transform your curry powder to something so much better than any thing you can buy in the shops, you simply toast the seeds before grinding. Place the mustard, coriander and cumin in a saucepan and heat until they smell toasted.
Mustard seeds have a tendency to pop like popcorn when you do this, the first time the first mustard seed starts thinking about jumping out the saucepan remove from the heat and pour straight out of the pan to stop the cooking. This releases some of the oils from the seeds which will now get ground with the rest of your spice and completely transform the flavour of the mix. Once ground up it smells amazing.
Curry powder is obviously essential in curry making, but sprinkled over potato and baked it makes a great side as well. Or if you're being all health sprinkle over cauliflower and bake.
Last up is my favourite, which luckily is also the easiest.
5 spice
Equal amounts of:
Star anise
Cloves
Pepper
Fennel seed
Cinnamon
Start the cinnamon, cloves and star anise off in the pestle and mortar and then grind it all to make 5 spice.
I couldn't imagine not having this stuff in the kitchen. I never ever cook pork without first smothering it in 5 spice. It also gets used all over duck or in any stir fry I do.
All done, 4 lovely pots of pepper, 5 spice, curry powder and garam masala, ready to grab next time I need them.
This is the easiest wine in the world, really tasty too so it’s a good one to have in your repertoire. Usually I like to forage for ingredients for wine as that makes it more free, and therefore better, however at this time of the year ingredients are a bit thin on the ground and frankly it’s too muddy and cold for me to be bothered to get them, so I cheat. This wine uses just bog standard cranberry juice from concentrate from the supermarket, 4 litres of the stuff.
You will need…
Steriliser
1.3kg sugar
3-4 l juice
1 sachet or a heaped teaspoon of dried wine yeast.
1 sterile glass
Cling film
1 campden tablet
A demijohn
A funnel
An airlock and bung
A large spoon for stirring
A large sterilised saucepan
A solid bung
Sterilise everything before you start. Weigh out the sugar in the saucepan. I know what you're thinking, that's an absolute bum load of sugar. It is, but hopefully most of it's going to become alcohol soon.
Add 1 litre of cranberry juice and stir over the hob until all the sugar is dissolved into the juice. It'll be a translucent syrup when done. Don't let it get too hot, cool it a bit before using too.
Pour 1 litre of cranberry juice into the demijohn, then add the syrup, then another litre of juice. You won't fit another whole 4th litre in, just fill up to the shoulders of the demijohn.
Crush and add the campden tablet. Now fit the solid bung and give the demijohn a really good shake. Pour out a little of the juice into a thoroughly sterilised glass and add the yeast. Cover the glass with cling film and leave it for the yeast to re-hydrate and activate. After a while the cling film should start bulging and there will be bubbles on the surface of the liquid in the glass.
When the yeast is ready pour the contents of the glass into the demijohn and fit the airlock. Move the demijohn to a nice dark warm place and let the yeast do its thing. Done! I’ll fill you in on the next part in a few weeks.
As I mentioned, it’s too cold to go out foraging, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use ingredients I foraged last year and have been keeping frozen! These sloes and damsons I picked in about October/November time and they’re good for making a 2 plum wine. I picked and froze nearly 2KGs of them.
Firstly defrost them in a sterile food grade bucket (or big saucepan if you don’t have one) and when they are defrosted put the lid on and rattle them around to severely bruise them. Now pour in 1 gallon of boiling water, either from the kettle, or as I like to do it on the stove so I can add it all in one batch.
Leave this for 4 days, stirring or moving around twice a day. When you are done you will have a “must” that is the extracted concentrate of the fruit. Strain this through muslin to get out all the little bits of fruit and dead insects etc, then pour about a litre of it into a saucepan. Add the sugar as you did with the cranberry wine.
Pour it back in the demijohn, make sure it’s not warm to the touch and add the yeast and campden tablet as described in the cranberry wine.
Swirl it around, fit an airlock, and yer done. There’s another couple of gallons of wine that’ll be ready to enjoy at the beginning of next year (I’ve got last year’s to keep me going until then).
OK, so making butter might seem a bit of a faff and not something you'd usually do at home, but it's something I enjoy for 4 reasons. 1 - I like making my own compund butters, 2 - I have excess buttermilk for other dishes, 3 - its a great workout! and 4 - I just like seeing where my food comes from. Things like making butter is a bit of a lost art in my opinion.
Luckily you don't need a butter churn, or any other kind of flash gadget, all you need to make a small amount of butter at home is a large glass jar.The only ingredient you need is double cream (or heavy cream as I think it's called in some parts of the world). Thats it. We'll get onto seasonings and stuff in a bit. Don't buy milk, it won't work. Don't by single cream, it won't work.
Pour the cream into the jar so it's half full. Put the lid on tight. Now shake. Shake lots. Really lots.
At first you'll hear a splashing sound, after a while that will stop and it'll go silent. At this point you've made whipped cream and the jar will be opaque white.
After a lot more shaking it'll start sounding slushy again and eventually you'll hear and feel something thudding around in the jar. That's butter, and the liquid it's sloshing about in is buttermilk.
Congratulations, wipe the sweat from your brow. It'll probably take around 10 to 15 minutes hard shaking to get to this stage. You've done the hard work, now to wash it. Pour out and reserve the buttermilk, leaving the lump of butter inside. Fill the jar with cold water and slosh it around. Pour the water out and repeat until the water in the jar is clear.
The aim is to get as much buttermilk out of the butter as possible, as leaving it in there will cause the butter to go rancid and it won't keep as long. So now tip your butter out onto a flat surface, like maybe a chopping board or plate (in my case a black one so I can see the white liquid better) and press out the buttermilk with the back of a wooden spoon. Get as much out as you possibly can.
Once thats done, your butter is probably going to need some cooling down after all that handling, so put it in the fridge to firm up a bit. Out of 300ml of cream I got 160g of butter and 120ml buttermilk.
Now you have a finished unsalted butter, but rather than stop there lets fancy it up a bit. By mixing in a few ingredients we can turn this into a maitre d'hotel butter. Take the butter out of the fridge before it goes too hard and add the following ingredients:
Half a tsp of paprika
Juice of quarter a lemon
About a tablespoon of finely chopped parsley
Pepper
Mix all them in and dollop the butter onto a bit of greaseproof (baking) paper.
Roll the butter up into a sausage shape and twist the ends to make it into a bonbon shape.
Now put this back in the fridge to harden. Leave it overnight to harden and for the flavours to develop a bit. In the morning you can treat yourself to some fancy butter.
This is amazing for cooking with, particularly fish or chicken.
Now, about that buttermilk. This stuff is perfect for poaching fish or chicken in, or you might want to use it to make an irish soda bread:
For that you'll need:
210ml Buttermilk
125g Plain flour
125g Wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
Mix up the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk. Gently mix it up into a sticky dough, the secret to a good soda bread is not to be too rough handling it and to work as quickly as you can. Tip onto a floured surface and quickly work the dough by gently folding it until it's smooth and well mixed. Shape it into a ball and put it on a floured baking tray, press down gently with your hand to flatten slightly, then make two deep cuts in a cross.
Bake it in a preheated oven at 200degC for 30 minutes. When it's done eat it as soon as possible, you can spread your home made butter on it!
You can make a whole bunch of other compound butters of course, the most useful I can think of is garlic butter, just salt the butter, add a couple of tablespoons of chopped parsley and mix in the best part of a bulb of garlic, or as much to your taste. You can use it to stuff a chicken breast...
you can cook mushrooms in it...
you can spread it on a pizza base and make garlic bread.
or you could slice a potato and put it between the slices to make hassleback potatoes.
There are plenty of other flavoured butters to try. Just pre-load the butter with whatever fresh herbs you like to use, maybe a tarragon one for cooking chicken, or rosemary for lamb. Season with a bit of fresh salt and pepper, coarse sea salt adds a lovely texture, and maybe even some spice such as chilli or nutmeg.
