There’s only so much brisket, spaghetti, ribs and wings a woman can eat before she gets fat. I know it’s getting cold and all but I’m not so cool with the idea of an extra layer of blubber on top of the existing layers that I’ve spent the last few years nurturing to maturity. It’s impossible to stay thin in the food game, unless you’ve got great genes or you can find the time and energy to exercise 7 days a week.

When I start having a panic, I turn to trusty old recipes like this, which I’ve been cooking since I was a teenager. It’s adapted from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe (in her classic ‘Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery’ – donated by my mum) and it’s grown with me over the years as I’ve tinkered with the ingredients; every so often I turn to the tattered old notebook, to a familiar page covered in splodges, scribbles and crispy old bits of coriander that fall out like confetti.

I love the recipe because the flavours remain very fresh and distinct and it’s quite cardamom heavy; Madhur uses 6 pods and I chuck in one of the big black smoky variety too because I’m well rock’ n roll like that. I don’t even remove the cardamom pods at the end in fact, as I love the burst of flavour when you bite into one; all softened and bloated with sauce.

The final result is wonderfully fragrant, it’s fast and simple to make and you feel virtuous yet satisfied. Tick, tick and tick.

Fast and Healthy Prawn Curry (adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery; serves 4)

1 large white onion
5 cloves garlic
1 inch cube ginger
2 red chillies
1 cinnamon stick
6 regular cardamom pods
1 large black cardamom pod
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
5 tablespoons natural yoghurt
1 tin chopped tomatoes
A pinch of sugar
450g large prawns (raw or cooked is up to you)
Vegetable or groundnut oil

Fresh coriander
1/4 teaspoon garam masala

Put the onion, garlic, ginger and chillies in a blender with 3 tablespoons of water and blend to a paste. Put the coriander and cumin seeds in a dry pan on a low heat and heat them, moving them around, until they start to smell fragrant. Tip them into a pestle and mortar or spice grinder and grind to a paste (you can use ready ground if you like but the results will not be as delicious).

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan and add the cinnamon stick, bay leaves and cardamom pods. Stir for about 30 seconds and add the paste from the blender. Cook, stirring often for about 5 minutes, until the liquid has cooked off. Add the cumin and coriander and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds or so. Add the chopped tomatoes. Stir and keep cooking until you have a reddish-brown paste.

Take the pan off the heat and add the yoghurt, 1 tablespoon at a time until it is all incorporated. Add the turmeric, cayenne and sugar along with half a pint of water. Bring to the boil then simmer vigorously until thickened. Taste, then season with salt and pepper. Add the prawns – if you are using raw prawns, cook until they have turned completely pink. If using pre-cooked prawns, add them for a few minutes only, just to warm through.

Stir in the garam masala then serve, sprinkled with fresh coriander.

I ended up making this curry because I woke myself up the other night shouting “MEATBALLS!” I am just as fixated on food during slumber, it seems. As a child, I’d often wake up clawing at the air above my head, trying to grab whatever cake/sandwich/biscuit/ice cream treat had been accompanying me in my sleep. That’s a cruel moment when you wake up and realise Dream Dessert only existed in your greedy imagination, I can tell you.

Anyway, this is a very nice little lamb meatball, or kofta curry. I based the spicing on a Madhur Jaffrey Curry Bible recipe but added more meatballs, swapped in some fresh green chillies, omitted a few things I couldn’t care less for and garnished with crispy onions. To make the meatballs really light, I took the apparently inauthentic approach of adding bread soaked in water; this is a trick I use with all meatballs you see, because it makes them LIGHTER THAN AIR, put simply. You can happily shovel away a dozen without feeling like you’ve eaten a bag of protein pebbles for your dinner.

If you make this, do try to get hold of the fat, wrinkled, black cardamom pods; they add an unmatchable smoky undertone to the curry. We ate this wrapped in parathas with a Gujarati carrot salad, raita and a fresh mango chutney.

Lamb Kofta Curry

450g minced lamb
3 small slices crappy, ready-sliced white bread, crusts removed
1 small onion, very finely chopped
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 green chilli, finely chopped
A small handful coriander leaves, chopped

For the sauce

1 onion, finely chopped
A thumb of ginger, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 green chillies, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon tomato puree
2 teaspoons ground coriander
Pinch turmeric
1 pint veg stock
1 cinammon stick
2 black cardamom pods
2 green cardamom pods
5 black peppercorns

Put the slices of bread into a small bowl and cover with a couple of tablespoons of water until soaked through. Squeeze out the moisture using your hands until you have a little wet ball of bread. In a large bowl, mix all the meatball ingredients together (including the bread), using your hands. Season with salt and pepper.

Wet your hands and fashion your meatballs; the size is up to you but I like mine fairly small and I got 38 from this mixture. Refrigerate the meatballs for an hour, or as long as you can. The longer they rest, the better they will taste.

Put the garlic, chillies, ginger and 3 tablespoons water in a blender and blend to a paste.

Heat a couple of tablespoons groundnut or other frying oil in a heavy-based pan. When hot, put in the onions. Fry them for about 5 minutes until they are starting to colour. Add the paste from the blender and fry briefly. Add the tomatoes and fry until they are starting to break down a bit and thicken the mixture. Add the tomato purée and cook out briefly. Add the coriander, turmeric and salt. Stir for 30 seconds then add the stock and bring to the boil.

Add the whole spices to the sauce, reduce the heat and gently add the meatballs. Cover and let simmer very gently for 40 minutes, turning the meatballs around every now and then.

Garnish with crispy onions (if you wish) and fresh coriander (essential).

Last night The Florence pub in Herne Hill held a little gathering of SE London’s best street food traders. Among them, our sweet-toothed Brixton lass Chocstar, Yianni from The (legendary) Meatwagon* and the amazing Angus Denoon, with his Kolkata street food.

Just look at that van. I was like a moth to a neon light. An Aladdin’s Cave, decked out with cosy cushions and flower garlands. Bags of Indian limes hang from the doors; incense and gas stoves burn. Angus sits outside in front of his prep bench, surrounded by steaming pots and garnishes.

It was a freezing evening and nothing appealed more than a carton of warming dahl. Angus lifted the lid on one of the silver containers and portioned out the tender, spiced lentils. But this dahl is all about the garnish. He quickly and skilfully chopped ginger, shallots and coriander. The end of a cucumber was deftly criss-crossed and shaved into tiny chunks. A few thick slices of coconut and a slick of dark tamarind sauce; a squeeze of Indian lime juice. The final topping was a handful of small crunchy bits, which looked like short lengths of fried vermicelli but were actually ‘sev’,  made with chickpea (gram) flour. Angus explained that it’s similar to the stuff you get in Bombay Mix but better because it absorbs less oil.

What had started out as quite a plain dahl base was now an in your face mix of textures and bold flavours. It blew my socks off. I’d never tasted anything quite like it.

Angus spends much of his time in Kolkata and he’s made some amazing films there which get down and busy with the streets of the city and the way that food weaves right the way through them, binding communities together. I’ve only watched a few of the short films so far but my favourite is one about chai. The film opens with a shot of a man’s hands forming clay on a wheel – he is making cups, with incredible skill and precision – hundreds and hundreds of identical cups. The film moves on to the streets to see cup after cup filled with hot chai and ends with them smashing on the floor as they are discarded. A fascinating film about an everyday life-cycle in Kolkata.

Angus told me he is planning another screening of his films soon and I urge you to go and watch. You can enjoy his vegetarian street snacks at the same time. I’ve never been to India, but I hear his style is very authentic and it certainly tastes the business. Thank goodness for people like Angus, eh? Going and getting all inspired then bringing it back home to make our lives more exciting.

Visit the website here.
Follow Angus on Twitter .

*Yianni soldiered on without his Meatwagon last night, because it was tea-leafed from his house in Peckham. If anyone sees this then get in touch. Free burgers for life as a reward for information leading to its recovery.

Damn you, pressure cooker! What is wrong with you? Or is it me?

People rave about their pressure cookers and how they can’t live without them, which is why I accepted the invitation to review one recently.* I was curious and terrified. All that hissing and steaming and well, pressure. Scary. A few days passed and it sat unused on the hob. Eventually, rather than just looking at the damn thing, I plucked up the courage to try using it. The idea of the PC is to produce the results of slow cooking in a fraction of the time. The first dish that sprang to my mind was curry goat.

The meat usually takes a lot of long, slow simmering to tenderise and I wondered how much the PC could shave off the cooking time. After 45 minutes I had a peek inside. The meat was tender – falling apart, but there was way too much liquid. This really threw me, because I’d worked out quantities according to the advice in the instruction booklet, resisting the temptation to add more due to multiple warnings that one must NOT LET THE PRESSURE COOKER BOIL DRY. I then had to reduce the sauce for another 45 minutes without the lid on, which defeated the whole point. A very disheartening first attempt.

Next I decided to try cooking a big hunk of meat in there. A joint of lamb marinated in pomegranate molasses went in, with some liquid. It cooked well, and fast. It was falling apart after cooking for a shade past an hour but I missed the crusty outer bits I’d get from a roast. The recipe is a keeper (coming soon) but the method, nah.

By this point the PR are wondering when the hell they are going to get their review. I didn’t want to say I couldn’t work it out before I’d given the thing a proper go though so it was time to move on to something else: dahl. All the Indian cooks I know told me that the PC revolutionises your relationship with lentils. “Cook a dahl in 15 minutes! You’ll never look back!” Okay. I started off frying the onions in the base of the PC just as you would a normal saucepan then added garlic, chilli and ginger, the spices, tomatoes and an alarmingly small amount of stock. After checking guideline amounts about 10 times I bit the bullet and got on with it; 15 minutes later and we were oohing and ahhing around the hob – perfectly tender chana dahl. At last, the sweet taste of success. I could now cook 1 thing in a pressure cooker.

Or so I thought. Today I made the exact same recipe. I added the same amount of liquid, the same quantities of everything and cooked it for the same amount of time. When I opened the lid however, the chana remained uncooked. People, I am baffled.

I don’t want to give up because I can see the value but frustration is really setting in. I’m a competent cook for Pete’s sake. Strange forces are at work here. The PR are probably going to wish they’d never got their review now, but it’s not like I don’t want to love it, I do. A decent dahl in 15 minutes really is something I could get used to and I want to try cooking chickpeas in it, and stews. Seriously though, I need advice. What am I doing wrong?  How can the exact same recipe cook differently on 2 separate occasions? Readers, it’s over to you.

Chana dahl with spinach (this is the recipe which worked the first time and took ten minutes longer to cook the second time around. However long it takes, it is delicious).

300g chana dahl
500ml stock or water
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 inch piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 green chillies, finely sliced
2 large tomatoes, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
10 curry leaves
4 green cardamom pods
1 black cardamom pod
1 dried red chilli
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon garam masala

1 large bunch of spinach (a few large handfuls)

Groundnut oil, for frying

Lemon wedges and chapattis, to serve. I also like mine with natural yoghurt and red onion slices

Start by using the pressure cooker like a normal saucepan. Set it over a medium heat, lid off. Heat a few tablespoons of groundnut oil then fry the onions, stirring often until softened and beginning to colour. Add the garlic, chilli and ginger and cook for a minute more, stirring constantly. Add all the spices and curry leaves and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the tomatoes and lentils, stir to combine, then add the stock and some salt. Turn off the heat.

Fit the lid onto the pressure cooker and ensure it is secure. Make sure the pressure regulator is turned to the (I) position. Turn on the heat and after a few minutes the visual pressure indicator should rise, followed by a gentle hiss sound, meaning that the required pressure level has been reached.

Reduce the heat by approximately a third. The steam should be gently hissing and the pressure indicator should remain up. Start timing now and cook for 15 minutes.

After this time, turn off the heat and move the pressure regulator gently to the steam release position.

Remove the lid and stir in the spinach until wilted. Adjust the seasoning if necessary and serve.

*The Prestige ‘This Morning’ range is available at Debenhams (yes, ‘This Morning’ the daytime TV show). RRP: £80. I was sent the pressure cooker for review and did not pay for it.

Most of the recipes on this blog are my own, but sometimes I want to share others I’ve stumbled across, or those that people have sent to me. This pachadi recipe comes from Sharmila, a local food blogger who does Very Good Things with yoghurt and okra.

In my limited experience, a pachadi appears to be a base of yoghurt and vegetables, topped with a mixture of tempered spices; like pouring a tarka over a dahl. It’s clearly South Indian, as mustard seeds and curry leaves feature heavily in many recipes. My first chapadi experience came via Flickr when one of my contacts posted a recipe so unusual to my eyes that I had to have it. Mustard seeds, dried chilli and curry leaves are fried briefly in coconut oil until the seeds pop then mixed with yoghurt and cucumber. It’s hard to resist bombing a hot chapatti into the still-sizzling spiced oil. The flavours will have you on the edge of your seat.

Sharmila’s version is made using okra slices, fried until crisp; a beautiful contrast against the chilled yoghurt. It takes minutes to make and I can particularly recommend it as part of a  ‘curry day’ extravaganza; nargisi kofta curry, chicken tikka and this excellent spinach and paneer dish from Das Sreedharan’s hugely under-rated book, ‘Indian’*. Yes, I know I go on about that book all the time.

Okra pachadi

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
10 or so curry leaves
2-3 green chillies, chopped into a few pieces
Chilli powder
Lemon juice
Coriander leaves
Two large handfuls of okra, chopped up into smallish (2cm pieces)
Natural yoghurt
Salt to taste
Groundnut oil

Fry the okra in a few tablespoons of groundnut oil until nice and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper.

Combine the okra with the yoghurt (about 200g) and a bit of chilli powder (but not too much – this isn’t a spicy dish). Fry the mustard seeds in a small pan in a tablespoon or so of oil. When they start to pop, add the green chilli and curry leaves. When they are nicely sizzling, pour over the yoghurt mixture. Stir to combine, add salt and lemon juice to taste and then add the coriander leaves.

* The edition of Das’ book that I have doesn’t seem to be available any more but this looks very similar and I imagine will have a lot of the same recipes. It’s one of those books you actually cook from rather than just flick through.

Thanks again to Sharmila for the chapadi recipe.

Every so often I have a ‘curry day’ where I spend the entire day cooking curries, sides and numerous yoghurt based accompaniments like pachadis and raitas, because I am obsessed with yoghurt. I can’t remember where I first heard about this curry but I knew immediately I must have it because the koftas are basically like lamby scotch eggs simmered in a curry sauce, which also has yoghurt in it.

The eggs are hard-boiled, wrapped with a mixture of minced lamb, puréed onion and garlic, fried and then simmered in a masala sauce.  The slightly sour, spiced yoghurt mixture is a perfect contrast against the rich protein bombs that are the koftas – boy, are they filling. We could only manage 1 each with all the other dishes and I wondered if quail’s eggs might be good instead of hen’s; a bit more bite size if a little more fiddly.

An amazing curry though; who doesn’t want egg wrapped in meat in spicy sauce? You don’t? Please leave.

Nargisi Kofta Curry (a recipe was kindly sent to me by Maunika, but I couldn’t resist playing around with it).

For the koftas

4 eggs
250g minced lamb
1 medium onion, blended to a paste
1 fat clove garlic, crushed
Salt and pepper

Flour, for dusting the koftas prior to frying

For the masala

2 medium onions, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
3 medium tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
8 tablespoons natural yoghurt
Fresh coriander, to serve

Groundnut oil, for frying

Hard boil the eggs by putting them in a small saucepan, cover them with water, bring to the boil and then let bubble for about 6 minutes. Remove them from the water, put them in a bowl, cover them with cold water and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, mix the rest of the kofta ingredients together (not the flour) very well in a bowl. It is easiest to use your hands for mixing the meat. When the eggs are cool enough to handle, remove their shells. Divide the meat mixture into four then wrap each egg in the meat. An easy way of doing this is to spread the meat out in an oval shape on a piece of clingfilm, place the egg in the middle, then draw the clingfilm up around the sides of the egg. Make sure all the meat is sealed so there are no gaps where the egg is showing then roll each one in a little flour.

Heat a 1cm depth of groundnut oil in a heavy based pan then fry your koftas, turning them gently, until golden on all sides. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

To make the sauce, soften the onions in a 3 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan until soft, about five minutes. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli and cook for another couple of minutes, stirring. Add the tomato paste and spices, then mix well and fry until the oil starts to separate from the masala. Add 250ml water and allow to cook for a few minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the yoghurt a tablespoon at a time. Add the koftas back to the pan, return to a low heat and cook gently for a few minutes, carefully turning the koftas over in the sauce to ensure they are heated through. Scatter with fresh chopped coriander and serve.

If there’s one thing I wasn’t short on for The Big Lunch, it was yoghurt. Rachel’s Organic filled my fridge, my neighbours fridge and the makeshift fridge in my hallway, consisting of ice and gel packs on a complicated freezer rotation system. It was all very rock and roll.

I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to learn that I jerked some chicken, but the other half looked like an opportunity to rip through a couple of pots of the white stuff; meat cooked in yoghurt is always so succulent and forms a coating which varies between a silken lip-licking paste and patches of spiced crust.

The ingredients can be twiddled but I think the essential players are turmeric, chilli powder and garam masala. A hefty blob of minced garlic and ginger is non-negotiable. I also added some nigella (onion) seeds and chopped mint, in the absence of coriander. They went down an absolute storm.

Tikka chicken

25 chicken drumsticks

1 x 500g tub of Greek yoghurt
1 x 2 inch piece of ginger
6 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon hot chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon onion seeds (optional)
1 small handful coriander or mint leaves

Chop the garlic and ginger then put it in a pestle and mortar with 1 teaspoon salt and grind to a paste. Mix this paste with the yoghurt and all the other marinade ingredients.

Make two slashes across the thickest part of each drumstick then coat them with the marinade, mixing really well and rubbing it into the meat. Leave in the fridge overnight or for as long as possible, at least a few hours.

When ready to cook, remove them from the fridge half an hour before you want to cook them and preheat the oven to 180C. They will take about 25 minutes. The skin should be golden and slightly charred in places and the juices should run clear when you skewer the meat at its thickest point.

I now laugh in the face of normal quantities of garlic. Since chicken with 40 cloves I consider myself a hardcore garlic eater. I’m sure you can smell my breath from wherever you are. This recipe contains a whopping 3 whole bulbs and on top of that 3 whole onions, which is a lot of allium considering there’s not much else bulking out this curry save a couple of tomatoes, chillies and spices.

The recipe comes from a book called ‘Indian’ by Das Sreedharan. In it, Das describes how people, “wonder how the garlic is so well tamed by the spicy and tangy tamarind sauce” and it is, but still…wow. Eating this curry is a little bit like being slapped in the face with a spicy lemon, I imagine. At first you pucker up with all that tamarind and then the double heat of red and green chilli kicks in before you cautiously lift a now yellow clove to your lips and bite down on a still crisp and still strong, whole clove of garlic. Then another and another. I really got into munching them down but it definitely felt a bit weird.

I served it will a coconut-heavy vegetable number and we scooped up the lot with my first attempt at chapatis using my new tava. I need to practice getting the shape more uniform but otherwise they were pretty fine and I even managed to get them to puff up a little bit.

I am of the opinion that no curry meal is complete without some sort of raita or other yoghurt based accompaniment and my favourite now is this cucumber pachadi, a recipe from one of my Flickr contacts, which you can find here. It is unusual (to me, at least) in that diced cucumber is first gently simmered with ginger so it is lightly cooked and then cooled and mixed with the yoghurt and a coconut, chilli and mustard seed paste. A temper of coconut oil, dried red chilli and curry leaves is poured on top. I served this to friends recently and they literally squabbled over the bowl.

One more thing about that garlic curry – I would suggest leaving it overnight before serving if you can bear it. Most curries are better the next day but with this the garlic and tamarind really get busy with each other overnight, melding into something  just that little bit softer. You still won’t need to worry about vampires though; I was sweating that shiz for a week.

Garlic Curry (from ‘Indian’ by Das Sreedharan)
Serves 4

75g tamarind pulp (from a block)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
200g garlic cloves, peeled (yep)
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
10 curry leaves
3 onions, peeled and finely chopped
3 green chillies, slit lengthways
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
2 tomatoes, finely chopped

Put tamarind pulp in a bowl with 900ml hot water, breaking the pulp up as much as possible. Allow it to soak for 20-30 minutes before straining the water into a bowl through a sieve, pressing down on the pulp to extract as much as possible.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a pan and add 50g of the garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of the fenugreek seeds and the dried chillies and fry for 1 minute. Remove and drain oon kitchen paper. Transfer to a blender and process to a fine paste.

Heat the remaining oil in a large pan then add the fennel and remaining fenugreek seeds and cook for 1 minute or until they are golden brown. Add the onions, curry leaves and chillies and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until the onions are soft and then add the turmeric and chilli powder, followed by the chopped tomatoes. Mix well and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often.

Add the remaining garlic cloves, the garlic paste from the blender and the tamarind liquid. Cook on a low heat, stirring often for 15 minutes or until the mixture is thick and the garlic well cooked. I actually cooked this for about 15 minutes longer and the garlic was still crisp.

Chapatis (from Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Bible)

Mix 125g chappati flour (or equal mix of white and wholemeal flours) with about 120ml water and a pinch of salt (my addition, chapatis don’t usually have any) to make a soft dough. Knead well for 10 minutes then shape into a ball and put aside in a bowl with a damp cloth over the top for at least 15 minutes. You can also chill for future use.

When ready to cook, set your tava or heavy based frying pan over a medium high heat while you knead the dough again and divide into six balls. Dust your surface with flour and roll out into a circle about 13cms in diameter. Pick up the chapatti and slap it in your hands to get rid of extra flour then slap it on the tava. Cook for ten seconds then flip it. Cook for another 10 seconds then flip again and using a damp cloth, dab it all over then flip it again – this should make it puff up.

Repeat with the remaining balls of dough. Apparently you can do the puffing up bit just by putting it in the microwave.

I finally got around to making Gastrogeek’s aubergine dhal after months of bleating on about it. The addition of smoky burnt aubergine flesh is simply inspired and the dish lived up to expectations even after the long build up. With a lot left over though, I wanted to try experimenting with stuffed parathas, which would also solve the problem of not having any bread left to scoop everything up with.

Most recipes instructed to make a dough first, then roll each piece out, spoon a blob of cold dhal in the centre and then pinch it around and seal as if making a dumpling. The ball is then pressed down and rolled out, thus incorporating the lentils. I suppose you could call that ‘stuffed’ – the dhal was certainly stuffed inside the dough at one point, but the rolling basically just mushed the whole lot together.

This method does not make things easy when it comes to rolling. Despite liberal flouring, it was hard not to end up in a big, sticky mess as the lentils burst forth from the dough with alarming force, taking no taming whatsoever no matter how gently I rolled and flipped and turned. There had to be an easier way.

It made sense to me to try mixing equal amounts of flour and dhal at the very beginning, so the curry becomes the water that holds the dough together. Since they are not really ‘stuffed’ anyway then what would it matter? I made another batch and it worked well; I added just a drop of water to bring it together completely and the result was a much more workable dough that rolled out to a neater, thinner paratha. I didn’t fold the dough over though, so they weren’t as flaky as a regular paratha. Next time, next time.

I cooked them in a cast iron skillet in a little oil, brushing each with an indecent amount of ghee. We scooped up mouthfuls of leftover rogan josh, pumpkin and coconut curry and one of my favourite chutneys: walnut and mint. The recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Curry Bible’ and is well worth a try. You just stick walnuts, mint, garlic, chillies and lemon juice in the blender, then mix with seasoned plain yoghurt. The result is rather hot with a tangy kick from the yoghurt and it has that immensely satisfying texture of blended walnuts, just like that of muhammara.

I’m not exactly the world’s most skilful paratha maker, but I did manage to produce some buttery, toasty, curry scooper-uppers, which had a pleasing sour and smoky kick and a bit of texture variation from the lentils. A welcome addition to the leftovers repertoire and one well worth the extra couple of pounds in weight gained due to my inability to control myself around clarified butter.

Dhal ‘Stuffed’ Parathas

This isn’t the most authentic recipe you’re going to come across but it is easy, so do what you will.

Equal amounts of dhal (cold) and chapatti flour. If you can’t find chapatti flour then use a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white flour.
A pinch of salt
Ghee, for brushing
Oil, for frying (I used groundnut)

Mix the dahl and flour together with your hands and then add a drop of water if needed to bring it together. Knead it on a lightly floured surface until the dough becomes smooth (apart from the lentils, obviously). Then cover and leave to rest for about 10 minutes.

Divide into balls roughly the size of a small lemon and roll out to 10-15cm wide circles. You basically want to get them nice and thin. You can then try folding the parathas like I forgot to do, in half and half again before re-rolling. This should give you some nice flaky layers. I imagine this might be harder with the stuffed ones however, as the lentils make the dough a bit lumpier.

Heat a heavy pan until very hot (I used a cast iron skillet), then fry each in a little oil (about 1tsp) on both sides until brown blistered patches appear. Brush liberally with ghee once cooked and set aside on a warm plate while you finish the batch.

Madhur Jaffrey’s Walnut and Mint Chutney (from The Curry Bible)

60g walnuts
30g mint leaves
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4 tablespoons plain yoghurt
4 birds eye chillies (I used 2 larger green ones)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Whizz the walnuts, garlic, mint, chillies, lemon juice, salt and 5 tablespoons water in a blender until you have a smooth paste. Using a fork, whip the yoghurt in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. Mix the paste from the blender into this. Taste and adjust the balance of seasonings as necessary.

Apologies for the week long absence; work plus problems accessing the blog have made writing anything impossible. I actually made this a couple of weeks ago now, when the weather had just started to really turn. What better way to stoke the internal fire than with a big bowl of rich rendang in the belly.

The recipe comes from William Leigh (which you can find on Dos Hermanos) and I will come out right now and say it: this is the best rendang I have ever made. So perfectly balanced; fragrant and rich. There is something very satisfying and heart warming about putting a load of ingredients in just one pot and a few hours later plating up a thing of great beauty, the smell of which has been intensifying with every teasing minute.

Aside from whizzing up the paste, that is essentially all you do until you get to the end stage when things get a little hairy. The final step of the recipe involves the splitting of the coconut milk and I’ll admit to feeling slightly alarmed when I returned to the pot to find this unholy mess.

Don’t panic though – this is normal. As the liquid cooks out of the milk the oil is left behind and the beef then fries in it, resulting in that all important flaky texture. You need to keep a careful eye on it at this stage, as once it begins to dry up, you are done. I would also recommend using a solid, heavy based pan (or a wok) and be prepared to give it a good soaking afterwards. One final bit of advice: the method section of the recipe on Dos Hermanos does not tell you when to use the can of water so I added it to the pot with the coconut milk as I couldn’t see any other logical time to do it.

I was rewarded for my patience with a deep, sweet, tongue titillating rendang;  fragrant with lime leaves, galangal and lemongrass, with a tropical note of coconut and a good heat from the 10 Thai chillies I added. William acknowledges that his final seasoning of fish sauce and lime juice is a break from tradition but I agree that it lifts the whole dish and gives a very welcome burst of freshness. The meat flaked apart at the merest prod with an eager fork. I urge you to try this recipe.

I served it with a  raita (tomato, cucumber, coriander, lemon juice and seasoned yoghurt) and an onion salad, which I serve with pretty much all curries. Just plunge finely sliced onions into a bowl of icy water and leave for an hour or so until they turn crisp then season and add dried mint; I keep a pot of dried mint for no other reason. We scooped up each greedy gob-full with warm chapattis then sat back and rubbed our bellies in an appropriately satisfied manner. If I could, I would have purred like a cat. I made the rendang again the very next day.