Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Sri Lankan rice & curry has to be one of my all time favourite dishes. If you haven’t had it, get yourself to your nearest Sri Lankan grocer or curry shop immediately. It’s exactly what it sounds like – a plate of rice and different types of curries. Normally you’d have a spicy meat curry that balanced out with a few different types of milder vegetable curries and dahl. It is served with pickle, sambal (the Sri Lankan side dish made from grated coconut tossed with dried fish and spices, don’t get confused with the Malaysian sambal which is a chilli sauce) and a poppadum.

This is a great recipe for a mild ‘white’ curry. It’s great for using up cauliflowers or other vegetables that you have lying around. I adapted it from one of my favourite cookbooks of all time, Sri Lankan Flavours by Channa Dassanayaka. It’s a gorgeous book with lovely photgraphy and the recipes are very easy to tackle. Don’t let the number of spices put you off. They are cheap and easily available. Head to your closest Asian or South Asian grocer to stock up on your spices.

Sri Lankan is one of my favourite cuisines to cook at home. It has great focus on vegetables and, with a well stocked spice cupboard, is very flexible and can be made with whatever is around. Channa says you can add other vegetables such as carrots and potatoes or whatever is available in the fridge.

Cauliflower Curry For Two

• 1/2 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1/2 cup cashew nuts (roasted, salted, raw – they all work)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/8 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/8 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 5 curry leaves (or 1 bay leaf – pictured)
• 1/4 mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, chopped

Boil the cashew nuts while you’re preparing the other ingredients to soften. This should take about 20 minutes. If you like a bit of crunch in the cashew nuts as I do, 10 minutes should be enough.

Add the cauliflower florets to the cashew nuts. Add turmeric, cumin, coriander and bring to boil. Simmer for a few minutes until the cauliflower is soft. Add frozen peas and coconut milk and bring back to the boil.

In another pan, fry the onion, curry leaves (or bay leaf), mustard seeds, garlic and chilli until the onion is soft and coloured. Toss the onion mixture into the cauliflower curry. Season with lemon juice and salt to taste.

Channa said this is great with roti or bread. I served it on rice with Sri Lankan chicken curry.

I bought half of a really nice cauliflower from the farmers’ market the other day and decided that I wanted to make something simple with it. I was inspired by a recipe from Matt Moran’s new book When I Come Home which featured in this month’s Delicious magazine. It was originally made with orecchiette and I didn’t have any. Read the rest of this entry »

Defintely a winter thing, we have been crazy about our risotto. I have discovered a new combination that I like.

You’ll need the following for three people:

1. 1 chorizo
2. 1.5 cups of Arborio rice
3. 1 litre of hot vegetable stock*
4. 1 cup of fennel, sliced
5. 1 stalk of celery, chopped
6. 1 clove of garlic, chopped
7. 1/2 small zucchini, diced
8. 1/2 tomato, chopped
9. 3 tbsp of frozen peas (optional)
10. 2 tbsp of butter
11. 1 tbsp of olive oil
12. 1/3 cup of white wine

First thing first, we need to grill the chorizo. I use a pair of tongs to hold the chorizo over the gas flame.  It’s messy because the chorizo will spit oil and catch fire and you’ll end up with huge flames some times. Keep turning it around until browned on all sides. It’s much more fun this way but I am a bit of a pyromaniac. You can put it under the grill if you want. Slice the chorizo in bite-sized pieces.

Place 1 tbsp of butter and olive oil and sautee the fennel and celery until soft. Add garlic and rice and fry until the rice is too hot too touch. Add the white wine and stir until the wine is evaporated. Add a ladel of hot stock. Fry until each ladel of stock is evaporated before adding a new ladel. Keep adding stock and stirring for another 5 minutes

Add the chopped tomato. Keep stirring and adding stock for another 5 minutes.

Add the zucchini and chorizo. Keep adding stock and stirring for another 5 minutes.

Add a tbsp of butter and frozen peas, if using. Stir for another 5 minutes and add stock if necessary. Turn off the heat and grate in a little bit of parmasan cheese. Rest the risotto for 5 minutes, covered.

Served garnished with fennel tops. Grate parmasan cheese over as desired.

* I use 1 litre of water, some tough fennel bits and 1 tsp of Vegeta gourmet stock powder. Bring to boil and simmer before adding to the rice. The stock must be hot.

When I was in a boarding school, chicken a la king was one of those dishes that was served and I actually liked. The way I recalled it, it had chicken in a pure white sauce and it was always served with this rice dish that had onion and peas cooked into it. Never had any pimiento in it though.

After consulting many many chicken a la king recipes online, it seems like most of the recipes are a blend of those two dishes I was served in a boarding school (minus the rice of course). So I just went with the general idea. Unfortunately, at the time I had no onion in the house. Definitely a required ingredient in chicken a la king!

This is the result.

You’ll need, for two people:

1. 2 cups of cooked chicken (I used the barbecued chicken that we bought earlier)
2. 1/2 onion, chopped (I didn’t have any and it definitely was lacking)
3. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
4. 1/2 cup of frozen peas
5. 3 mushrooms, sliced
6. 2 tbsp of plain flour
7. 2 tbsp of butter
8. 1 tsbp of Vegeta stock power (or some salt)
9. 1.5 cups of milk
10. 1 bay leaf
11. 2 tbsp of tomato ketchup
12. 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce

Add butter to a frying pan until it bubbles, add onion, bay leaf, capsicum and mushroom to fry. Stir for 4-5 minutes until the mushrooms colour and the capsicum softens. Add the flour and keep frying for a minute or so until the flour is cooked. Add milk and stir vigorously to get rid of any lumps. Season with the stock powder or salt and pepper and bring the sauce to boil. Season with the tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Add any water if necessary. Add the cooked chicken and frozen peas and simmer for 10 minutes until the peas are cooked.

Serve on a bed of rice or cooked fettucine.

Edit: OMG I completely forgot to write about the tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Add them!

Frittata is basically a type of Italian omelet. I get the inspiration from the January ’09 Delicious. magazine. Again, adding my own twist though.

Remember the zucchini/egg/potatoes challenge? This dish stems from that. I am pleased to announce that all the eggs, zucchini and potatoes have been used up in a very timely manner indeed. Time to visit Jim and Judy again this weekend!

You’ll need, for two hungry people (or for two people plus a bit of leftover):

1. 6 eggs
2. 1 large zucchini, chopped
3. 1/2 cup of frozen peas
4. 50 g. of ricotta
5. 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped or crushed
6. a handful of fresh mint leaves
7. 1/4 cup of any melting cheese (I use Colby but anything from Cheddar to Mozarella are fine), grated
8. salt and pepper

Meanwhile, beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Add chopped mint leaves.

Sautée the zucchini and garlic in a little bit of olive oil on medium heat (have I raved enough about how great the little Ikea frying pan is? It’s such perfect size for eggs.) for about 2-3 minutes until the zucchini softens. Add the frozen peas.

Pour the beaten eggs into the frying pan over the zucchini and peas mixture. After 5 minutes, dot the eggs with the ricotta and the Colby cheese.

Place the frying pan under the grill and grill for about 1-3 minutes or until the top is golden and set.

I served it with some oven baked chips. I didn’t have any salad so I just use a peeler and strip through some of the nice fresh beetroots for the crunch on the side.

I think I may have to make this whole roast thing a weekend staple – although for this particular instance it’s an early Mother’s Day celebration for Lyn – except she likes her meat cremated and I cannot go past medium rare! But she did seem to like the coconut slice I made for her.

So the roast potatoes are basically the same as the roast potatoes in the previous roast chicken post. The carrots, peas and cauliflowers are just steamed in the steamer – add the carrots first and the peas last.

Let’s talk about the lamb. I bought a full leg of lamb from the butcher but that was way too big so I asked him to cut the leg in half and chucked the other half in the freezer (probably more roast next weekend!). The favourite lamb flavouring is of course rosemary and garlic. I’m left with 1 kg of lamb on the bone. Plenty for 5-6 people. We end up with a lot of leftover.

First things first, preheat your oven to 200′C.

Slice an onion and a carrot thickly and line up a baking tray with them. Smash up some garlic cloves (maybe 4-5) and scatter them around as well.

Start with making some incisions in the lamb leg so you can insert some garlic slivers (I use about three cloves) and rosemary. On go the salt & pepper and a bit of olive oil. Give everything a bit of a rub. Then stud the incisions with garlic and rosemary. Turn it over and do the same on the other side.

Into the oven for about 1 3/4 hours at 200 ‘c with the fan on for medium.

If the onion/carrots are starting to burn, add a bit of water to the tray. When you have about 1/2 hour to go, put your potatoes in. See how to roast potatoes.

And the gravy. Again see the last post on gravy.

Leave the lamb to rest for about 10 minutes before carving it up.

Plate it up! Happy Mother’s Day! (Although my family doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day in May – we do it in August)

Lamb chop dinner is one of those things that I grew up with when I went to a boarding school from the ages of 12-17 (boy, that was fun). Anyway, the lamb chops were cremated and the cauliflower & cheese were very gluey.

So I thought, surely, I can do better than that!

Steam the cauliflowers – I start with carefully splitting the cauliflowers into florets (I try not to cut through the natural florets because it gets messy) and steam them for a short while (you don’t really want to cook it at this point – just sort of pre-cook because it will need to be baked in the oven for another 15 minutes or so).

Make the Béchamel sauce – While the florets are steamng, heat about 2 tbsp of butter in a saucepan. To this I add about 2 tbps of finely chopped onion (this is an extra – the Béchamel sauce does not have onion in it but I like it, so) and two dried bay leaves (fresh bay leaves are so amazing, I shall have to have a bay tree one day). I cook the onion until translucent on medium heat and add about 2 tbsp of plain flour to make a roux. We really only want a blond roux so I only cook it for about a minute or so with the heat slightly turned down.  I then turn the heat up and add cold milk (I find that cold milk is perfectly acceptable) and this is when a lot of whisking takes place. Add a bit of milk at the time until you get it to a sauce consistency and leave the sauce to simmer for a few minutes. I then season it with a little bit of vegetable stock powder (I like Vegeta and Massel), ground nutmeg and the usual salt and pepper.

Make the Cauliflower and Cheese – I layer an oven dish with the white sauce, steamed cauliflower and sprinkle with grated mozzarella cheese. I found this frozen in the freezer and after I defrost it by leaving it sitting on the kitchen bench for about half an hour. The cheese strands were still frozen but I thought that was okay. I wasn’t too sure if this would still work but I didn’t want to go out and buy more cheese. So I chanced it and it worked! Ladies and gentlemen, it is okay to freeze grated mozzarella cheese – for baking anyway. So I repeat with another layer and finish off with the sprinkling of the cheese on the top layer. I bake it in a hot oven (220′ C) for 15 minutes or so.

Steam the peas and carrots – I steam the carrots for about 5-7 minutes. At the very end, I threw on the frozen peas and leave them for about a minute and then I turn the heat off. Leave them for another minute or so. I found the frozen peas in the freezer. I have no idea how long J has been hanging on to them. They are a bit crappy.

Pan fry the lamb chops – I use an iron-cast griddle pan to ‘barbecue’ the chops. They are leg chops so they have a bit less fat. They are about 3/4 of an inch thick and they need about  3 minutes on each side and they also need to rest on the pan with the heat off for another 3-4 minutes.

Voila!