Jardalu Boti - Lamb with Apricots

Friday, 18th May 2013

Indian Cookbook p 433. Brown onions then add ginger and garlic and cook for a few minutes, then cinnamon sticks and cardamon pods. Then chilli powder, cumin, a little water and chopped tomatoes. Then diced lamb, black pepper and garam masala. Cook gently for 2 hours and add a little hot water if necessary. Add chopped apricots, a little sugar and a sprinkling of vinegar. Heat through and serve.
This recipe calls for dried apricots soaked overnight, but I used fresh apricots which worked very well.
Served with green beans, boiled, then stir fried quickly with a asafetida, a few yellow lentils, mustard seeds, lemon juice and cayenne (Madhur Jaffrey's Ulitmate Curry Bible p. 157). The recipe also says two hot chillies, but I left them out and the beans were pleasantly spicy enough.
Very successful.

Braised Goat Shoulder with Beans and Cabbage

Wednesday, 1st May 2013

I used this recipe, but I could only get pinto beans and chinese cabbage. The sauce, the meat and the cabbage came out very well, although a larger piece of meat would have been better. The beans were completely uncooked and awful. I put the left-over beans back in the pot for another two hours cooking and they were still hard. Next time I'll get the right beans!
(After this disappointment, I ordered a cassoulet the next time we were in a suitable restaurant. It came with no beans at all. Whoever heard of cassoulet with no beans??)

Fischcakes

Saturday, 20th April 2013

I looked at several fishcake recipes and constructed a hybrid version for these.
Poach and flake a piece of cod, and mix it with mashed potato, softened onion, a chopped pickled egg, a little cream and seasoning. Form into cakes, dip them in beaten egg and breadcrumbs and then fry on a medium heat until browned on both sides. Serve with double-fried chips and a slightly spicy tomato sauce.
These were amazingly good for something so simple. My partner told me I have her permission to cook them again! :D

Paella

Saturday, 13th April 2013

Book of Tapas and Spanish Cooking - Hilaire Walden p93. I think Paella is one of those dishes where you can vary the ingredients in the basic recipe quite a bit, so this was my variation.
I cut up a poussin into small pieces, browned these in oil for 10 minutes and removed them from the pan. The added onions and garlic, chopped red pepper and diced chorizo and bacon. Then I added 250 grammes of risotto rice (not really the best substitute, but OK), some paprika, and a small amount of red chili.
Then stock, where I had to guess the amount, since I wasn't following the recipe closely. For 350 grammes rice the recipe said 1.75 litres of stock, which seems a huge amount to me. I added a bit less than a litre, and that turned out to be more than enough.
I put the chicken back in and added 8 cherry tomatoes halved, rosemary and seasoning, and boiled for 10 minutes.
Then came the seafood. I used 6 small squid cut up, some mussels, 6 prawns in their shells, a red mullet fillet cut up into small pieces and two red king prawns. This was all scattered over the top and not stirred in (as in the photo).
This was then supposed to simmer for 10 minutes and then steam, off the heat with the lid on, for 10 more minutes. However, the pan I used was large and, although it bubbled fairly well in the middle the edges were not hot enough. It was soon obvious that neither the fish nor the rice was going to be cooked through in that time, and there was still too much liquid. In the end I let it simmer for about a half hour and then steam for 10 minutes.
In the end everything came out very nicely, with a delicious flavour. Both the fish and the rice were cooked about right, although the squid got a bit lost and there were too many mussels. The red mullet was particularly good.

Ebi Ten-Don

Thursday, 11th April 2013

Tempura (Ten) Prawns (Ebi) on a bowl of rice (Don) = Ebi Ten-Don.
My tempura batter didn't really work (too liquid), and I think I cooked the prawns too long, waiting for the batter to brown, so these didn't come out quite as intended. Still it was a very nice TV dinner.

Rabbit and Beer Stew

Saturday, 6th April 2013

Rabbit appears so rarely in the local supermarket, I feel compelled to buy one when it does.
In this case I tried this recipe. I did the marinading, although I did have to use a german wheat beer instead of the dark belgian beer suggested. In Köln, if you don't go to a specialist store, you can only buy Kölsch (probably 19 different ones), Pils or Wheat Beer. Still the wheat beer worked fine.
A little carrot is enough for me, so I reduced the amount of that and added some turnip as well. I left out the prunes and marmelade (even more difficult to buy in Köln than dark beer!), and substituted a big spoonful of my partner's plum preserve. And we used arrowroot and water, instead of cornstarch and milk.
And I added dumplings because, well.... why wouldn't you??
Delicious! The plum preserve was an inspired touch and the sauce was fantastic. The veggies were perfectly cooked, and the meat was tender and juicy. It was a whole rabbit, so there was way too much for two. I had the left overs a couple of days later (re-heated in a double boiler) and, if anything, it was even better.

Meatloaf with Blue Cheese

Sunday, 17th March 2013

Based on this adaption of a Joceline Dimbleby recipe.
I used a mix of 1:2 mix of pork and beef, because that seems to have a better flavour, and stilton for the blue cheese. And I made the tomato sauce mentioned in that recipe. (No idea what the camera did to the colour of my tomato sauce, I assure you it didn't look maroon in real life!). Otherwise I followed the recipe pretty closely.
Served with roast potatoes and cabbage braised in a little butter.
This came out really well and the stilton developed a surprisingly mellow, creamy flavour.