Fish, Banana & Coconut Curry

From a recipe I found in a magazine in a waiting area. I scribbled down the ingredients quick, and tried to remember the rest. This is how it goes:

Fry a sliced onion and a pepper in a little oil, until soft. Add a teaspoon (I suggest more) of curry paste, and stir in. Add a tablespoon of flour and mix in. Gradually add, a splash at a time, a tin of coconut milk. Stir well to prevent lumps forming and the sauce should thicken nicely. Add your fish, cover and cook gently until the fish is cooked. A few minutes before the end, add a sliced banana. The bananas are so gorgeous in it, I'd maybe add more next time.

You could add fresh coriander, lemongrass, or perhaps some chopped red chilli. As it is, this is a lovely, simple and gentle curry. Deffo be making this one again.

Chicken Korma

This was made in a similar style to the chicken tikka masala I did last year.

Fry 6 large onions slowly until very soft. Add half a jar of korma curry paste, and dollops of ginger & garlic paste. Cook it all for about an hour, until very soft. Add a tin of coconut milk, then blitz with a stick blender. Add water to dilute, if too thick. Add about a cupful of ground almonds, and a cupful of cream. Add salt to taste, and sweeten with a spoon or two of sugar.

I made chicken tikka pieces to add to the basic sauce. We ate it with rice, bread, and a side dish of potato, chickpea & spinach.

Samosas (sort of)

I based my recipe for these on instructions I found at www.samosa-recipe.com .. ingredients as follows:
2 potatoes, diced
2 carrots, grated or diced
2 onions, diced
2 cups peas
2 spoons curry paste (I used Pataks madras and it turned out really spicy!)
1 spoon sundried tomato paste
200ml stock
At the end - a generous squeeze of lemon, and plenty of salt.
I also added a sprinkle of fennel seeds and some mustard seeds too.
Soften the veg in a pan with 2 tbsp oil. Fry gently for a bit then add the curry paste, tomato paste and stock. Put the lid on and simmer it all until the veg is all cooked, and there is no excess liquid left.
Take a sheet of ready made puff pastry and divide it into 12 squares. Roll each one out until it is large enough to cut out a circle (I used a 4" diameter bowl to cut round). In goes a spoon of curry, fold it over and seal the edges. Place your little pasties onto a baking sheet - don't forget to grease it!! Bake at 220c for 15-20 minutes.

Thai Green Curry

Based on (ie. nearly the same but not quite .. pea aubergines??) as Tana Ramsay's green curry, cooked on the telly. Recipe from the UKTV Food website!

Ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1-2 tbsp green curry paste
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 garlic clove
1 red pepper, diced
1 stalk Lemon grass, roughly chopped into large chunks
2 cm piece Ginger, roughly chopped
800g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, roughly chopped
400ml coconut milk
8 kaffir lime leaves
1 tsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
1 tsp dark Soy sauce
1 handful Coriander, chopped, plus extra for garnish
1 handful baby pea aubergines
1 lime, juice only
Basmati rice, to serve

1. Heat the oil in a wok and add the curry paste and sugar. Cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved. Add the garlic, red pepper, lemon grass and ginger. 2. Brown the chicken thighs in the wok, then stir in the coconut milk, lime leaves, fish sauce, soy sauce and coriander. Place the lid on and allow to simmer under a low heat for 25-30 minutes. 3. Stir in the pea aubergines and cook for 5-6 minutes, until tender. Squeeze in the lime juice to taste. 4. Serve the curry with basmati rice and a sprinkling of chopped coriander.

Potato, Chickpea & Spinach

This goes very well with the CTM, below.
Cut 4 big potatoes into chunks, and boil them until only just done. Toss them in ginger & garlic paste, salt, and some turmeric.
Heat oil and fry a chopped onion until soft. Add the potato cubes. Fry it and let them go a bit brown and crusty here and there. Then add a tin of drained chickpeas, and cook until they are hot. Add a bag of washed fresh spinach leaves, which you have shredded and chopped.
Cook until it is all done. This is a dry dish, and goes well with a curry with lots of sauce. But you could add tomatoes and/or coconut milk if you wanted.

Chicken Tikka Masala!

Completely superb, a long list of ingredients but simple to do. You need to marinate a load of chunks of chicken first. I made a big potful to feed 6 people, and used 8 or 9 chicken breasts. Then I made a marinade with these ingredients:
300g plain yoghurt
Couple of spoons tomato puree
Big blob garlic puree
Big blob ginger puree
Spoonful of salt
Generous sprinkle of chilli
Couple of spoonfuls tikka powder
Juice of half a lemon
Let the meat sit in this overnight, or all day.
To make the sauce, get a big pan and chop 8 onions. Fry them slowly in oil for about an hour, until they are soft and golden. Then add:
Spoonful of curry paste
Blobs of ginger & garlic puree
Chilli as desired
Stir, and cook a bit more. Then add:
A carton of passata
A tin of coconut milk
About 100g ground almonds
Blitz it all with a stick blender. Add water if it is too thick. Mine was really thick, and it was bubbling and splutters were going about 2 feet into the air, so I had to make it a bit runnier.
Taste, and you will probably need to add salt. I also added a spoonful of sugar. I was considering adding yoghurt and/or cream at this stage but decided these were unnecessary.
It is now time to cook the marinaded meat, like in the picture. Get your oven as hot as you dare. (I had to take my necklace off, because every time I opened the door, it heated the metal up and burned me.. thats how hard and daring I am.) Anyway. Mine was set at 250c. Lay the meat out in a roasting tin. I added some chunks of pepper too. I also added the remains of the marinade to the sauce (which was just ticking over gently with the lid on at this point).
The meat must have roasted for about 15 minutes. I took it out when it started to get charred, as you can see.
Simply transfer the entire contents of the roasting tin into the sauce. You now have Chicken Tikka Masala!

Eat it with rice, onion bhajis, naan bread, a vegetable dish, and some red wine ....

Chickpea Curry with Paneer

Cooked with paneer cheese I got from Tescos. Curry paste and onion, plenty of tomato, then chickpeas, and cubes of paneer. Cook for a bit, then sprinkle with coriander leaves.

Indian Takeaway

Tummy rumble.

Homemade Chinese Takeaway Part 1: Lily Kwok's Curry

The recipe for this curry can be found here. Or just put "Lily Kwok" in Google. I always add some coconut milk too.

Victorian Curry

Begin with ancient cookery book (this one, I found on eBay and is from 1898). Fry six onions slowly and patiently until brown, then add curry paste, two chopped apples and some stock. Simmer for a while, then blitz. I also added lentils and eggs.

Chickpea Balti with Kale

I think kale is quite horrible really; I tried steaming it once and it was like trying to eat my tights. However, some good can always be made of such a situation. Shred it up and give it a proper nuking with some chickpeas, onion, maybe some tomatoes went in there, and curry paste.

Lamb & Chickpea Jalfrezi in the Slow Cooker

This is really, the absolute danglers. There are not many ingredients either. Begin in the morning before you go to work, and chuck two tins of chickpeas and a jar of curry sauce in the slow cooker. Add some water (to stop it all getting too thick) and plonk a piece of lamb in. Dont expect it to look good yet.

When you get home, you will open the door and be greeted by a lamby, chickpeay spicy smell, wafting through the house. So by all means, dig in now if you must. However, I cooled it all down and put it in the fridge for the night, and lifted some of the fat off the next day.
I cut the meat up and warmed everything up in a pan. Add a bit more water too. At the end, I quickly fried some onions and peppers over a high heat, just until they started to go brown round the edges, then mixed them in.
Troff it down with rice, and some yoghurt and chopped cucumber.