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Wednesday 1 June 2016

Potato & pea curry

An amazing recipe by my friend Dipti Mathur. I finally decided to have a go at making my first curry. My friend started me off with a straightforward recipe, it required a trip to an Indian shop to get all the ingredients, but the cooking process was fairly easy.
 




Ingredients for 4 large portions:

6 large potatoes
1 small bowl of frozen green peas
3 large onions
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 star anise
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves
2 bay leaves
3 cardamom pods
1 tsp asafoetida
3 garlic cloves
1 knob chopped ginger (or 1 teaspoon ginger paste)
3 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp garam masala
half a bunch of freshly chopped coriander

fresh chopped chillies or chilli powder
vegetable oil
salt


Peel, steam/boil and cut 6 large potatoes (don't let them get too soft as they will cook more in the curry). Heat up some oil in a large wok (3 tbsp minimum), add the star anise, cumin seeds, cloves, bay leaves, cardamom pods and asafoetida. Once the cumin seeds have turned brown, add the onions and fry till golden brown. Add the chopped garlic and ginger, coriander powder, paprika, turmeric, tomatoes and a bit of salt to taste. When the oil starts to separate (it won't if you use a small amount of oil), add the potatoes, frozen peas and desired amount of chilli/chilli powder. Add the chopped coriander and garam masala and cook for ten minutes on medium heat. Add water if needed. Serve by itself or with basmati rice.
 

Tip: curries always taste better after a few hours/the next day.

Saturday 14 May 2016

Low fat parsnip crisps

Homemade vegetable crisps make a perfect healthy snack, as I have recently learnt. No need to worry about calories or fat as you know exactly how much oil, salt etc you put in. And you can use any oil you want, I tried extra virgin olive oil.



Ingredients (for 1 small bowl):

1 large parsnip

1 - 2 teaspoons olive oil
sea salt & freshly ground pepper
dash of spicy paprika (or chilli powder if you prefer them more spicy)



Peel the parsnip and discard the outer peel. Use the same peeler to peel long, thin strips - as many as possible, it gets quite tricky towards the end. Add the oil and seasoning and mix well.

Place the peels on a baking tray (or trays) in a single layer. Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes until they're crispy and brown at the edges.