Indian Cooking Extravaganza - Part 2

This post began yesterday - please read Part 1.

Home made Raita was a must with those delicious dishes I am making. Home made yoghurt, shredded cucumber and carrots. And an experiment with Rick's Rub as Raita spicing. I am not sure I used the right Rub for Raita, but Rick's Rub Moroccan, with its aromatic cumin, ginger, turmeric, pepper, cardamom, to name a few of its ingredients, seemed like my best bet.

The next dish I made was Chicken and Prune Biryani (page 152). 

What fascinated me about this is the chicken marinade that included yoghurt with fried onions, garlic, ginger, chilies, garam masala and coriander stalks. This is the first time in my life I cook with the stalks, so exciting.

The smell of cooking the chicken with this yoghurt marinade was magical.

The process of this Biryani is too complex to summarize in a blog. But it included marinating dried prunes in orange zest and juice. It included a lengthy rice cooking process. And it included a neat layering of rice, prunes, fried onions and cooked chicken.

 

The outcome was this beautiful looking Biryani with an even more beautiful tasting and eating experience.

And finally, Biryani without a Mango Lassi is not a complete Biryani eating experience. 

My home made Lassi comprised of a Tbs of yogurt mixed with canned sweetened Indian style mango pulp combined with an equal proportion of pure mango juice. Add a drop of rose water and I had an almost authentically refreshing Indian Mango Lassi.

Oh how much I enjoyed this cooking extravaganza. And the cookbook, Rice, Spice and All Things Nice has enough of those exciting recipes to go cooking-crazy with it again. Stay tuned.

Indian Cooking Extravaganza - Part 1

Nothing better to reduce a week's work stress than to embark on a cooking extravaganza. The conduit was this great book called Rice, Spice and All Things Nice by Reza Mahammad.

None of the recipes are really easy, but they do live up to the book's subtitle of Indian Cuisine with Style.

I went a bit cooking-crazy and produced three different platters along with home made Raita, home made Naan and home made Mango Lassi. 

Blog followers are lucky enough to read about this adventure in two parts over two days.

The extravaganza's appetizers were Crispy Okra (page 119). It is an easy recipe where you combine the okra with chat masala powder and gram flour. Given that I had no clue what those were and it was too cold to venture out to Fraser street, I used regular masala powder and regular flour and deep fried them. Crispy, crunchy, yummy.

The real fun began when I approached the Lamb in Black Pepper Sauce (page 93). 

This dish starts with cooking the most amazing set of flavour enhancers - onions, black and green cardamom, cloves, garlic, fresh ginger, green chillies, black pepper and garam masala. Just close your eyes and imagine the aromas...

You then add chopped tomatoes and a Tbs of yoghurt, then coat the lamb pieces in this aromatic base.

Water is then added and this dish simmers for a couple of hours until the water separates leaving you with delicious, tender and spicy lamb.

Stress release cooking at its best.

And to be able to dip home made Naan in the lamb sauce.

To get there, I baked Naan from scratch. Using the bread maker, a mixture of flour, yeast, and yoghurt gets you those delicious Naans that bake in less than 10 minutes.




There is more to this cooking extravaganza, but it will have to wait till tomorrow. So tune back then and enjoy the grande finale of Indian Cooking Extravaganza.

 

Home Made Classic Macaroni & Cheese

Pick of the Crop by Jennifer Stamper is a great Canadian cookbook inspired by our public markets. It is divided into four sections by season.

And typical of our winters, the recipe I chose tonight did not include any crops - a classic macaroni & cheese. But it turned out perfect and I am sure Jennifer wouldn't mind me sharing it.

Few warnings though...

1. It is significantly high in cholesterol

Make a white sauce with 3 Tbs butter, 1/2 cup flour and 5 cups milk. Butter the baking dish as well.

When sauce is ready, add to it 3.5 cups sharp cheddar cheese and 1.5 cups gruyere cheese (I cut this to a total of 3 cups and it was still cheesy enough). Add pinch of salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne peppers.


2. It can become messy if you are making it in a hurry.

Cook 500 g elbow macaroni - don't overcook them.

Stir the macaroni in the cheese sauce, add to the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle with another 1 cup of cheddar cheese and 1/2 cup gruyere cheese.

Bake in a 375 oven for 30 minutes.



3. It is delicious, this is not the day for dieting. 

It turned out perfect. It comes out of the oven bubbling, but settles down nicely so let it rest before digging in.

Nothing stuck to the baking dish, the texture was like a fancy restaurant production and it sure beats the plastic-based packaged macaroni and cheese. 

To add some crops to the dinner, I found this marbled tomato at Urban Fair, so I wanted to try it.

It is nothing to rave about when it comes to taste, but it worked as a perfect base for a salad of tomato, Ackawi Cheese, dried mint, a sprinkle of olive oil and white vinegar.

Apparently the taste reminds eaters of Turkish salads. Well, if you had feta cheese, it would be very close to a Greek salad, but let's not get political here now and remind all followers that this is really not a Turkish salad since Ackawi Cheese is native to Palestine.

Dinner was thoroughly enjoyed with salad and garlic bread with lots of leftovers for the freezer.

Birthday Cafeteria Style

Is it only me or are you followers also getting tired of all those fancy feasts I report on? 

So, for a change of style, tonight's birthday celebration was done in a suburban cafeteria fashion with one dish - a version of chicken-a-la-king over mashed potatoes.



But first, we had to keep the guests entertained as the cafeteria whips up dinner. Look at those ingredients below, can anyone guess what appetizer was served?

Bravo - yes, a delicious and perfectly made spinach dip from an original recipe I had in the early 80s when this dip was the hottest item on potluck dinner menus.

And, in the typical style of serving spinach dip, it was served in a white (not sourdough) round bread and all could not wait to rip into the soaked bread at the end.

A cafeteria style dinner cannot have fancy wines, so tonight's wine of choice was a rose (it was Tinhorn Creek Winery rose by the way, but a rose nonetheless).

Cafeteria style iceberg lettuce salads were laid out, served with a home-made thousand islands dressing (click on Alf Jazeera Dressing for recipe).

Meanwhile, Replacement Chef (click on Replacement Chef label for more stories about this chef), the originator of the recipe was directing the production of the chicken dish in the kitchen.

Apparently, the chicken had to go in last, the complete reverse order of what I had in mind. And my vegetable spread was missing onions and garlic. So the order of events was onions and garlic, cooked until they melt, then carrots, celery, mushrooms followed by the grouping of zucchini, peppers and chicken.

The dish turned out a spectacle for both the eyes and the taste buds. It was enriched by a can of cream of chicken soup with milk, sour cream, dill and a long simmer.

Dinner was served cafeteria style by filling up the plates off the stove and going to sit and eat wherever a guest felt like it.

A cafeteria style birthday is not a place for a fancy Anita Cake, so birthday girl had to settle for a Duncan Hines white cake.

It was layered and frosted, looking exactly as it looks on the package but with the added touch of crunchy colourful sprinkles.




Along with no Anita Cake, the cafeteria does not serve fancy Shaktea teas, so all settled for a Saskatoon Berries tea.

Now for a compare and contrast, click on the link Happy Birthday Tanya to compare last year's celebration to this one. Which is your preferred one? Vote in comments below.

Shanghai Style Brunch

In a small strip mall somewhere in Richmond (see address at end of post) is a great discovery - Chen's Shanghai Restaurant.

If not for a pick-up service (for which I am so grateful) and a generous host (for whom I am so thankful), I would have never discovered this place. And the unique foods of Shanghai started pouring...

Balyulan Steamed Pork Buns - Dim sum style pork buns but the pork is floating in a soup, inside the bun. Be careful when you bite into them, hot soup will pour in your mouth. I have tried them once before in San Francisco but never saw them here, until Chen's. Highly recommended.

Szechuan Style Beef - Those were hearty fatty chunks of beef over cooked cabbage. Great flavour, but melted in the background compared to the rest of the dishes.

Green Beans with Chili - You can never go wrong with hot green beans but those were above-average in their taste, spiciness and perfect crunchiness. 

Dan Dan Noodles - Definitely my favourite selection. It comes as a big bowl of soup with noodles and lots of sprinkled peanuts on top. But when you mix it, it turns into those delicious noodles wrapped with a nice, almost thick, peanut sauce. I could easily dine on those and those alone.

Pan Fried Chive Dumpling - Different than what I have tried before where the chives were in the dough. Those ones were actually stuffed with a chives mixture. Tasty, but the dough was a bit oily.

Spicy Eggplants - By far the best spicy eggplants I have had in the city. Be careful, they can become addictive.

Chen's Shanghai Kitchen

8095 Park Road

Richmond, BC

604-304-8288

somerville Gumbo

Decades ago I fell in love with Gumbos in New Orleans and came back with a cookbook called Gumbo Shop by Richard Stewart. Since then I have been experimenting with making Gumbo inspired by the book but simplified by my kitchen. Here is somerville Gumbo recipe if you want to try it.

The most important Gumbo ingredient, in my humble opinion, is Okra. I typically start by frying them, whole or in one-inch cuts, in a bit of vegetable oil - just get them to start changing colour, but keep them on the green side.

Next you make a dark roux by frying flour in vegetable oil - I never mastered making roux, but to be honest with you, it seems to end up mixed up with the rest of the ingredients and works no matter how imperfect the roux is.

Gumbo spices are basic - black, white and cayenne peppers. But I have smuggled this tub of Cajun seasoning once. It is a perfect mix of spices that works great in my Gumbos.

Gumbos can be made with seafood, chicken, root vegetables, corn, meats - the list goes on. 

Each recipe in the book has elaborate procedures on how to incorporate the meat, cook it, etc. I keep it simple and use any cooked chicken I have.

Simple formula - a can of tomatoes, 1/2 can tomato paste, a bit of water added to the roux. Then spices, cooked chicken and okras and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Now the way to serve Gumbo is in a soup bowl with a ball of cooked white rice in the middle. And that part of the recipe I will not dream of changing. 

Give it a try with my formula, be experimental with what you throw in it and enjoy on those cold nights ahead.

What To Do On A Day Off

Amazing how one wakes up early and energetic when one does not have to go to work. 

I had the day off and opened for the cat to explore le jardin before sunrise. As you can see, all I could see around me was mess. 

I go in and open the fridge to get milk for my cereal and can barely find the milk. I look at my counters and they are filled with groceries to organize.

So with the help of some Lebanese internet TV entertainment (click on this link if intrigued), I was all set for a productive day.

First I tackled the fridge. The fridge on the left was the pre. The fridge on the right was the post. See how easily you can now find the beer and see what else is there?

Clearing the counters necessitated some cooking projects. The stove got busy cooking chickpeas and fava beans to freeze, making chicken stock from frozen leftover chicken bones, and getting some home-made yogurt going (click here for home-made yogurt recipe).

Waiting for the pots to boil, I tackled a container of pistachios. 

If I keep them in their shells, they are going to go stale. So here is a kitchen tip for you.

Kitchen Tip Take the shells off the pistachios, put them in a tight jar and leave them in the fridge. This way, when you are looking for pistachios for a dessert or baking project, all are shelled and ready for you.

And you cannot imagine how much shelling pistachios feels like meditation.

Back to the stove. Now that all was cooked, I had generated seven containers of cooked chickpeas, five containers of cooked fava beans and three containers of chicken broth - all ready to freeze.

But this was the state of the freezer - so time to tackle organizing it prior to adding to it. See how nice it looks now.

Half a day off later, kitchen was organized and cleaned up and I was ready for a long nap.

I love days off....