Sweet potato, green bean and coconut curry

 I'm not sure if my spice tolerance has gone down over the years or if I've just come to my senses and realised that too much chilli gets in the way of other flavours. Whatever the reason, I use far less chilli in my own cooking and studiously avoid anything excessively spicy when eating out. This is a very simple mild curry that can be prepared from beginning to end in about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

1 onion
500g sweet potato
200g green beans
2 tbsps vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
mild curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
400 ml coconut milk

juice of 1 lemon
small bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Peel and chop the onion. Peel the sweet potato and cut into small chunks. Top and tail the green beans and cut into 3 cm lengths.
2. Gently fry the onion in the vegetable oil until it is translucent.
3. Add the finely chopped garlic and minced ginger and fry for another minute or so.
4. Add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds.
5. Add the sweet potato and the coconut milk, and simmer gently until the potato is almost done (about 15 minutes).
6. Add the green beans and cook for another 5 minutes, until they are done.
7. Add the lemon juice and chopped coriander, mix and serve.

Curry powder

Lots of recipes call for huge numbers of individual ground spices - and even roasting and grinding spices from scratch. It's the kind of detail that can turn preparing a simple dish into an unappealing chore. It's often quicker and easier simply to use a ready-made spice mix and it may be better, too: using spice mixes means you can cook with a far wider range of spices, and your spices will probably be fresher too. 

Mild chicken curry with coconut milk

This is a simple curry, mild enough for kids to eat and easy enough for them to cook.

Ingredients
vegetable oil
1 kg of chicken breast or thigh meat, cut into large chunks
250g onion, finely chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsps mild curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tin of coconut milk

Method

1. In plenty of vegetable oil, gently fry the chopped onion until it is almost done.
2. Add the garlic and ginger, and fry for another minute.
3. Add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds.
4. Add the chicken, stir well so that is coated in the onion and spice mixture, and fry for about 10 minutes.
5. Add the coconut milk, bring to a boil, reduce heat to minimum and simmer for 30 minutes.

Mild egg curry

If I'm making an Indian meal with a couple of spicy dishes, I generally try to make something really mild for my kids so that they aren't left just eating plain white rice. The spicing in this is so mild that I hesitate to call it a curry at all, but it makes a great foil for hotter food.

Ingredients

12 eggs

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 tsps minced ginger

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tablespoon mild curry powder

1 tsp salt

1 tin coconut milk

small bunch of fresh coriander, chopped

juice of 1 lemon

Method

1. Steam the eggs for 10 minutes, then allow to cool. Peel and cut in half lengthwise.
2. In a large frying pan, fry the onion gently in plenty of oil. When it is cooked but not brown, add the ginger and garlic and fry for another minute. Add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds or so, then add the coconut milk.
3. Simmer for about 5 minutes, add the chopped coriander and lemon juice, stir to mix, then add the eggs, yolk side up. Spoon the sauce over the eggs and simmer very gently for another 5 minutes.

Okra with tomatoes and coriander

Okra, bhindi, ladies' fingers - we haven't quite settled on a name, but these are one of my very favourite vegetable. In my opinion, the trick is not to overcook them, so that they have a good fresh taste, and a bit of crunch.



Ingredients
500g fresh okra
500g tomatoes
1 onion
3 tbsps vegetable oil
2 tsps minced ginger
2 tsps minced green chilli
1/2 tsp salt
half a large bunch of coriander (or 2 of those miserly packs they sell in supermarkets)

Method

1. Wash the okra, then top and tail them and cut them into 2-cm long segments. Slice the onion into strips. Cut the tomatoes lengthwise into 8 segments.
2. In a wok or large frying pan, heat the oil, and fry the onion until it starts to brown. Add the ginger and chilli, fry for a few seconds more, then add the okra, and stir-fry for 5 minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes and chopped coriander leaves, and fry for another 5 minutes.

Sammy's chicken kebabs

Sammy and Carmela are gradually doing more and more cooking, and right now this is Sammy's favourite thing to do with chicken.

Ingredients
1 kg skinless chicken breast
juice of 1/2 lemon
6 tbsps of natural yoghurt
2 tbsps of chickpea flour
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp salt

Method

1. Cut the chicken into chunks, put in a bowl and mix well with the lemon juice.
2. Mix the yoghurt and the chickpea flour, then add the ginger, garlic, spices and salt, and mix well. Pour over the chicken pieces, mix well and leave to marinade (anything from 30 minutes to overnight).
3. Preheat the oven to 220oC, and line an oven tray with lightly greased foil.
4. Thread the chicken pieces onto skewers, and cook in the hot oven for 12 minutes.

Rabbit dhansak

I have mixed feelings about market shopping: it's time-consuming and can be both physically and mentally exhausting, as you struggle to make sure the stallholders don't palm off shoddy produce on you and have to adapt your cooking to what's available. But when I'm in the right mood, I find it really stimulating. I often have great recipe ideas while looking at what's on display, sometimes directly inspired by whatever is laid out in front of me, and sometimes taking advantage of a bit of daydream time while I wait to be served.



When I got back to Spain from Italy the other day, the first thing I did (after frantically feeding the washing machine and hanging up wet clothes) was to pop down to the market. In the fish section, I bought a kilo of clams. And at the butcher's I picked up a beautiful free-range chicken, which I intend to do al ajillo but with the added twist of a pickled lemon, and I also got some pork ribs, which I plan to pressure cook with chilli and ginger. My final purchase was a free-range rabbit, but instead of doing my usual coniglio alla cacciatore, I thought I would do a bit of fusion cooking, so I came up with this rabbit and brown lentil curry. I don't know if this really qualifies as a dhansak or not (usually, I think, a meat curry where the sauce is thickened with red lentils) and I don't care either.

Ingredients
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2-inch piece of fresh ginger
6 tablespoons of vegetable oil
4 teaspoons of mild curry powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 free-range rabbit, jointed
250g brown lentils
800 ml of chicken stock
juice of 1/2 lemon
small bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Peel and finely chop the onion, garlic and ginger, and puree in a food processor with the vegetable oil.
2. Gently fry the puree in an open pressure cooker, being careful not to burn.
3. When the onion is turning golden, add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds, then add the rabbit pieces and fry for a minute or so, turning them so that they become well coated with the onion and spice mixture.
4. Add the lentils, chicken stock and lemon juice, close the pressure cooker and bring up to full pressure (2 rings). Cook for 15 minutes, then cool the cooker under runninng cold water.
5. Open, check for seasoning, add chopped coriander and serve.

Googlecooked!
Googlewhacking is the sport of trying to find an elusive query (two words - no quote marks) with a single, solitary result. Googlecooking is the art of producing a recipe (two-word title - yes quote marks) for which there are no other hits. I give you "rabbit dhansak"!

Seekh kebabs

One thing that often slips under the radar of cookery writers is how the same name can describe different things depending which country you're in. I once had a Taiwanese flatmate who taught me how to make dim sum, and when he listed the ingredients he said you needed one spring onion, and promptly produced a giant leek. You might think that 'mince' (or what people in the US call 'ground meat') would be fairly standard, but mince in Spain is much more finely chopped than the equivalent in the UK. I generally prefer UK-style coarse mince, although I do like the fact that Spanish butchers will mince it for you so you see a whole piece of meat going in and the mince coming out, and also the fact that they'll do you a mix of beef and pork, and even add some parsley and onion for you.

Unfortunately, my favourite butcher in the Cadiz market doesn't have a functioning mincing machine, so he only offers readymade hamburger mix, and I really don't like the texture that the ultra-fine mix produces. He quite often gifts me a couple of hamburgers, and the other day he chucked in four of them to round up the price of what I was buying. I was seriously considering throwing them away, and then I realised that they would be perfect for seekh kebabs. If you want to make these with British mince, you should briefly whizz it in the food processor to achieve the desired texture.



Ingredients
500g of mince (beef, pork or a mixture of the two)
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
2 teaspoons of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of salt
chilli sauce (to taste)

Method
Mix all the ingredients thoroughly, shape into sausages around skewers (I find small wooden ones are best - if they are too long just snap them in half), and grill until cooked through.

Aubergine curry

The key to this recipe is for the onion and tomato sauce to be very smooth, and this technique can be used as the base for lots of curries.




Ingredients
sunflower oil
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 kg of tomatoes
1 kg of aubergine
2 teaspoons of minced red chilli
1 tablespoon of medium curry powder
½ teaspoon of salt

1 bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Peel and roughly chop the onion and garlic, and whizz thoroughly in a food processor so that they are very finely chopped. Slice off the tops and bottoms of the tomatoes, and discard. Chop the tomatoes roughly and whizz thoroughly in a food processor. Top and tail the aubergines, then cut into large chunks. Deep fry in batches until golden brown, and leave to drain in a colander.
2. In a large saucepan with plenty of oil, fry the onion and garlic gently until the onion is cooked (but not browned). Because the onion is so finely chopped, you need to be careful it doesn't burn. Use a low to medium heat, plenty of oil, stir frequently and add a little water if it starts to stick. Once the onions are cooked, add the curry powder and fry for 30 seconds or so to release the flavours, then add the tomatoes, chilli and salt, bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour until you the sauce is juicy and thick.
3. Wash and finely chop the coriander (stems and all). Add the cooked aubergines, stir gently so that they are well-coated in the tomato sauce, but being careful not to break them up, then add the coriander and cook at a low heat for another 10 minutes or so.

Spinach and potatoes (saag aloo)

This is one of my favourite Indian restaurant vegetable dishes: I always have a struggle to decide whether to order this or bindi bhaji (okra) when I get back to the UK.



This recipe is adapted from the one given by Madhur Jaffrey in Indian Cookery, the book of the TV series she did for the BBC back in 1982. It’s a great book, which has lots of nice, clear recipes, although sometimes I think it’s a bit heavy on the ingredients and contains some unnecessary steps. Even these, though, have their charm. Her earnest instructions to pick through your lentils to check they don’t contain any stones are a sign of the book’s roots in a series of letters sent by her mother back in India, when Jaffrey first learnt to cook as a drama student in London. I can’t remember the last time I found a stone in my lentils.

Ingredients
500g potatoes
1 onion

500g frozen spinach
plenty of sunflower oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of turmeric
¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of salt

Method

1. Peel and cut the onion into very fine strips. Chop the garlic finely. Peel the potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes.
2. Heat plenty of sunflower in a large saucepan, add the onion and fry for a minute, then add the garlic and fry for another 30 seconds or so before adding the mustard seeds. Fry for another 30 seconds, then add the turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt, and stir well.
3. Add the potato cubes, the spinach and enough water so the dish looks moist without it being too watery.
4. Bring to a simmer, turn heat to minimum and cover. Cook until the potatoes are well done (probably around 40 minutes), stirring every so often and checking that there is still enough liquid. The final dish should be neither dry nor soupy, but juicy.

When I cooked this for the photo, I didn’t have any mustard seeds, so I substituted them with sesame seeds instead. I also think that turmeric (I suppose like most spices) is one of those ingredients whose quality varies greatly. I'm not a fan of the big packets of Rajah brand spices you get from most Asian shops, which I think have rather an industrial flavour. Turmeric should be musky but aromatic.