As I said at the end of my last post, we all became married.
Our new life’s begun.
I can't remember much about my cooking prowess after getting married. Though I'm sure I would have done some of the cooking. Especially after our son arrived, hence the new life. It is so surprising how such a small bundle of joy can be so time consuming.
Eight months after the arrival of our son I was posted to Cyprus. With my wife and daughter, who was waiting to make an appearance in the following July.
I suppose this was where I started to rekindle my interest in cooking. There were new tastes and new ways to cook in a foreign land.
Namely the art of BBQ cooking, it was nice and simple in those days. An aluminium BBQ and a bag of charcoal. None of these fancy gas or electric contraptions. Throw it all in the boot of the car and off to the beach or mountains. I won't go into the details of my BBQing. We all know how to burn sausages and steaks.
But I will mention the Slow cooker and pressure cooker. You can cook a meal in either of these. Wrap them up carefully and you have a ready cooked meal all ready for you. Will tell what I Cooked later.
It was in Cyprus I first started practicing the art of "Cooking Curries". Why Curries? Any of you remember the packet Vespa curries? I wonder if they still make them? The dried ingredients you just boiled up. We got fed up with them. And I bought my wife a "Woman's Own" cookery book (which I believe she still has, it out lasted our marriage). It had a very easy recipe for making a curry from ready cooked left over meat. I still base my Indian style curries on this recipe. Also that was the book with the treacle toffee recipe that I made for my children and me.
The Cypriot cuisine is very varied and tasty. I may be wrong here but they may have been the first with the pre-cooked chicken. You know those turning on a spit in your local supermarket. Not in Cyprus in 1970 though. A Cypriot entrepreneur would set up his spit oven at the end of the street and cook away his chickens. Off I'd go to buy my chicken to put in my "Woman's Own" curry.
This recipe does not have to be with pre-cooked meat, you can it's quicker and tastes just as good. Well not quite. Fresh meat is better.
John's Indian Curry Recipe: Cook in your Wok!!
INGREDIENTS:
Canola oil
Biggish Onion, cloves of garlic number depending on taste, 1 to 2 inches of peeled fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped
large potato, stick or 2 of celery, red pepper.
Green apple, sour if you can get one.
Red or green chillies 5 or 6 should be plenty, number depending on taste.
Dried chillies are okay. Soak them in hot water first for a few minutes.
Curry paste. Pataks works for me. There are others, depends on your taste and what's available.
You can get different curry regions of India. Madras, Vindaloo, hot and mild.
Remember not everyone likes a really hot curry. Maybe go for taste not excessive heat.
Plain yoghurt.
A tin of tomatoes gives a nice red colour and tomatoey taste.
Or use chicken or vegetable stock, 3 to 400mls.
A couple of glasses of wine, one to drink the other in the curry.
The tomatoes also provide a good source of Lycopene the powerful cancer fighting antioxidant.
Curries are a very healthy meal. More of that later.
Juice of a lemon. Bunch of Coriander (cilantro) leaves.
Chicken, cooked or uncooked. I'll go for uncooked. Get a nice big chicken.
Mango chutney, optional, for a sweeter taste.
METHOD:
Prepare all your ingredients first, some can be done earlier, like the chicken.
Separate the chicken from the carcass. Take the skin off of the breasts and keep. Leave the skin on the legs and wings. Cut the breasts into biggish bite size pieces. Cut the legs and thigh at the joint to separate them.
Cut up the carcass and boil with breast skin to make your own stock to use for other recipes.
Put the chicken aside, probably back in the fridge is best.
Peel and chop the onions and garlic. Scrape the skin from the ginger, either chop finely or grate the ginger.
Cut up the pepper, celery and the peeled apple.
Peel and cut the potato into largish cubes. Big enough so they won't go to mush. Warm them through a little in the microwave.
The Chilies, cut the stalk end off and slit down the center not cutting all the way through. Gently scrape out the seeds if you don't want too much heat from the chili.
TIP. Use a piece of lemon skin to clean your fingers after cutting the chilies.
Now we are ready to cook, I think.
Heat the oil in your Electric Wok or heavy pan.
Fry the onions, garlic and ginger till onions a little translucent. Put in the chillies and cook for a few minutes.
Now for the curry paste, a couple teaspoonfuls should be enough. Try more next time if not spicy enough. Stir this in with the onions garlic and chillies and cook for a few minutes. Turn down the heat.
Then spoon in a big dollops of yoghurt, (mixing a little corn flour in with yoghurt will help it stop curdling) keep stirring till thoroughly mixed with the curry paste and onions. Turn the heat back up a little.
Now it's time for the chicken. Mix this in thoroughly with the mixture.
Keep frying in the mixture till the chicken is fully coated and taking on that white cooked look.
Add the wine if you didn't drink it all, stirring it into the mixture. If using tin tomatoes, (I do), roughly cut up the tomatoes (while still in the can) and add with the juice to the mixture. Add a bit more wine if you think there's not enough curry sauce. Or the stock, whatever you choose to use.
Bring to a low simmer and add the potato, celery and pepper. The reason I put in a potato is that generally when the potato is cooked so is the chicken, a good pointer the curry nearly is ready.
Put in the cut up apple and stir in the lemon juice. Cook for another 5 or 10 minutes till apple softens. If using the mango chutney stir in now. Or keep for a side dish.
Turn off the heat and sprinkle with coriander leaves.
While the curry had been cooking I would cooking the rice in the micro-wave. It takes about 12-14 minutes. 1 cup of basmati or Thai jasmin rice to just under 2 cups of boiling water. It's probably best to wash the rice 2 or 3 times in cold water before cooking.
This recipe can be used for lamb, pork or beef. If I use beef I wash out a lot of the blood and fry for a few minutes before putting into the curry sauce.
The recipe is fine for seafood as well. Fish and seafood don't take long to cook so put into the sauce at the end of the cooking. Fish can break up easily, be careful stirring once in the sauce. Salmon on the bone is quite robust. For real quality get a nice big salmon head cut into 4, makes great tasting.
If you were smart enough to buy some easy to cook poppadoms even better.
For a cooling side dish, yoghurt and chopped cucumber goes well.
Happy eating.
Health benefits of a good curry.
The lycopene in the tomato and red pepper: Turmeric may help combat Alzheimer's: Chilli and paprika help fight colds: Red meat can stop you being grumpy: Most of the ingredients are good for fighting heart problems; Ginger and garlic fight of most things. Buffy stinks of curry.
Later I'll tell you how I cook Thai curry and soups
Curry is an all round wholesome dish.
Next a few traditional Cypriot recipes.
