Basic idea is to take some mackeral, salt and cover with flour so that it can then be lightly fried in oil. Then cook garlic in oil, add lemons and finish. Originally cooked with Japanese mackeral but maybe Spanish Mackeral - sawara - can be used?! Quantities below are rather high -probably for four people.
Ingredients
3-4 mackerel in fillits or sliced across into little cutlets (I guess this includes the bone)
10 tablespoons for fying
flour for coating
2 lemons
2 bay leaves
6-8 cloves of garlic crushed with the flat of a knife
200ml of water
Method
Salt the mackerel and leave for ten minutes and then pat dry; coat in flour shaking off the excess. Fry in batches until brown and then reserve, draining any oil on kitchen paper. Add the garlic to oil and let sizzle until it colors. Add hald a lemon cut into think slices plus bay leaves. Fry for a couple of minutes then add the juice from the lemons left over and also water. Stir and then return the fish to the pan and cook quickly - in theory it should all amalgamate into a rich brown sauce...
Probably should not have poked the mackerel around so much while cooking as maybe did not go as brown as should have done. Note bad - worth trying again as very simple and healthy.
Worked out fantstically well the first time that I did it. Basic idea is to chop up some potato into small cubes and then shallow fry to pretty close to being cooked. Then mix together the potato, chorizo, peas and egg together and cook the whole mess. Important to have a non stick frying pan. Unlike a "normal" Spanish omlette this does not include any onion.
Ingredients
2 small potatoes for each person, diced - in practice to cover a decent part of the frying pan
oil
salt
1/2 chorizo sliced
120g of peas - in practice I used a whole frozen bag full
2 beaten eggs - I used five for the whole family - it was enough
Fry the potatoes in 1.25cm of oil with some salt until tender. Add the chorizo and peas and cook for five minutes more. Then drain and reserve the oil. Add the potatoes/chorizo/peas to the beaten eggs. Heat some of the oil in the frying pan again, add the mixture and then cook as normal - that is cook until bottom is firm and the whole is firming up, then turn out the half cooked to turnover and cook the remainder. Should be eaten hot or at room temperature.
This is a very easy and absolutely excellent Turkish recipe. Good to make when you may need a roasted red pepper for some other recipe such as marmitako.
Very simply, roast the red peppers on the grill. Put in a sealed bag for ten minutes or so after blackened. Peel and de-seed, taking care to let the juice in the center formed while grilling fall into the bowl you will use for marinading. Chop into large slices and add to a crushed clove of garlic, red wine vinegar and a load of thyme. Leave for a couple of hours and eat when cold.
A very easy to make Spanish recipe that's healthy and makes the most of ingredients available in Japan. The basic idea is to make a base with onions fried with olive oil plus parsley and more garlic than average and tomato. You then add potato and some fish stock and half cook the potato. Finally you add tuna or bonito and then cook through both the tuna and finish off the potato. A roasted red pepper is added for extra flavor
Note this is a good opportunity to also make roasted red peppers with garlic, thyme and red wine vinegar.
Also here is a great looking web site with a youtube video channel as well with Spanish dishes.
Ingredients
400g of tuna or bonito
4 tablespoons of oil
1 onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
2 tomatoes peeled and chopped
4 medium sized potatoes peeled and thickly sliced
1 small dried red chilli finely chopped
1 bay leaf
fish broth or water
1 red pepper - roasted, peeled and sliced
Method
Season the fish with salt. Head the oil and fry the onion until soft. Pound the garlic with a little salt and pepper - note it helps to chop the garlic quite well. Prepare the tomatoes and then add the past and tomatoes to the softened onion and cook until pulpy. Add the sliced potatoes and top up with the fish stock or water. Cook for fifteen minutes or so. Add the tuna or bonito cut into pretty big chunks and then cook until soft.
Common themes or points are: Use of beef broth for stock; sugar to help camarelise the onion; white wine; gureye cheese for the topping. The following recipe is from Julia Child.
The onions for an onion soup need a long, slow cooking in butter and oil, then a long, slow simmering in stock for them to develop the deep, rich flavor which characterizes a perfect brew. You should therefore count on 2½ hours at least from start to finish. Though the preliminary cooking in butter requires some watching, the actual simmering can proceed almost unattended.
For 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
1½ lbs. or about 5 cups of thinly sliced yellow onions
3 Tb butter
1 Tb oil
A heavy-bottomed, 4-quart covered saucepan
Cook the onions slowly with the butter and oil in the covered saucepan for 15 minutes.
1 tsp salt
qtr tsp sugar (helps the onions to brown)
Uncover, raise heat to moderate, and stir in the salt and sugar. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes stirring frequently, until the onions have turned an even, deep, golden brown.
3 Tb flour
Sprinkle in the flour and stir for 3 minutes.
2 quarts boiling brown stock, canned beef bouillon, or 1 quart of boiling water and 1 quart of stock or bouillon
½ cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth
Salt and pepper to taste
Off heat, blend in the boiling liquid. Add the wine, and season to taste. Simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 minutes or more, skimming occasionally. Correct seasoning.
(*) Set aside uncovered until ready to serve. Then reheat to the simmer.
3 Tb cognac
Rounds of hard-toasted French bread (see recipe following)
1 to 2 cups grated Swiss or Parmesan cheese
Just before serving, stir in the cognac. Pour into a soup tureen or soup cups over the rounds of bread, and pass the cheese separately.
GARNISHINGS FOR ONION SOUP
Croûtes—hard-toasted French bread
12 to 16 slices of French bread cut ¾ to 1 inch thick
Place the bread in one layer in a roasting pan and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for about half an hour, until it is thoroughly dried out and lightly browned.
Olive oil or beef drippings A cut clove of garlic
Halfway through the baking, each side may be basted with a teaspoon of olive oil or beef drippings; and after baking, each piece may be rubbed with cut garlic.
Post mortem
Probably did'nt really carmelize the onions properly after leaving some of them to burn a little, but not so bad. Lots of butter used and also had to add quite a bit of salt and a whole pack of beef stock. Also added cognac at the end, but this seemed to put the kids off who found it too rich. Final result was actually not bad, but a lot of trouble. Baking the croutons also added something.
Net time...
Check the initial caramelization more closely.
Add some water at the end - actually it ended up coming up a little too much liquid.
Made this but now can't find the recipe!. Simply put two peppers on the tray over the gas flame until the skin blackens - which will take quite while. Then put in a ziplock bag for a while in order to steam further and loosen the skins. Peel, cut into strips and then put into a bowl of yogurt flavored with some garlic and salt.
Another recipe with the fantastic advantage of being very, very simple but at the same time very healthy. Known as Salladirma from Sakarya-Marmara Region apparently. Here is the recipe.
Ingredients
1 bunch baby spinach, washed
1 small onion, sliced
1-2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 large tomato, peeled, diced
1 tbsp crushed tomato, canned
4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Preparation
Boil the spinach for about 2-3 minutes, drain.
Meanwhile saute the onion with olive oil for about 2-3 minutes.
Add the garlic. When the smell of garlic comes out, add the rest of the sauce ingredients. Cover and cook until the tomatoes are soft at low heat.
Place the spinach on a serving dish. Spoon out the sauce all over it. Keep it in the fridge. Serve the dish at room temperature or chilled.
Worked out very well. A key point was salting the eggplant and leaving for a while before squeezing out the water and then frying. This prevents the eggplant absorbing so much oil when it is first cooked. Cooking the eggplant pretty much browns it. This is a surprisingly easy and simple recipe with pretty guaranteed decent results (at least on the first attempt).
Here is another pretty identical recipe. Note that cubing seems an alternative to slicing and tinned tomatoes an alternative to fresh tomatoes which should probably be de-seeded.
Peel eggplant lengthwise in a striped fashion and remove the stem. Quarter it lengthwise and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices. Sprinkle generously with salt and let stand at least 1 hour.
Rinse eggplant in plenty of water, squeeze each slice dry, and fry in 1 cup hot olive oil until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.
To make the sauce, pour off any remaining oil from the frying pan and put in 1 tablespoon fresh olive oil.
Add tomatoes and sprinkle with a little salt; simmer until tomatoes form a sauce, mashing them down with a fork.
Stir in garlic and vinegar and remove from heat. Taste and adjust with salt and vinegar.
Place the eggplant in a serving bowl and cover with the sauce. Serve cold or at room temperature with crusty bread.
A must at any barbeque, this fresh tasting salad is more herbs than bulgar, as is traditional.
Certainly a lot of chopping in this. Tips: Worth trying to chop the parsley pretty finely and not leave any big not so well chopped bits. Lemon juice from a bottle worked out fine and also the medium bulgar wheat - one suggestion was cooking and then toasting a little to dry out, which is probably a good idea but worked OK.
small bunch fresh mint leaves, washed, dried, finely chopped
1 small red onion, peeled, finely chopped
2-3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt flakes
4 ready-made flatbreads, to serve
Preparation method
Place the bulgar wheat into a small bowl and cover with 50ml/2fl oz of boiling water. Stir, then set aside for 20 minutes, or until the bulgar wheat has absorbed all of the water.
Cut out the green stalks from the tomatoes and make a small cross at each of the bases. Place the tomatoes into a separate bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 30 seconds, then drain away the water.
When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel and discard the skins. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, discard the seeds and dice the flesh.
Transfer the diced tomatoes to a serving bowl.
Add the parsley, mint and onion to the tomatoes and mix well until combined.
When the bulgar wheat has absorbed all of the water, fluff it using a fork until the grains are separated. Add the bulgar wheat to the tomato mixture.
Drizzle over the lemon juice and olive oil and season, to taste, with salt. Mix well to coat the ingredients in the liquid.
To serve, divide the tabbouleh equally among four serving plates. Place one grilled flatbread alongside each.
This is exactly the recipe I am looking for - healthy, easy to make, tasty and uses up ingredients that risk just sitting in the cupboard unused if I am not careful. Two medium sized carrots made a pretty decent amount.
Ingredients
5 cups coarsely grated carrot
fine olive oil
1-1 1/2 cups of yoghurt
2 garlic cloves crushed
1/2 cup of chopped fresh dill
salt
Method
Swish carrots in hot olive oil for a few minutes until lightly wilted.
With a wooden spoon (why I wonder) beat the yoghurt and garlic with a quarter cup of dill and a little salt until smooth.
Mix carrots with yoghurt sauce until completely blended. Adjust with salt.
Let stand for twenty minutes, then sprinkle with a little remaining dill for garnish.
Used this BBC recipe. Very easy and very pleased with the result. Key points for success seem to be making sure one used enough spices, in particular the cumin seed put in at the beginning worked out just fine as did the addition of the fresh ginger and the chilli. In fact it was quite spicy, but really a good balance. Turmeric also added nicely to the colour.
Ingredients
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1½ tsp cumin seeds
1 dried Kashmiri chilli, whole with seeds
5cm/2in piece fresh root ginger, finely shredded
3 small onions, thinly sliced
1 fresh green chilli, chopped, with or without seeds
1 red or yellow pepper, seeds removed, cut lengthways into 5mm/¼in-thick strips
1 green pepper, seeds removed, cut lengthways into 5mm/¼in-thick strips
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground turmeric
1½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
250g/9oz paneer, cut into 3cm/1¼in x 1.5cm/¾in pieces
3 tomatoes, cut into strips
1 tsp wine vinegar
½ tsp toasted ground cumin seeds
¾ tsp garam masala
Preparation method
Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan or karahi over a medium heat and add the cumin seeds, whole dried chilli and about two-thirds of the shredded ginger, and fry for 30 seconds until aromatic.
Add the onions and green chilli and fry for 5–6 minutes, or until the onions are just softening but not browned and still have a little crunch. Add the peppers, salt, turmeric and chilli powder, and fry for a further 3–4 minutes.
Lower the heat, add the paneer to the pan and gently stir everything together for about five minutes, then add the tomato and heat through. Stir in the vinegar, ground cumin and garam masala, scatter with the remaining shredded ginger, and serve.
Tips
Great point is that you can also make saag paneer to use up the paneer you buy and also along with the frozen spinach, thus having too very nutritious dishes for the family. Having with dal etc would really be excellent as well.
This is a very simple dish with, it seems, a great deal of flexibility around how it can be made. It seems to be rather disparagingly referred to as "Turkish scrambled eggs" and while it is a simple dish a comparison to scrambled eggs doesn't do it justice at all.
Menemen can be defined in a couple of different ways such as Turkish breakfast specialty or lazy dinner option or great summer dish. However you define it, it's delicious. Best part of all is whether you are a great cook or a poor one, you cannot go wrong with menemen; the ingredients secure the taste. Must-have traditional ingredients for menemen are eggs, tomato, onion, peppers (preferably banana peppers), and parsley. I modify the traditional recipe by replacing onions with green onions and adding feta cheese.
Ingredients
6 eggs, well-beaten
4 juicy tomatoes, diced (you can also use canned diced tomatoes; prefer petite diced ones or put regular one in blender for a couple of seconds)
3 green onions with tops, finely chopped
4 fresh peppers, finely chopped (I used red and orange Italian sweet peppers and 2 green chilies)
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
2 tsp spicy pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
salt
1-2 tbsp oil or butter
Nothing is written in stone, so you can use more or less of anything above. You can use finely chopped onion instead of green onions, and you can also add pitted and chopped black olives.
-In a frying pan heat oil and add onion. Cook on medium until they're soft and then add fresh peppers.
-Once they're cooked, pour in tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Wait until tomatoes cook down a little. -Stir in beaten eggs and feta. Stir constantly.
-Right before eggs are cooked, add chopped parsley.
-Serve with bread.
Tips
First time trying this I wonder if the pan was little hot. It seems worth while turning the heat off and just seeing if the egg will cook with the heat of the rest of the ingredients.
The feta cheese probably adds quite a lot. I wonder if a little boring without it.
This went quite wrong the first time I tried it, mainly through stupidly adding too much salt. However it looks well worth another try. Soaking the lentils isn't necessary but may make things go a little smoother. The dried mint flavour was surprisingly strong.
Ingredients
3/4 cup lentils, soak in water overnight, rinsed
4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp crushed tomatoes, in can
1 tsp red pepper paste
2 cups warm chicken stock or beef stock or just water
Salt
Pepper
2 medium sized zucchinis, diced
Garlic-Mint Sauce:
1-2 garlic cloves, mashed with salt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp dry mint
Method
Saute the onion with olive oil in a medium size pot. Then add the rest of the ingredients except zucchini. Cook for about 20-25 minutes at medium-low heat until the lentils are soften, stir occasionally. Add the zucchinis and cook for about 7-8 more minutes, until they are softened, try to retain a slight crunch:)
Meanwhile mix mashed garlic with lemon juice and mint. Add into the pot, stir and cover. Let stand for about 2-3 minutes and serve.
My first failure. Added too much salt and also too much tomato, overdoing the flavour. Also probably included too much mint and lemon for the amount made. Concept seems sound though, so worth another try.
Sauteed Vegetables with Black Olives and Feta Cheese
(Zeytin-Peynirli Sebze Sote)
Sauteed Vegetables with Black Olives and Feta Cheese
1 zucchini, cut in bite size
1 onion, cut in chunks
10 mushrooms,cleaned, cut in 4
4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Red pepper flakes, optional
Salt
Pepper
Turkish black olives
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
An outstandingly simple recipe with all my favourite ingredients.
Saute the vegetables with olive oil in a large pan at medium heat. Do not over cook! Turn the heat off. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the cheese and black olives over the top, then serve.
It is a great brunch on hot Summer days:) You can also serve as a side dish with beef or chicken.
Tips
Using brown mushrooms seems to impart a dark colour to the dish, so worth trying with white mushrooms next time to see if this helps the other items keep their colour.
Sounds a very good recipe and tasted OK but somehow it ended up lacking. The problem may have been making the cuts for the bacon and garlic too small. Worth considering an different approach of making one large slit and then layering in the garlic and bacon. Also, need to think about the heat in which to roast.
Ingredients
Aubergines
Bacon
Garlic
Olive oil
Method
Cut small incisions in the aubergine and then insert alternating small pieces of garlic and bacon. Place in the oven, cover with a little olive oil (to help stop burning?) and bake slowly.
Good for using up....
Aubergines, garlic
Tips for next time
Using brown mushrooms seems to impart a brown or darkish colour to the dish. Using white mushrooms is probably worth a try to help keep the colour of the other vegetables more appealing.
Courgette sliced very thinly using a mandolin or into strips
Tomato sliced thinly
Olive oil
lemon - juicy one
grated parmesan cheese
Method
Slice the courgette up with a mandolin and layer on the plate, then slice up the tomato and put on top. Poor over some olive oil and then squeeze over the lemon.
One key point is to use the lemon juice. The lemon can be made more juicy by pouring over boiling water on the whole lemon in advance.
Very easy bacon and lentil stew with onion and carrot. Tastes nice with the bacon and sausage flavour while being high fibre and limited amount of meat. Also very easy to make and you can't really go wrong on the quantities etc.
Ingredients
Half a large onion/a small onion
Half a large carrot or a medium whole carrot - does't matter too much
A block of bacon - decent sized lump depending on how many people
Sausages - a few, larger better depending on number of people; fatty is better as this adds to the flavor
lard - this would be good to cook the onion at the start, but so far never used and still a very decent taste
parsley
lentils - pretty free again on how many to use 200g? 300g?
salt, pepper - add at the end
Method
Cut up the onion and fry in the lard or oil until translucent
Cut up the carrot roughly, big chunks if preferred; wash the lentils and put in with the onion
Prepare the sausages by pricking to prevent splitting and let out the fat to flavor the lentils. Add to the pot with a lump of bacon, add water and then cook covered on a high heat until boiling.
Turn to a low heat, add some more water, stew for ten minutes or so, then add some more water and stew some more. Seems pretty free to carry on balancing adding the water and stewing until the lentils are cooked without too much trouble.
Once the lentils are cooked add pepper and salt. Serve with parsley and mustard (don't forget the mustard - you always tend to do so.
Truly one of my favourite salads. Key points are that the salad leaves should be endive or similar slightly harder salad leaves and that the dressing should include mustard. Some recipes talk about warm dressing - this looks worth looking at in more detail. Also, don't under do the amount of bacon or pancetta. Use two fresh eggs and have as a main course.
Ingredients
Bacon or pancetta
Two poached eggs
Vinagrette with mustard
Good for using up...
Bacon or pancetta block - i.e. a salad, so a healthy way of using up.
First time to try fennel and it was very nice. Also very healthy, so well worth trying to get some more recipes. Very expensive in Japan, although seems to be on special offer at National Azabu.
One head of fennel
Butter
Parmesan cheese (apparently no other type will do)
Method
Cut fennel head in quarters.
Boil in salted water until a little more tender but not floppy.
Place in well buttered dish, add grated parmesan and then bake until brown and tender.
Tips for next time
Boiling was for around eight minutes. On reflection perhaps this could have been longer - certainly try this time. Also could have added more butter to the dish and dabbed a little on the outside of the fennel to keep it moist. The dish as a little large as well - having the fennel more closely together could have prevented some of the parmesan just burning on the bottom. The outer leaves were a little tough - not sure if this was due to how this was cooked or is simply common.
Taste was pretty good but could have been better. Improvement points would be: try browning some of the bacon; the stock cubes were certainly needed; the chilli also added a lot - could do with two instead of one; also underdid it a little on the pancetta and almost no garlic taste even though included two cloves. Also no real problem to have included all of the carrot plus the onion not being so finely chopped didn't make much difference.
This salad is so easy but so delicious - a perfect way to use feta cheese. There seem to be a couple of variations: don't use vinegar; don't use a red pepper.
One recommendation is to use salt and leave the tomatoes and cucumber for a while. The red onion also is an important ingredient and oregano is mentioned in more than one recipe.
Ingredients
6 firm ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
3 Lebanese cucumbers, coarsely chopped
1 red onion, sliced into rings
1 red capsicum, halved, deseeded, coarsely chopped
200g marinated Greek olives
220g marinated feta, coarsely chopped
1 tsp dried Greek oregano
1 tsp salt
125ml (1/2 cup)
olive oil
60ml (1/4 cup)
white vinegar
Method
Step 1
Combine tomato, cucumber, onion, capsicum, olives and feta in a salad bowl. Sprinkle with oregano and salt.
Step 2
Whisk together the oil and vinegar in a jug. Drizzle the salad with dressing and toss to combine. Serve immediately.
Cassoulet looks like it has a lot of potential as a healthy recipe. A small amount of meat can add a strong flavor while the beans give a lot of high quality fiber and protein. The beans should be fairly cheap.
Some recipes seem to try and be "too authentic" given that basically it should be a straight forward rustic dish. Not everyone can get hold of duck confit, nor particularly wants to. This Australian recipe seems to have a good balance of reasonable authenticity and practicality. This video is worth a look as well.
Ingredients
1 cup (215g) dried cannelini beans
2 tsp olive oil
500g pork belly, cut into 2cm pieces
200g speck, cut into batons
2 (about 150g) garlic sausages
2 duck marylands or breast fillets
2 brown onions, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig rosemary
400g can chopped tomatoes
4 cups (1L) chicken stock
1 1/2 cups (105g) fresh breadcrumbs (made from day-old bread)
30g butter, melted
Recipe
Place beans in a medium bowl and cover with plenty of cold water. Set aside overnight to soak.
Step 2
Preheat oven to 140°C. Heat oil in a
large casserole pan over high heat. Add one-third of the pork and cook,
stirring, for 5 minutes or until browned. Transfer to a bowl. Repeat in 2
more batches.
Step 3
Add speck to the pan and cook,
stirring, for 2 minutes or until brown. Transfer to bowl. Add sausages
and cook, turning occasionally, for 5 minutes or until brown all over.
Slice thickly diagonally.
Step 4
Add duck and cook for 4-5 minutes
each side or until browned. Transfer to the bowl. Add onion and garlic
and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add pork, speck,
sausage and duck, thyme and rosemary. Drain beans. Add beans, tomato and
stock. Remove from heat.
Step 5
Bake in preheated oven, covered, for 1
1/2 hours or until tender. Remove the duck marylands. Use forks to
coarsely flake and return to the cassoulet. Combine breadcrumbs and
butter in a bowl. Sprinkle breadcrumb mixture over cassoulet. Bake,
uncovered, for 30-40 minutes or until top is crisp and golden. Remove
from oven and serve.
Tips for next time
Process wise this was a bit of a disaster - but I also wonder about the recipe. Fortunately we recovered well and the taste was really good.
Probably I used too few beans - i.e. 200g or so soaked over night for well over8-10 hours.
The browning went very well as I had checked out the advice on this Youtube video first - in particular use an oil that can heat to a high temperature and a heavy based pan, dry off the meat and chicken and add some salt. Don't worry about sticking - if you are doing it right it should come unstuck.
The onions also cooked well but looked rather disgusting given their cooking in the browned oil. This, though, was critical to the success of the dish.
The problem was that the liquid part was too great and even after around an hour of boiling was still there. However after stronger boiling on top it reduced OK, was transferred to a flat dish and then put on some breadcrumbs.
This has got two key, healthy ingredients - spinach and chickpeas - plus very little meat, but enough to add some taste. In particular the chorizo adds a real spanish flavor.
The recipe is a Jamie Oliver one but this looks like a very traditional soup and well worth trying a few alternatives.
It went down pretty well with the family. One problem though is the color isn't so great. The boiled egg should help but difficult to avoid.
Unlike the Saag paneer this looks like it would be best made with fresh spinach rather than frozen spinach and another key point is making sure that a third of it is put through the food processor.
Ingredient list
olive oil
150 g iberico chorizo sausage, finely chopped
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
500 g fresh spinach, washed and chopped
8 fresh tomatoes, deseeded and roughly chopped- I used tinned tomatoes
410 g good-quality tinned cooked chickpeas, drained
1.3 litres organic chicken stock - used a frozen version
salt
freshly ground black pepper
55 g quality pata negra, Spanish ham or prosciutto, finely chopped
The basic spinach and paneer curry, but looks like it comes with three different names. The recipe I chose seems to be one of the simpler ones.
I used 450g of frozen spinach which was fine but really produced more than was needed. Also I used a block of frozen paneer which was fine but was actually too much paneer for spinach, although not so bad. The paneer was a little tough - home made would surely be softer. Also I didn't have any fresh chili which would have helped the flavor - I used cayenne pepper instead. Also only a tiny bit of ginger. Blending in a mixer was also critical, so was the cream.
Basic idea is sauté chopped onions in oil, add garlic, ginger, turmeric, green chillies for a few minutes, then add tomato and sauté some more. The spinach only really needs to be heated through rather than any vigorous cooking. The salt, garam masala and cream go in second last and paneer last as it may break in any case.
Ingredients list
finely chopped onion
four cloves of garlic chopped
oil
grated ginger
tomato pulp
tumeric powder
450g frozen spinach
400g frozen paneer
punjabi garam masala
fresh cream
salt
Recipe
The recipe for the first attempt came from this specialist punjab cooking site. It looks a little on the plain side, but that's OK for a first attempt.
I put in too much paneer for the amount of spinach - about 300g for 450g of frozen stuff
Tips for next time
Putting in a food processor is very important - it tasted much more authentic.
How about trying with ghee?
Can you get a more fresh garam masala
Do
Add more ginger and fresh chillies
Try fresh paneer
Don't
worry about the frozen spinach
worry too much about the amounts of ingredients - not so critical in a curry
