Butter Chicken

The very best curry is fairly time consuming but so, so worth it. That’s how I categorise this meal; it’s more of a delicious weekend effort than a weekday meal. It involves juggling a few things and throwing in a lot of ingredients.

Served with some Nigella seeds and I reserved a little of the fried garlic for a topping

But during the cooking process it smells INCREDIBLE and the end product is one of the best curries I've ever eaten - woooooorth it!

Pav Bhaji- Spiced Vegetable Mash

This is an absolutely delicious, wholesome, nourishing, spiced bowl of comfort.

Yes, there are dishes, but it's worth it

I affectionately call it spiced veggie mush, but it’s so much more than that. This is apparently a common lunch in India, where it is served with a lovely soft bap on the side. I’m salivating just thinking about it, especially with my delicious brioche bun recipe.

The good thing is, all you need are a few vegetable cupboard staples and some spices and you’re good to go. The spice mix is the only tricky bit, made by toasting and grinding whole spices.

It feels like a lot of ingredients and I know that not everyone obsessively buys whole spices. You can sub in the ground version of the spices if you need, but the flavour won’t quite be the same.

For a mix made of pre-ground spices, I’d suggest:

• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• pinch chili powder
• pinch ground cinnamon
• pinch ground cloves
• a good few twists of ground black pepper 

(the traditional recipe also calls for amchur powder which is hard to find. It is a dried mango powder and apparently is quite zesty, I just left it out because I find the chopped tomatoes zesty enough.)

I served mine with what I had to hand – wholemeal chapatti. I kind of wish I’d had a fresh brioche roll though.

Paneer Coconut Curry

You guys, I’ve cracked it.

I’ve made the best curry I’ve ever tasted.

This is the pinnacle of creation. It was so delicious. It made my whole house smell amazing. It starts with this curry base that takes a decent amount of onion (there will be tears), what feels like too much oil (it’s ok, you need it and you can skim it off near the end), and a delicate hand with spices.

I’m never eating anything else.

You need a little time to make this but it is worth it. The base can be prepared in advance, it makes about 3x what you need and keeps in the fridge for a week, and can be frozen.

How's that for a slice of liquid gold?

Baked Onion Bhajis

These are an amazing side dish to curry. I don’t like deep frying things usually, so when I stumbled across the possibility that you could bake bhajis, I was on it like a car bonnet. The only slightly difficult ingredient to source was the chickpea flour - but I just blitzed some dried chickpeas in the food processor

These are really simple to make, delicately spiced, and an absolute treat. To be honest, next time I might double the recipe and smother the curry directly on top of this and ditch the rice.

Also, full disclosure, I was too excited to eat these so I didn't get any pictures of them plated. Because they were already on my fork and in my mouth.

Indian Feast - Chicken 65, Lentil Rice and Creamy Chickpeas

It was my birthday yesterday! And I celebrated it.. In work. Luckily my lovely boyfriend got me some great presents and delicious slices of cake to sample. AND he booked us a dinner for tonight to my favourite Indian restaurant. It's my favourite because the food is great and they encourage you to order a lot. It is an Indian street food place, so they encourage you to eat tapas-style. And everyone knows, tapas = ordering insane amounts of food.

And this restaurant inspired me to make something delicious recently. I’ve said it numerous times, but while Mexican food is my absolute favourite, Indian cuisine is my real and true first love. The first thing I ever learned how to cook from scratch was a curry. It wasn’t super delicious, but it was mine and it wasn’t from a jar, and I loved having created something from basic ingredients. I still make a version of that curry today and it has fond memories for me.

The ingredient list might be daunting, but pretty much all of them are my absolute cupboard staples!

But, we all know that Indian food is about a lot more than curries, and this is my take on some Indian-style street food, with a bit of everything – spiced fried chicken, flavourful lentils and rice, and some creamy chickpeas. Of course, these elements can be mixed and matched, but I like piling them all on my plate together – a feast for the senses – it looks good, smells FANTASTIC and tastes amazing!

Christmas Samosas

That time period between Christmas and New Year’s is so weird. It interrupts your Christmas days off, with a few half hearted days in work with leftover turkey sandwiches. And I never know what to make for dinner. Everyone still has the memories of being stuffed from the lashings of food for Christmas dinner, and the bright tins of sweets are still piled enticingly high by the Christmas tree.

I think I’ve found the perfect little nibble-y meal for this weird in between time of the season, which also makes a welcome addition to the Christmas dinner table (it did on mine!) or as part of your party table for NYE.

These are meaty, with a sweet spice which is warming and delightful. Perfect dipped in some sweet chilli sauce, or alongside a veggie curry!

Tandoori Halloumi and Cashew Rice

God, I love spice mixing

This was utterly delicious. I’m really impressed with the flavours of this meal.

So, my favourite restaurant is a little vegetarian restaurant that is near my flat. It serves the most amazing and creative food I have ever eaten, and I am constantly impressed with what their chef cooks up. The menu is also seasonal, so every two months there is a whole new list of yummy food to choose from. This has meant that I have had to go several times in that period to get a good try of all the delicious dishes on offer. NO REGRETS. I never regret food eaten, only food missed out on.

Aaanyway. Since sometimes I like to have a vegetarian dinner, I decided to have a go at home as well. I have a reliance on chicken, and it is refreshing to find simple and delicious alternatives. Enter halloumi. I love halloumi, and I’m not a cheese fan. It is spectacular, meaty and holds its shape perfectly throughout cooking. It isn’t overpowering on its own so it really takes the flavour of the tandoori marinade beautifully.

The rice is my new favourite thing. It is the only way I want to eat rice from now on. I have a love for rice, but being able to bulk it out a big with veggies is always great for reducing the old carbohydrate count.

One last thing, don’t fret about the number of spices in the halloumi mix. If you would prefer, you can buy pre-made pastes or powders with tandoori flavour. I just happen to have a weird predilection for collecting seeds and spices.

Chicken Balti

Are you guys ready for another curry?!

The important things which make a delicious curry, for me, are heating the spices to release the wondrous flavours, and cooking the onions for long enough to release their wonderful flavour. That is the base of all really good curries.

And this recipe contains both those things! Bonus!

Indian food has always been my first love. Of course, I love many other kinds of food (all of them!) but the first meal I ever learned to cook was a curry, with flavours not totally dissimilar to this one. 

This feels like an updated version, for a slightly more experienced cook who is confident to mix spices rather than relying on a pre-made curry spice mix.

It’s not a very spicy curry, especially if you de-seed the chilli. The yogurt also makes it incredibly easy to adjust the spicing near the end of cooking. I like my curry spicier than my boyfriend does, so 

I added some yogurt, then removed my portion, then added more yogurt to the rest so my boyfriend could have a slightly milder experience.

And I have to impart some wisdom that I literally only learned a few weeks ago. Does your basmati rice ever go all gloopy and gross, coming out more like a porridge than fluffy grains of rice? That it because you are STIRRING it. So, for perfect fluffy rice, add rice to a pot, and pour over double the amount of boiling water (eg 1 cup of rice, 2 cups boiling water). Sprinkle in a little salt, bring to the boil, pop the lid on and simmer for 12 or so minutes until cooked. DO NOT STIR THE RICE. Leave it alone, and it will become perfection all by itself.

Yellow Curry

I do love a good curry and rice, it is my ultimate comfort food. And my love for the chickpea has been well documented (by me, on this blog).

First of all, I adore the saucy nature of this lovely yellow curry, pureeing half of the veggies with a few spices really helps a thick and flavourful sauce come together. I think that the addition of the chickpeas also elevates this dish, adding additional depth of flavour and a different texture element. 

For me, it means I didn’t have to put on as much rice either, it serves as almost its own accompaniment. Extra super yum.

Baked Samosas

These are my favourite type of thing: morsels of delicately spiced veggies, with potatoes included!

I got the recipe from one of my favourite cooking blogs: ekant cook curry. This guy makes some delicious curries, beautifully spiced and photographed. I have a few more of his recipes tucked away which I am DYING to try.

And these little beauties are just fantastic, the spicing inside is perfection and I love the mix of vegetables. Baking them also means they are going to be far less high in fat than the fried versions you get in restaurants. It also means that they are ever so slightly dry, which is why they make a great addition to a saucy curry. They would also be delicious with some dipping sauce. I’m thinking sweet chilli sauce would work amazingly well.

Sweet Potato Curry

Om nom nom

I am continuing my sweet potato theme, it’s one of the best veggies/starches out there. It makes an appearance in my weekly shopping basket more than twice a month, and it is so versatile. This is unlike a lot of other curries I have made. It’s rich, with a lovely creamy sauce, and the coconut with sweet potato brings a fantastic flavour to the spices. Similar to peshwari naan, by combining the sweet and savoury element, you come out with pure deliciousness.

Another bonus: this can easily be made veggie by simply omitting the chicken, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Delicious Vindaloo

First off, don’t be put off by the name. This is as spicy as you want to make it. And the underlying flavour has depth and spice enough to compensate for if you prefer it slightly milder. As a general rule, 2 chillis = gentle underlying spice, 4 chillis = pretty spicy, and 6 may make your mouth cry but is also very tasty. 

Yes, some of the ingredients sound a little alien, but the spice aisle of your local supermarket will have most, and your local Asian foodstore will have the rest. They are infinitely reuseable so definitely worth picking them all up.

Heads up, it requires slight preparation and marinating, but once you’ve prepared it, cooking the next day is easy as pie. You might be panicking that there is no discernible sauce-ifying element. And you’d be right to notice- there isn’t. But it works anyway. Go with it. The chicken should be juicy enough on its own.

Veggie Pilaf

First announcement.. I got a new spice rack! My spices were all piled in a little cupboard before this, resulting in much cursing during cooking when I couldn't find the one I wanted at a crucial stage. I also mistook chilli powder for paprika a few times, so there was that. Bad times. Real issues.

But look how gorgeous now:

It's just so.. Beautiful. Organised alphabetically. My life is changed.

Okay, back to the serious business of food going in my mouth. This was one of the first Indian-style dishes I ever made. And I was hooked. I pretty much make this once a month at least. It can easily be changed to add chicken if you fancy that, just fry it off at the start. However, this is plenty flavourful without the addition of chicken. As so often happens with delicious, spicy Indian food, it is almost better as leftovers, and for making colleagues jealous at lunch the day after.

Good things about this meal: quick, easy, and delicious.

Bad things: NONE.