Cardamom-Scented Chicken Curry

Step 1.  Find a friend with a beautiful, mouth-watering food blog.  In my case, eat, little bird.  See her post on Cardamom-Scented Chicken Curry, drool a little, and determine to cook it on the weekend.  On the Saturday morning, prepare to go to the shops to buy those couple of ingredients you think you'll need, then do a little skip when you discover you're fully stocked.  Do some practice instead.

Step 2.  On the Sunday, do some gardening, bake some fruit bread, and eat some fruit bread at about 2pm.  Go for a 13 km run, starting at about 5:30.  Start feeling hungry at about the 8 km mark.  Once returned, have a shower.

Step 3.  Gather ingredients.  1 large tomato (or, you know, 2 tomatoes if they're smallish and you really like tomato), 5-6 cardamom pods (squished a bit in the mortar and pestle), 1 teaspoon ground coriander, 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin, 400g chicken breast, 1 onion (chopped), 2 cm ginger (peeled and grated), 4 cloves grated garlic (although, unable to find the garlic, substitute shallots and chop finely), 1 tablespoon cornflour.  Forget how long it takes to prepare all these ingredients.  By 7:30, everything is only just prepared and you're quite hungry.  You apologise to your brother who walks in about now, thinking dinner will be at the almost-cooked stage instead of the about-to-start-cooking stage.

Step 4.  Heat about 4 tablespoons oil in a non-stick pan (or, just estimate).  Add the chopped onion, shallots and ginger, and fry until everything is softened.  Finely dice the tomatoes, and wonder how this was all meant to be done while things were heating.  Employ your brother to stir the contents of the pan while you chop.  He sees the 'few good lugs of oil' and thinks it must be a Jamie Oliver recipe.  Add the tomatoes and spices, and wish you had chillies growing already.  Add some chilli flakes instead.  Have brother keep stirring.

Step 5.  Add a splash of water and cook on high heat until most of the liquid has evaporated.  Add the chicken and saute until it's cooked.  Add 400 mL water and simmer over medium heat for about 30 minutes.  Well, that's the intention.  Put on an episode of NCIS to watch while waiting, and stir the curry occasionally. 

Step 6.  When it's all curry-like, about 20 minutes into the cooking time, you will be so hungry (and tempted - it smells delicious) that enough is enough, and you serve.  Add a bit of chopped parsley from the garden (in the absence of coriander) to the top.  Even though it's meant to serve 4, both of you are so hungry you serve the whole curry.  And it's still not enough.  Some dried apricots and chocolate help fill you up while watching the new episode of NCIS that is finally shown.  Contemplate possible additions to the curry for next time - surprisingly, cabbage springs to mind.  Or the lentil dahl used in the inspiring blog post.

Step 7.  Cleaning up, you find the cornflour that was meant to be added to thicken things up... oops...  Next time, if needed.  Start thinking about the next couple of weeks, and when you might give this another go.  Put chicken on the shopping list, and go to bed.

Today's photo:

The seedlings have sprouted.  I noticed 2 lettuce seedlings yesterday, but this morning there was a very small sprinkling of green in the spinach area.  So exciting!!!  I feel I have my gardening mojo back.

Curried Beet and Sweet Potato Soup

One of the blogs I follow is What I Wore 2Day, which includes a weekly 'Sporty Sunday' post (health, training, that sort of thing).  In a recent post, a curried beet and sweet potato soup was mentioned and I shamelessly asked for the recipe.  Success!  I even had beetroot in my delivery box this week.  You can find her recipe here, or see below for Australian measurements (or, What I Did).

3 medium beetroots
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion
2 large garlic cloves
2 teaspoons fresh ginger root
2 tablespoons Indian curry paste (haha.  When checking for ingredients I thought, I'll make my own like I normally do, so didn't buy any.  When it came time to make the soup though, I was not up to making any and didn't have any pre-made like Patak's, so I ended up using tamarind paste.  Unusual).
2 medium sweet potatoes
6 cups vegetable stock
400mL can coconut milk

Method:
Preheat oven to 200C. Rinse beetroots and remove greens (if still attached). Place in covered casserole dish and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour (until easily pierced with a fork). Remove from oven, peel, and dice.  (I roasted 5 so I have some leftovers.  I'm also cautious when it comes to vegetable sizes from one country to another, and I've found the organic varieties to be generally smaller than non-organic but with much better taste - and, I have discovered, are more nutrient-rich).

While beets are roasting, peel/dice/press/chop onion, garlic, ginger, and sweet potatoes.  (I discovered that my ginger was a bit past it, so used some ground ginger instead).

Heat vegetable oil in large soup pot over medium heat. Saute onion, garlic, and ginger until onions are translucent. Add curry paste and stir to coat.  Add potatoes and vegetable stock. Bring to boil and gently simmer 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.  Add beets and remove from heat.

Using an immersion blender (I used my new stick blender), puree until smooth.  Return to heat. Stir in coconut milk. Heat through and serve.

I now have oodles of pink in my fridge and freezer - excellent antioxidants.  It looks like I'll get 8 serves out of this. 

Today's photo:

I have a pot of parsley on the kitchen windowsill waiting to be planted.  The advantage of its current spot though is the sunlight it soaks up in the afternoon.  And the fly-screen pattern on the leaves.

Lips and Leftover Lamb

I'm a bit addicted to lip things.  Every bag seems to have at least one gloss or balm within it.  And it's not that I'm obsessed with how I look, it's more the feeling of dry lips I find uncomfortable - although if I haven't applied anything, sometimes I can catch a glimpse of a face to scare small children, so it's as much for them as for my comfort.  Even though it feels like I have lip balms coming out my ears, occasionally I'll discover my bag of choice is lacking in this department.  And so my collection grows.

When I needed to replenish my supply of silk oil (for the hair), the only package available was a promotional package including lip balm.  So I didn't really have a choice.  Silk oil lasts forever so tonight was the first I needed to use the new bottle - and I tested the lip balm as well.  Oh. My.  Most amazing balm in my possession.  No colour, so I'll use it more to condition, but it is just wonderful.  Who would have thought?!  All organic (a big plus), but made in the USA (transport - bit of a downer) and no SPF (also a bit of a downer - I'll have to use some other sunblock method as well).  But wow, this one is a winner.

After Thursday, I still have plenty of leftover roast lamb.  Tana Ramsey has a recipe for rogan josh using leftover roast lamb and this has been my first opportunity to give it a go.  I would be pretty happy to have roast lamb more often in order to have leftover lamb rogan josh.  It's really delicious, and super easy too. 

Just heat 2 tablespoons groundnut oil in a large pan over medium-low heat, add 2 medium onions and 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced, and fry till softened.  Add a red chilli (deseeded and finely chopped), 2 teaspoons curry powder, 1 teaspoon of ground turmeric, 3 teaspoons garam masala, 2 teaspoons each ground coriander and ground cumin; stir with the onions to form a paste.  Add 500g leftover cooked leg of lamb (diced into bite-sized pieces) and any leftover sauce from the roast; stir to mix thoroughly. 

Add about 300g tinned chopped tomatoes - adjust according to how much leftover sauce you had, and how runny you want your curry.  Also stir through 4 tablespoons natural yoghurt, and simmer gently 8-10 minutes, until the lamb is heated through.  Stir through 2-3 tablespoons hot and spicy mango chutney (adjust according to taste).  Add 3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander.

Serve the lamb on a bed of rice, with an extra tablespoon of coriander sprinkled on top; scatter with 2 tablespoons lightly toasted flaked almonds.

As we know, I'm not a fan of rice, so I went global and used some leftover Turkish bread from Saturday night instead.  And I'm all out of flaked almonds so you just have to use your imagination - good thing I'm not requiring imagination for the crusty bread as well then!

Today's photo:

Not terribly artistic (as hoped yesterday), but it delighted me to see a rainbow as I got home from the gym, arching over the whole neighbourhood.  It's been a while.

Kathmandu

Last night I went to Kathmandu for dinner. 

I taught this girl from when she was in grades 8 - 11... She's now in grade 12, and her mum called me a few weeks ago.  "I'm so sorry", she said.  "She's giving up everything, even debating... Can we have you over for dinner?"  I understand grade 12 students cutting back and focusing on study, so I wasn't upset with them.  I remember being at that stage of life, and although I still had violin lessons, there was a phone call around the end of August of that year from my violin teacher.  "I'm putting exam entries in tonight.  Yes or no?" Ummmmm.........No.  Like many other students, I wanted to focus on getting good grades.

So, dinner last night.  Originally the plan was for me to go to their place for dinner, but their life has been rather hectic so they took me to Kathmandu instead.  I had passed this little restaurant several times and always thought, that looks nice, but never eaten there.  It's good.  And, apparently (according to a Nepalese colleague of this girl's mother), authentic.  We all shared, of course. 

Starters: Tibetan bread (yum!), vegetarian and meat momos, and pakoras.  I'd had momos before, at the Tibetan Kitchen in the Valley, but not the other selections.  Sometimes food, sometimes food.

Main: ummm, No. 54.  I think it was called Goru ko masu (apologies to any Nepalese reading this...).  The main thing is, slow cooked beef with cardamom, chili, coriander, cumin.  I love all the 'C' spices.  Plus I tried the very delicious Sherpa Chicken and Pesto Chicken. 

We ordered coffees, and our waiter let us know it was organic coffee so it might taste a little different.  I've not had that before - but as I use organic coffee myself, and try to go to coffee places that use organic, it tasted normal for me. 

I was going to take a photo of at least one of the food items, but we were in a dimly lit area so I didn't even try.  Obviously, I'll have to go back.... And maybe next time, try the floor cushion seating instead of a regular table.  This restaurant is on Latrobe Tce, Paddington, if anyone wants some traditional Nepalese yumminess, aromatic yet light curries, and gentle, lovely wait staff.