As I
mentioned in my last blog I've fallen into bad habits of not cooking new
recipes or blogging as often as I feel I should, so I've decided to rectify
this. Another thing that I've noticed is that I've been mainly posting
about sweet treats so the savoury dishes have been falling a bit by the
wayside... I've tried to rectify this by making a curry and naan breads. Not
entirely getting away from things I make too often on the blog at least it’s
not another cake! I decided to try a few more recipes from my Indian Cookbook.
My Indian Cookbook and a few spices.. |
The
recipes I decided to try were the Naan recipe and the Baigan Ka Bhurta (roasted
aubergine with tomatoes and ginger) recipe although I followed the Naan recipe
nearer to the letter than the curry recipe!
To make
these dishes you will need:
For the
Naan -
1
teaspoon of Sugar
100ml
lukewarm Water
1 7g
sachet of dried Yeast (the recipe says 1 teaspoon but I only had sachets in)
250g/ 8
oz Plain Flour
1
teaspoon Salt
1/2
teaspoon Baking Powder
2
tablespoons Natural Yogurt
2
tablespoons Oil
1
tablespoon melted Butter
For
Baigan Ka Bhurta -
1
Aubergine
3
tablespoons of Oil
1/2
teaspoon Cumin seeds
1 tablespoon
of Ginger (the recipe said use 2cm of fresh ginger and 1/4 teaspoon ground
ginger but I only had ground ginger in.)
1
teaspoon Coriander
1/4
teaspoon Cumin
1/2
teaspoon Chilli
3 Garlic
cloves
1 Onion
chopped
200g of
chopped tomatoes (this is what I used the recipe says vine tomatoes but I had
didn't have these.)
2
teaspoons Lemon juice
Salt
(The
original recipe aslso says use 1/2 teaspoon ground Fennel which I don't have
and 1/2 a teaspoon Gram Masala which I didn't notice and forgot to use...Ooops!)
I started
off looking at the recipes and cursing myself that I hadn't really left myself
with enough time to make them properly after trying to dig a tree out of my
garden... but that's another story! So I turned on the oven to pre-heat and
measured 100ml lukewarm water into my measuring jug then poured in my sachet of
yeast, gave it a stir and popped it on the hob whilst I waited for it to turn
frothy.
Then I
got the flour, salt and baking powder out and sifted it into my mixing bowl
before making a well in the centre for the wet ingredients.
Next I put
my Aubergine on a baking tray and then placed it in the oven and turned the
oven down to 200c/ gas mark 6 and set my timer for 20 minutes.
As the
yeast water mix wasn't frothy yet I got a pan out and put some oil in it in preparation
for when I needed to cook the cumin seeds and put this on the hob as well. As things
seemed to be taking their time I sat down to watch a bit of telly for a minute
then checked on the yeast and water mix, which had gone frothy so I added it to
the flour, baking powder and salt. Next, I added the yogurt and oil and
mixed it all together, initially I used a spoon and then my hands.
When
the dough was combined, I kneaded it in the bowl for about five to ten minutes
and then put some cling film over it then put it on the hob for about half an
hour.
The original recipe says to let the dough rise for 3 - 4 hours but
I'd have been eating in the early hours if I did that! Whilst I
was waiting for the dough to rise and the aubergine to cook I watched a little
more telly then was asked how long tea would be and started to prepare again...
So I looked at my recipes and got out a bowl for the aubergine and filled it
with cold water to put it in once it came out of the oven. I then checked
on the aubergine and turned it over so it didn't cook funny.
Once I
did that I started to cook the cumin seeds and chop up the onion then realised
I should probably wait before cooking the cumin seeds, turned the gas ring off
and moved the pan. It was at
about that time I got the aubergine out of the oven and put it in the bowl of
cold water only to find that the bowl was too small to fit the aubergine in! I
tried transferring it to the slow cooker bowl, which was also too small but not
quite as bad as the other one. I ended
up turning the aubergine over a few times, so I could dip the unsubmerged end
in the water and cool it down.
After I
did this I put the pan back on the hob and started to cook the cumin seeds again
whilst peeling my aubergine. Then when I thought the cumin seeds were
cooked enough I added the garlic and ground ginger and cooked them for about a
minute before adding the onion.
I gave it
all a quick stir and then I returned to my aubergine. When peeling the aubergine
I emptied the water out of the slow cooker bowl and then put the peeled
aubergine in it. I looked at the recipe and it said to mash the aubergine
with the back of a spoon but I didn't have much luck with this so I turned to
my potato masher. This did a bit of a better job but it still didn't look
like the aubergine in the recipe book but I decided not to worry about that too
much.
When I
mashed the aubergine I went back to my pan and stirred the onions, garlic,
cumin seeds and ginger powder then added the mashed up aubergine and the
coriander cumin and chilli. The mashed aubergine was still mainly intact but a
bit flatter so I jabbed it with my spatula until it separated up a bit more and
combined it with the other ingredients.
Whilst that
cooked I put my baking tray in the oven to heat up and took the dough from the
mixing bowl, kneaded it for a few minutes then divided the dough into 6 separate
balls of dough of roughly similar sizes.
I tried
to form the dough balls into roughly naan bread shapes with my hands after miss
reading the second to last paragraph of the recipe and put 4 of them on the
baking tray at the top of the oven for a few minutes. I left the other 2 balls
on the side to rise.
Next I
added the chopped tomatoes to the aubergine mix in my pan. This is where
I cheated by using the other half of the pizza sauce I made the night before
which consisted of 200g of chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and various spices. Once
these were mixed together I melted a knob of butter in the microwave, took the
naans out of the oven and brushed them with melted butter then returned them to
the oven for another couple of minutes.
When the
naans were done I put them on a plate and sprinkled coriander on them as I
worried they looked more like pita breads...
I then
returned the baking tray to the oven and shaped the last 2 naans with the
rolling pin then putting them on the hot baking tray, repeating the process I
used for the other 4 naans.
When the
naans were cooked I added a bit of extra ground coriander and lemon juice to
the curry and dished it out.
It ended
up being a nice curry and one I'd happily try again but I think I'll try to
make more of an effort to get all the ingredients next time and start it
earlier as we ended up eating it quite late. I would also be happy to try
to make naans again but need to work on my shaping technique and might try
coating them with garlic butter at the halfway time on my next attempt.
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