A successful fridge (and freezer) forage

 

After my last somewhat impressionistic post about being away, here is a proper recipe one, for which I even remembered to take some process shots.

The meal in question was Paneer Tikka from Ed Smith’s book Crave, which I commend to you. Not only does it have some great recipes, but it’s been nice to try and think more about what I wanted to eat, after so many months of lockdown, where it was all about what we could get (although given Brexit-related supply chain problems, perhaps we shouldn’t get too used to the idea we can simply buy what we want again). This appears in the ‘Curried and Spiced’ section of the book, although when I made it what I was craving was anything tasty that could be made with the current contents of my kitchen, in the gap between getting back from holiday and the next food delivery arriving.

The results of foraging 

I usually keep a pack of paneer cheese in the fridge, I remembered I had a green pepper in the freezer, and I had just enough yoghurt for this to work – hey, presto, time for paneer tikka. First, THIS RECIPE REQUIRES MARINATING! However, it does say that this can be for a little as 20 minutes, or as long as a day, so it’s not too onerous. For the marinade, mix together yoghurt, tomato puree, spices (mango powder (I used chaat masala, which is mostly mango powder), turmeric, chilli powder, black pepper), grated ginger and crushed garlic, then add cubes of paneer and mix. It’s a thick, coating marinade, not a liquid one, so it does take a bit of mixing.

The cheese in its marinade: not pretty, but will be delicious

When you’re ready to cook, thread onto skewers with squares of green pepper and onion (supposed to be red onion, I used ordinary, and it was fine) then place skewers on a lined baking tray and whack into the oven at 240/220 fan for 10 minutes until nicely charred. Serve with chutneys, flatbreads, rice, whatever. Delicious.

Ready for the oven

In Covid-related news, things are a bit more mixed: we’ve cancelled a trip to the theatre next week, having decided we just weren’t ready for being in a confined space with a lot of people, especially with high cases. It was the Bridge, so they were lovely about it, and I once again have credit on my account, which hopefully I will get to use eventually. (Certainly the Bridge are much better than my local theatre, who have been telling people ‘tough luck, no refunds, no credit', even if they have been told to isolate by Track & trace or actually tested positive).  On the other hand, we braved another set of trains to finally make it back to Bottega Caruso, our friends Harry and Simona’s restaurant in Margate, for a very lovely and long (outdoors) lunch. Sometimes you’ve just got to pick your battles.