The comfort of the new

 

New year, new me? To hell with that. New year, new recipes? Definitely. I always particularly like getting new recipe books for Christmas, as cooking from them helps enliven January, the dullest of months (by the way, how can it be we are not even half way through this wretched month? It feels like we should be at least half way through February by now).

Anyway, this year I have acquired the latest Ottolenghi Test Kitchen book (Extra Good Things) and India Express by Rukmini Iyer (the woman behind the Roasting Tin series), and Simply Raymond by Raymond Blanc – I haven’t actually cooked anything from the latter yet, although it does have some highly promising recipes.

India Express was the first book pressed into service. It’s a move away from Iyer’s Roasting Tin series, and a more personal book, featuring lots of family recipes and stories, although it does contain a chapter of her signature ‘one pot’ dishes, there are other styles too, although they’re still clear and easy to follow. First up was chickpea, kale and tamarind curry (although I actually used chard) with cheese and chilli stuffed parathas.

Chickpea and chard curry with paratha

The curry is pretty simple. Fry some cumin seeds until they sizzle, then add red onion, and fry until soft, then add chilli and ginger, stir briefly, then add the chickpeas, tamarind, a little sugar and some water.  Allow to simmer away for 20 minutes, then add kale/chard/other green leafy vegetable and wilt down.

The curry is delicious, but the real star of this particular meal are the parathas, which sound potentially complicated, but really weren’t any hassle. You make a dough with plain flour, yoghurt, oil, and boiling water, then allow it to rest for half an hour. Mix some grated cheese (recipe says cheddar, I used a Swiss cheese left over from the excessive Christmas cheese order)  with some chopped chilli. Divide the dough (assuming you are cooking for two) into 8 portions. Roll one portion out to about the size of your palm, then cup it and put some of the chilli and cheese mixture into the middle. Seal the dough around this filling, then roll out again to about the size of a saucer. Fry in butter until golden on both sides (3-4 mins a side). Make the next paratha while you’re frying the previous one (sounds like you won’t have enough time, but it seemed to work out ok). Repeat until you’ve used all the dough. They are delicious. The book is worth buying just for these, to be honest.

Next up, South Indian-style prawn curry with black pepper and fennel seeds, a nice quick and easy one: Fry onion, ginger and curry leaves, then add ground spices, (coriander, cumin and chilli, plus the two in the recipe title), followed by chopped tomatoes (the recipe says cherry, I used full size, I think tinned would also work fine), then, after they’ve cooked down, add water and prawns (I’d add less or no water if I was using tinned tomatoes). Cook until the prawns are done and the sauce has reduced and thickened. Serve with rice.

Prawn curry

Next, onto an Ottolenghi – cauliflower sharwarma: marinate your cauliflower, for between thirty minutes and overnight (mine had about 5 hours), then roast in a very hot oven. Remove the cauliflower from the tin/pan/whatever you roasted it in, then use the same thing to make an olive oil based sauce to pour over the cauliflower. My only criticism of this menu was I didn’t get why using the same tin to make the sauce in helped. I assumed it was to make use of roasting juices, but there weren’t any (probably because the cauliflower is cooked at 250C, which is very hot) and the tin was so hot the sauce practically evaporated as you were cooking it. The lack of much sauce wasn’t a disaster, as I also made the green tahini (tahini blended with parsley, garlic, lemon juice and water) suggested in the recipe, which was good, but next time I’ll just make the sauce in a fresh pan. But this is a useful and tasty way of dealing with a veg box cauliflower, so I’m sure I’ll be making it again.

Cauliflower sharwarma, additional halloumi in the background

And tonight, I made one thing from each book – potato cakes from India Express and – the husband being out* - turmeric fried eggs with tamarind sauce and quick pickled shallots from Ottolenghi. The turmeric eggs are basically just eggs fried in oil mixed with turmeric. The potato cakes are made by mashing up boiled potatoes with spices and butter, then forming into cakes and frying. They did disintegrate a bit while frying, but enough remained to be satisfying, and the outsides were lovely and crispy. I might try boiling the potato a bit less next time.

Turmeric eggs and potato cakes, plus a ridiculous number of sides 

Anyway, I recommend both books – India Express is really good and will be very useful, and Ottolenghi is another good Ottolenghi, and I like Ottolenghi.

*The husband can’t/won’t eat eggs if they actually look like eggs. He’s not allergic or anything, it’s…well, it’s a long story. But it’s unfortunate, as I do love a fried egg.