Hiatus broken

Far too much has gone on the last 6 months. The rhinoplasty went smoothly, we sold our old flat and bought a lovely 2 bedroom place in Highgate with a garden. I was invited along to write a recipe and attend a photoshoot for Lurpak butter and discovered how much I liked Nigel Slater's recipes (I never heard of him before this year, I know, I'm terrible!).

So here's a shot of one of his lamb shank recipes (with the addition of juniper berries) before I put it into the oven:

Massaman Lamb Curry

Firstly, an apology - I promised to have this post up a few days ago, but just didn't find the time. So, here it is, in a condensed form of sorts: Massaman Lamb Curry. Now I'm not gong to go into too much detail about the recipe, since you can easily find it on Waitrose's website.

Now then, the obligatory ingredients shot:


Seeing as I didn't want to OD completely on the curry and needing some veg, I also decided to stir-fry some peppers and asparagus, quite simply with a little sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Unfortunately, I had to work later than expected that night and had to make do with a Tesco Local, so I could get the ready prepared diced lamb the recipe called for - a couple of leg steaks, a sharp knife and some inconvenience later, here is the resulting fat-trimmed, cubed lamb:



Mmmmm. Meaty goodness. Now as called for I fried up the chopped onion and mixed in the paste - the paste smelled amazing by the way, like concentrated spices. Then I threw in the lamb and stired it all together until everything was coated evenly in the paste.



At this point John yelled out "that's smells great! I'm hungry, when is it ready?". I noted disappointment when I said at least an hour and a half to go yet. Hey, these things take time! After I cooked the lamb this way for about 6 minutes I poured in the stock and (low fat!) coconut milk, personally I think the recipe calls for a little too much since the aroma was overwhemlingly coconut rather than curry.


Now since this has an hour of simmering to go I prepared the peppers and asparagus for stir frying, I prefer slicing my peppers finely and stir-frying as little as possible so they're still crunchy:


I don't know about any one else, but I adore riots of colour in cooking. Peppers (ahem, capsicums) are a fantastic way to achieve this since they come in such a wide variety of colours. In this case I used the standard red and orange, but there are also green, yellow and even purple peppers available. I must admit for a long time I disliked raw pepper a great deal, but with the impending weight loss I had to go through about a year and a half ago I developed a liking for them. But back on topic, after about an hour of the Massaman slowly bubbling away I threw in the chopped potatoes and a little extra chili, since I prefer my food a bit more spicy. While the potato was softening up nicely I prepared some jasmine rice and stir-fried the prepared vegetables:


Once everything was ready and the peanuts where stirred through the curry, I served each part of the dish in separate bowls, here is the final plating before the other half scrapped away the last of the curry:



Overall, I think my first at-home attempt of massaman curry went quite nicely. Though next time I'll use less coconut milk, a little more paste and throw in a few more chilies.

Future Attempt

For my next attempt at cooking something I have never tried doing myself before I'm going to rely on a good ol' Waitrose recipe.

Those with nut allergies, keep out of my kitchen! I'm going to try and make Massaman Lamb Curry this weekend. Though I'm afraid I'm going to cheat and buy a curry paste ready made instead of doing it from scratch - I know, I know, I've said it before I hate ready made sauces, but occasionally having at least just the basic paste helps.

Marco Pierre White himself swears by Knorr stock cubes (so do I and so does my mother - a woman who for the first 20-odd years of her life, always made stock from scratch). You should be allowed to cheat in your kitchen - but not too much! For example, jarred Bolognese sauce? Disgusting!

Speaking of which, I must remember to post my Bolognese recipe (lovingly adapted from my mother's recipe, who took it from her mother). The secret ingredient is curry powder (with my little addition of nutmeg, thanks to an idea one of the guys at work gave me - Chris, if you read this, cheers!).

Moroccan Lamb with chargrilled peppers

Forgive the horrible picture of dinner from last night, I'm terrible at plating and the light in my apartment is nasty.

I've made variations of this dish numerous times, usually made up as a lamb roast - but as I didn't have the time last night I decided to griddle some lamb steaks instead (medium rare of course!) and make the sauce separately.

Now the sauce isn't the prettiest, but the flavours are based on those used in Moroccan tagines, the main ingredients are raisins, almonds, rose harissa, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, tomatoes, shallots, garlic, a lamb stock cube and honey. Just the sauce alone is great with some freshly toasted pitta bread! Eventually I'll type out my recipe for my Moroccan lamb roast, but for now, here's a fragmented version of what I made last night:

For the sauce: Brown a few chopped up shallots and a couple cloves of garlic, throw in a handful of raisins and almonds, toasting them a little. Then add several chopped cherry tomatoes, a tablespoon of the harissa (use as little or as much as you like) and about half a teaspoon of each spice. When the juices of the tomato have simmered for a little while, add the lamb stock cube and a little water to help it dissolve and a generous teaspoon of honey. Leave to simmer on a low for about 30 minutes.

For the lamb: Quite simple really, take a griddle pan, brush with a little olive oil and heat it on a high temperature. For medium rare, grill the lamb on one side for 7 minutes, turn over and grill the other side for a further 7 minutes.

For the chargrilled pepper: Basically the same technique as the lamb, but keep it on the cooler edges of the griddle pan, so it won't cook as quickly.

Serve by pouring a generous helping of the sauce over the lamb. This goes very well with toasted pitta bread and couscous, or for something different (as I did this time) sweet potato mash.

If you want a more comprehensive recipe, please don't hesitate to email me at: didyouputgarlic@gmail.com