52 Cookbooks #2: Lamb Dopiaza

You know how sometimes you crave a curry, well I had that last week. So we went for a curry and ate out to avoid the house smelling like an Indian restaurant.

While it was nice and made a change we both found our curries incredibly salty, so were both a little disappointed and I'm not sure the curry craving was really quelled...

That's how I chose the recipe I'd cook this week.

That, along with my new Rick Stein's India cookbook and knowing I had half a kilo of lamb in the freezer!

I was a little wary of this recipe because naughty Rick hadn't included a picture of what it should turn out like.

However having eaten one or two Lamb Dopiazas in my time I forgave him. Mostly because unusually for a curry the ingredient list wasn't as long as your arm and the method was three lines long and can be summarised as "put everything in a pot, stir, bring to the boil then simmer for two hours."

It really was that simple, I will at some point during this challenge no doubt pick a right corker of a recipe but for now I'm on one-pot wonders! As you can see it started off quite pale - the liquid is 500g natural yogurt and 250ml water.

Aside from these, the meat and spices you'll need a kilo of onions, quartered.

But as the time went on the colour, and flavours developed. The sauce stayed quite thin though and didn't look like it would ever thicken as described in the brief recipe. So I took things into my own hands and used some cornflour mixed with some of the cooking liquid to give it some help.

I added some spinach, just before serving so MOH wouldn't question the lack of greenness on his plate (and it worked again!).

This is a great curry (despite the thinness of the sauce), it had a beautifully delicate flavour and sweetness from the onions.

There was heat too, and this developed as we continued to eat but was never overpowering.

I'd cook this again as it's impressive but very, very easy!

And as this recipe was sooo easy I cooked some proper, fluffy basmati rice to accompany the curry.

As well as a mountain of poppadums!

Cooking these in the microwave is addictive - I love watching them spring to life as the heat hits them.

Though I think I may have overdone it, this time! But saying that, there weren't any left...

52 Cookbooks #1: Sweet and Sour Duck

So for my first run out in this challenge I chose Sweet and Sour Duck from Ching's Chinese Food in Minutes.

With a nod to January's traditional frugality part of the reason for choosing this was that I already had all of the ingredients bar the red pepper, which only cost me 48p!  I have cooked recipes from this book before, but not for a while and not this one. 

The sweet and sour sauce looked interesting as it wasn't one that relied on tomato ketchup, but instead orange juice and lime juice. I opted to serve this with plain jasmine rice rather than the egg fried rice suggested. Small steps, hey?!

What I learnt:

Ching's version

1. As with all Chinese cooking, prep in advance!
2. Duck breasts are harder to skin than chicken breasts. It's more akin to skinning fish. 
3. My knives need sharpening. 

I swapped the orange segments for peas as MOH is a green-freak. By that I mean, he likes to have something green on his plate with each meal. I also substituted clementines left over from Christmas for the oranges - another plus in the frugality stakes!

What I'd do differently next time:

My version

1. Ensure the duck is evenly coated in flour, yes like it says in the recipe. That should avoid the duck melee in the wok when you shallow fry it.
2. 1. Be brave and let the oil get hot enough. I chickened (or should I say ducked!) out of this as to start with I let the wok get too hot without the oil in it and needed to pause it let the wok cool down. 
   2. I'd probably consider batch frying the duck as I think there was too much steam in the wok. Maybe my wok's not so big as Ching's? 

Pot-watch:

Not too bad, a wok and a saucepan (for the rice), a bowl for the duck and flour mix, something to strain the used oil into and a plate to drain the duck on. 

I'm sure we've all cooked meals that have used many more pots than this!

MOH's verdict:

Where's the pineapple? ...bless!

52 cookbooks: A cookbook a week challenge

When I read about this challenge on The Crazy Kitchen blog I knew it was something I should take part in. I too have the books to see me through until at least the end of the year (!) and MOH berates me for not using them regularly!

This time of year is usually a good time of year to add to my cookbook haul, and this Christmas was no exception as I was lucky enough to receive three new books... There's already recipes I want to cook but I'm pretty sure I'll need some extra motivation to actually cook something from these books.

Hopefully this is where the "52 Cookbook" challenge devised by Mary from Keynko will come in.  She will be cooking something she's never cooked before from one of her many cook books - 52 of them to be precise, hence the name of the challenge and is asking fellow bloggers to cook along with her. I have the kit so I'm going to try and join in every week too. 

So keep popping back to see how we all get on!