Malaysian Curry

Every now and again we like to get food from the Chinese Chippy, and when we do we often choose the Chicken Malaysian Curry.  Now I know it isn't Chinese and I don't even know if it is any way near authentic either as we have never really experimented with Malaysian food but it is delicious. But, disappointingly it is most likely that it is not Gluten-free from the takeaway.  From time to time it dawns on is to try and re-create the dish but we really didn't know where to start so we hoped to stumble over a ready made paste that really delivered the flavours we had come to love.

Well, we found it!! This is definitely a cheat recipe.  In fact it is even a recipe but it is so good we needed to share the discovery with you.  On a quest to make our Cambodian dishes more authentic we recently visited Wingyip in Manchester to buy shrimp paste etc.  While we were there we found a few ready made sauces and pastes that looked interesting which (thankfully) did not contain wheat flour or gluten.  One of the pastes we bought was A1 Malaysian Curry Instant Paste:

For about £1.30 I think, we seem to have found the closest thing to the dish we buy from the chippy.  In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it is the sauce they use.

Here is what we did with it:

First, we stir-fried some chopped chicken thighs for about 10 minutes. 

Then we added chopped onion and peppers. 

To this we added the paste and cooked for about 5 minutes longer.

Then we added 120ml of coconut milk and 200 ml of water and let this simmer for about half an hour till it thickened a little.  Before serving we stirred through some frozen peas and cooked for about 5 minutes.

Here it is (with peas) and served on a bed of egg fried rice.  I can honestly say that this instant paste is fantastic.  It would be great if it was available in general supermarkets but maybe that is the charm.  It packs quite a punch though so wouldn't be tempted into adding any extra chillies to it unless you really like hot food!  When you need a quick and easy solution for a great curry then this definitely hits the spot.  In fact, due to me working late on New Years Eve, I have decided to make a big vat of this for my friends to eat before going out, fantastic!!

Greek Oil and the Lamb Stifado




Now I couldn't decide whether to do a post specifically for Stifado or for the company that sold us the herb and spice mix that we used for the dish.  I suppose it is a bit of both really.  Now, we have made Stifado in the past and had no trouble with the ingredients as it is not a complicated dish but a few weeks ago we were at Marple Farmer's Market and were rather taken by a particular stall; Greek Oil Direct. 
If you have read our blog from the start you will know that following our trip to Crete in the summer we fell in love with Greek food and attempted a few of our favourites like Briam and Souvlaki.  We cooked a Beef Stifado back then but for some reason we didn't post about it on the blog.  Since the holiday we have always had Greek olive oil in the house, the 1st tub we bought ourselves, then a friend brought us some back (again from Crete) and when we approached this stall at the market our intention was to find a good supplier of Greek oil to buy in the future when ours ran out so picked up a card from a friendly chap who I think is called Craig.

So while enquiring about oil, Craig (we think) told us how he used to live and work in Greece and started his business as a way of retaining his links to the country and his love of Greek food.  This kind of sentiment impressed us greatly so felt compelled to buy some of his goodies.  On that occasion we picked up a bunch of dried oregano, a bag of dried Greek basil, a mix for fish and a Stifado mix.  Since then we have used the basil and oregano several times but the mixes had just in the cupboard.  Maybe this is because we enjoy cooking (surprised?) and don't usually use ready prepared mixes as you normally pay more and takes some of the fun out of preparing food.

We have used both mixes now, but I will save the fish for another post and just show you what we did with the Stifado mix.  The obvious spices (among others) were bay leaves, black peppercorns, dried garlic, oregano, a cinnamon stick and maybe allspice berries!  What was great though was they were all measured out and we took the opinion they should be used in one dish as the was only one cinnamon stick.

The next thing to decide was what meat to use.  I know Stifado is often made with Beef but I believe traditionally rabbit was used.   Just to be different we bought some lamb shoulder and it worked great.  It is quite fatty and needs plenty of cooking but that just helps blend the flavours anyway so this was no problem.

What we used (would serve 4):

Shoulder of lamb (750g with bone, 500g off the bone)
2 onions
300g small shallots, peeled (any large ones cut in 2)
6 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 glass of red wine
2 chopped ripe tomatoes (skinned)
2 tablespoons of tomato paste/puree
125 ml olive oil
A little water
Salt and pepper
Stifado Mix from http://www.greekoildirect.com/ (or use spices as described above)

Method:

First brown the meat in a large oven proof dish such as a Le Creuset.

Then add the crushed garlic and onion.  Cook for a further 5 minutes or so.  Add the olive oil, a bit at a time till it is all in.

Then add the glass of red wine and 2 tbl of vinegar.  Use a good quality red wine vinegar such as the one shown here.

Add the spice mix and stir well before adding chopped tomatoes and tomato paste.  Add a little water to stop it drying out and put in the oven at 180 degrees for an hour.

While this is cooking, stir fry the shallots in a little olive oil.  After an hour, add the shallots and stir through.  Then cook for another 60-90 minutes.

We had it with some lemon infused potatoes and homemade tzatziki

Lamb Stifado

To make the potatoes, slice 1 potato and 1 sweet potato into wedges.  In a bowl prepare 100 ml of chicken stock with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, juice of 2 lemons and dried oregano. 

Mix the potato in the marinade and pour into a high sided roasting dish.  Cook for 40 minutes, remove and drain the sauce into a pan.  return the potatoes to the oven for a further hour.  Warm the sauce on the hob and pour a little over the potatoes when serving.





This meal was fantastic.  The lemon potatoes really complemented the Stifado too which was great.  This is the 1st time we have had Stifado made with lamb and we genuinely preferred it to beef.  Lamb isn't a meat we use too often but it was great in this dish. 

I know it is usually better to prepare all the spices yourself but it is well worth having a look at the spice mixes Greek Oil Direct have to offer.  Or visit their stall at Marple Farmers Market - Marple Garden Centre (formerly Wyevale) on the 4th Sunday of each month and tell em we sent ya!

Experimental desserts

This is a recipe, or combination of recipes that we made some time ago, when the parents came over for dinner. In fact, it was the same night as the Tomato Consomme.


Dinner with the parents

 The inspiration for this dish came from a very memorable meal that I had year ago at the stunning Three Chimneys restaurant on the Isle of Skye. I won't go on about the meal and experience there too much, as it was years ago, and in a previous life, but if anyone ever gets the chance to go, or even if you're on a visit to Skye, then seriously, really do try to get there.

The dessert that I had there was listed on the menu as "Marinated Fresh Pineapple with Passion fruit Jelly, Coconut Ice Cream, Rosemary Sorbet & Cardamom Biscuit". A real mix and explosion of flavours and it was the Rosemary sorbet that stuck out for me. It was unlike anything I had ever tasted, it was sweet yet had the fragrance, taste and almost the feeling of the rosemary which you would normally associate with savoury dishes. I had bought their recipe book from the restaurant itself, and was told by the waitress that if the recipe for the sorbet wasn't in there, just to email and they should be able to send it to me. The sorbet recipe wasn't in, and so I sent the email. I received a reply rather quickly from Sarah and the team at the restaurant thanking me for the visit and complimentary comments, and letting me know exactly how they made it. Hurrah!

Anyway, I decided to try and re-create elements of the dessert at home, and with the added bonus of having an ice cream maker, I was really looking forward to re-trying the rosemary sorbet.
To re-create the whole thing would be way to complex for me, so I decided on the coconut ice cream, marinated pineapple, a gluten-free experimental tuille biscuit and the rosemary sorbet.

I couldn't remember exactly what the pineapple was marinated in at the restaurant, apart from a small amount of fresh chilli, so I went with a mixture of Lime juice, orange juice and chilli. I used the juice of one lime, and one orange and a whole chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped.



Pineapple marinating

 The recipe for the coconut ice cream was adapted from here, mainly because a lot of other recipes had what seemed to be crazy ingredients. I used sweetened desiccated coconut rather than just grated coconut, and therefore adjusted the sugar accordingly. It wasn't as successful as I'd hoped as the recipe says to blend the coconut with milk until smooth to start, and this didn't actually work as the coconut and milk mixture just seemed to whizz round rather than blend. This gave a grainy consistency to the ice cream.

The tuille recipe was from another online source, which I can't find right now, and was almost successful, but by the time of serving they had gone soggy, and were rather more like super-thin cakes rather than biscuits. This could have been because I hadn't let them cool completely before putting them in a box, or maybe something to do with the gluten free flour, I don't know, but I am no pastry chef. Clearly.

Anyway, the main event. The sorbet.

The recipe is as follows

6 sticks of rosemary
Grated rind & juice of 1 lemon
500g sugar syrup (450g sugar+ 1pint water)
250ml water
250ml dry white wine

Bring syrup, water, rosemary & lemon rind to boil, remove from heat, add
white wine, cool, then add lemon to taste.
Strain, to remove rosemary then churn in an ice cream maker.
I thought this was great. Very reminiscent of my outing in Scotland. I think I perhaps used too much Rosemary as we do have a very well established Rosemary bush in the garden, and I did choose a couple of very bushy stalks. Next time I will use less for a more subtle flavour. This almost tasted like ginger, which seemed very odd, but when people didn't know what it was their first guess was ginger. Maybe this is a flavour combination or substitute we should consider further.

Experimental desserts

The dessert itself did seem a bit out-there for us, and more like a collection of ideas on a plate. At the Three Chimneys everything is clearly more refined and more thought out, and this was my rough attempt at something vaguely similar.  One thing we did think about the sorbet is that it needs to be with something, and not by itself. It is too much, and rather too odd to be eaten as a dessert alone. The pineapple and the coconut ice cream were both very good and went down really well, perhaps the sorbet should only be served in more refined places than our kitchen! It has inspired me to think about other experimental type ideas in the world of sorbets and ice creams.

Sausage Pot



Sausage Pot with sweet potato mash and broccoli

We have been meaning to post about this dish for a while.  It is a classic simple dish for the slow cooker and has served us (Tim anyway) well for lunches.  It is also a very economical dish unless you have to use gluten-free sausages which on this occasion we did.
This recipe is taken from the instruction booklet we got with the slow-cooker itself and this recipe was the 1st thing we tried when we got it as a present last Christmas.  The booklet is quite old-fashioned and I wouldn't be surprised to see soup for instance listed as a single ingredient.  I suppose this should be frowned upon by the cooks among us but I think it is OK sometimes to cheat a little, especially when cooking comfort food like this.

Back then Fran wasn't eating gluten-free and it was quite easy to buy 750g of sausages as the recipe suggests.  These days however it isn't that easy.  We have had some sausages in the freezer for a few weeks after buying them at Marple Food and Drink Festival.  These were gluten-free and cost about £4 for 350g so we decided we would take a chance with the consistency on this occasion and keep all the other quantities the same except there was about half the meat.  This worked OK but we now have sauce left which we will try and incorporate into another dish at a later date.

Ingredients (as it should be)

750g of Sausages which is about 12.  (We used 350g of gluten-free)
2 Leeks (finely chopped)
2 Onions (finely chopped)
400ml Beef stock (We used Knorr gluten-free)
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce (We used gluten-free)
3 Tablespoons Chutney
3 Tablespoon of Plain Flour (We used gluten-free)
Oil
Salt and Pepper

What to do

In one large pan soften the onions and leeks on a medium heat in a little oil.  At the same time begin browning the sausages in a frying pan.   You may need to do this in batches if cooking the full 750g.

Then combine the sausages and veg in the large pan.  Add flour and stir until it has soaked up all the oil. 

Then gradually add the beef stock and keep stirring.  Add the Worcestershire sauce, chutney and season a little.  Transfer everything to the slow cooker and cook on low for about 8 hours.






As you can see from the (not very appetizing) picture at the start of the post we served it as a proper meal with sweet potato mash and broccoli.  This is a great dish for the freezer though and if you use the 750g of sausages as the recipe says you would make about 6 portions.  One lesson learned from previous attempts is not to use the cheapest sausages available as they tend to fall about in the slow-cook process.  We found own-brand but not value to be just about right.  To vary the dish slightly you could even experiment with different kinds of chutney.

Bacchanalia - Revisited

In our opinion Bacchanalia has not failed to impress on the occasions we have visited.  Wednesday night was our 3rd time at the restaurant since we discovered it thanks to Groupon and again we were not disappointed.  The important aspect of this trip was the fact that not only did we not have a voucher there wasn't even an early bird option.  This you would think would be a negative - and I suppose it was, however, we thought about it and having seen the menu many times before decided that it would still be well worth the money. 

There is a new menu out to run alongside the Christmas/Festive options in which there are a few extra dishes as well as little changes to the previous ones.  For instance, the Pork Wellington I had on our 1st visit now has stuffing too.  A friend we were with this time, had it and claims to have enjoyed it very much.

So were there any differences to the previous visits?  Well as I said, the menu has been updated which is great.  I do think it is important to keep regular customers (as we are becoming) interested and if the menu has only 5 or 6 main course options it is a good idea to change or develop the dishes over time.  Also this can help keep the menu seasonal too.

We really enjoyed the evening (and so did our friends that were there for the 1st time).  Personally, I found the meal to be a lot more relaxed than on previous visits, perhaps this was because there is no voucher offer at the moment.  The restaurant was certainly a little quieter but the service was superb and as there was no offer we were free to pick our own aperitifs before we were seated.

The evening began in the cocktail bar which already felt very festive.  We sat up the stairs in our own private cosy space and enjoyed cocktails including Thai Mojitos, Banana and Ginger Daiquiri, Strawberry and Rosemary Daiquiri, Ocean Breeze, Bloody Mary and a classic Cosmopolitan.  Drinks as ever were 2for1 on the cocktail menu between 5 and 8 - happy days.  Despite feeling like I had eaten a little after enjoying the Thai Mojito which contained mint leaves and chilli marmalade it was time to declare ourselves dinner-ready.

After being quickly seated and welcomed we browsed the wine list.  As we had already consumed rather a lot for a school night - we felt one bottle between 4 would suffice and opted for an Australian Chardonnay - the name of which escapes me.  I think we had this last time and was delicious (and only £16.95).


Chicken Sausage

I started with Homemade Chicken Sausage.  It was a little like a German White Sausage - in looks at least.  It was very tasty with a balsamic dressing.  Quite filling but that usually isn't a problem for me but if you are a lighter eater then you might find this a bit much.









Belly Pork

For my main I chose Belly Pork.  Now this was fantastic - but again not for the light eater.  The skin was amazingly crispy - perhaps a little too fatty but I suppose it is ok once in a while.  It was served with buttered veg and black pudding ravioli.  The ravioli was a new one on me but was great.  It was finished off with a red wine jus which was lovely, rich and sweet.







King Scallops and Belly Pork

Fran went with the King Scallops and Belly Pork, which (typically) was the most expensive starter on the menu at £7.95 I think.  She tells me the scallops were fantastic but the belly pork was a little too fatty.  We know Belly Pork is expected to be fatty - but there was not much meat below the fat this time.  It came served with a Celeriac Slaw which was beautiful.  The waitress even bought a little bowl of it claiming that it often causes interest and thought we might like an extra portion.  This was duly shared around the table and we all agreed it was great - I think Fran now may be a celeriac convert after previously her dislike (or maybe distrust) of this curious vegetable!


Lamb Rump and Squash

Over to Fran for her thoughts on the main:
The size of the piece of lamb rump was very generous. The meat was tender and tasty, and with a little fat still remaining. The sauce was lovely, as were the butternut squash fries. The tomato confit was the most notable as the herbed tomato flavour exploded in the mouth, very fresh and very flavoursome.






Other dishes of the night were, as previously mentioned, the Pork Wellington and the Duck Breast with Pear. Both of which were substantial and reportedly very tasty.

The only slight concern of the night was that when asking for the Coeliac menu, one item on there definitely was not suitable. Anyone needing to avoid gluten would know to avoid this dish, but it seemed the kitchen staff were concentrating on which dishes contained flour. They did, however, point out a few dishes that normally contain flour, but if we ordered them the chef would leave it out. This obviously proves that pretty much everything is cooked fresh and to order, which actually is rather sadly, a bit of a novelty in recent times.